Looking for a recipe

[The Skipper]

I am a beginner brewer ready for my first all grain. I'm not sure what type of beer to make next. I have done an (all partial-mash) english brown, irish red, outmeal stout, rye wheat, and steam. So, I'm looking for something different. I'm looking for a good candidate for my 1st all grain, however, I'm just not familiar with a lot of differenty styles. I was thinking about maybe a bitter or a blonde. Please share any good recipes or advice. Thanks.

 

[Beerdoc]

I'm in the same boat as you with first time ag. I'm trying a marzen/oktoberfest cause my wife likes that style. If you come across a good link for batch sparge recipes, let me know.

 

[Kaiser]

If you come across a good link for batch sparge recipes, let me know.

I don't think that a recipe would be different between fly and batch sparging. Though the sparging makes a difference in the efficiency. But the brew house efficiency may be different between brewers anyway and you will adjust your recipe accordingly or supplement with malt extract.

As for recipies. Though I look around on the web a lot, I always found the basic recipies from the home brew text books very good. Especially if you just start out or want to become familiar with a style.

A good starter AG recipe is always 7lb of pale 2-row and 1lb of crystal malt. This is the basic grist for a pale ale.

Kai

 

[Beerdoc]

What do you think about this website home.elp.rr.com/brewbeer/files/nbsparge.html by Ken Schwartz? It has an excel spreadsheet allowing for conversion from a typcial recipe for fly sparging to either a no-sparge or a batch sparge one. Cheers to Ken Schwartz for the hard work!

 

[jeffg]

i'd agree that a simple english bitter or american pale ale is probably the most straightforward: mainly just english or british 2-row, a little crystal malt for color and maybe a small amount of another specialty grain for body, a bunch of fresh hops and fairly forgiving ale yeasts.

 

[Brew chick]

I agree keep it simple for a first all grain.
my first all grain was a english pale ale
8lb 2row pale malt
2.5oz of goldings hops

 

[jaymack]

I like this site quite a bit:

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipes

cheers,
J

 

[Walker]

I'd be careful with the recipator's recipe database. You never know how good the recipe is going to be since any old schmuck with a computer can post something there.

I've pulled several terrible recipes from that site over my brewing career.

I'd stick with something suggested my the AG Gurus here on HBT.com for now.

-walker

 

[Kaiser]

I'd be careful with the recipator's recipe database. You never know how good the recipe is going to be since any old schmuck with a computer can post something there.

Good point.

When I started out, I was excited about all the recipes that you can find on-line. After a while I started question how good they actually are and that most of them might be made up by beginners who were excited about having made their first recipe. If you want to build up an idea of what basic recipes for various styles look like, look at the recipes given in most home brew text books. Once you have an idea what certain ingredients will do for you, you can also better evaluate recipes found on the web.

Your LHBS may also have store copies for of most of the beer recipe books out there and you can take one from there.

Kai

And another point, most classic beers have very simple grain bills: 1 or 2 base malts and 1 or 2 specialty malts. When starting out, many brewers (even I thought like this) are often tempted to add every specialty grain the know of. Simplicity is your friend. This is especially true for commercial brews since it is just not economical to buy lots of diffrent grains for a single beer.