Recipe help and beginner questions

[efigaro18]

Hello all!

I am not only new to this forum, but I am new to home brewing as well! I have brewed a couple starter kits from Northern Brewer, but have decided to try my hand at making my own recipe to make the beer I want. I have come up with a recipe through looking at the style guidelines, forums, and other recipes I have found on the web, however I am brewing only a 1 gallon batch and am unsure of the ratios to use... I also have some pretty beginner questions I would love feedback on...

The recipe is as follows for my Belgian Tripel:

2lbs Briess Pilsen Light LME (84%)
8 oz clear candi sugar (16%)

0.25 Czech Saaz @ beginning of boil
0.28 oz Magnum @ last 10 minutes

Yeast: 1/2 pkg WLP530

According to BrewFather (the app I used to develop this recipe), my OG, FG, SRM, IBU, and ABV are all within style guidelines, however I do have some questions. For my recipe I do not currently have any steeping grains included in the grain bill- even though my SRM is within range, is it necessary to add this? Additionally, this is my first time using liquid yeast, so I want to make my first starter. Would someone be able to help me ratio wise with this? Also, is yeast nutrient necessary to add to a starter? Should I pitch more than 1/2 pack of yeast into the start for my 1 gallon batch?

I would also appreciate any and all feedback on my recipe itself, if you think I should adjust any amounts of anything!

Thank you everyone! Cheers!

 

[Pappers_]

Welcome to HBT and to the hobby!

I think forgoing steeping grains for an extract Tripel recipe makes sense - it needs to be really dry and any of the typical caramel or crystal malts will make it less dry, add sweetness. And Tripels can be pretty light in color, so I think you're fine there, also.

For your yeast, Tripels are usually pretty big beers so normally you would want a started. But you are making a 1 gallon batch, 1/5th the size of the standard batch, so I'm not sure off the top of my head whether you need a starter. Does BrewFather have a starter calculator you could use, plug in your gravity and volume and see how much yeast it says you need to pitch? If not, take a look at Brewer's Friend's calculator here and follow that advice. I suspect it will tell you that pitching one pack of liquid yeast for your one gallon batch will be just fine. Yeast Pitch Rate and Starter Calculator - Brewer's Friend

Finally, I think you want to switch your hops around - Magnum is usually a considered a clean bittering hop, that doesn't impart much flavor or aroma, and is often used as the bittering addition - the 60 minute addition at the beginning of your boil. Saaz imparts nice flavor and aromas, spicy, sometimes floral, and would work well at the 10 minute mark.

 

[cmac62]

Welcome and good luck. Remember, you can use the yeast from this batch for the next one, or save it and use a different yeast and save that one too. Home brewing is a great rabbit hole. Enjoy

 

[efigaro18]

Thank you so much for your feedback! Oops I did have the hop schedule backwards! I will definitely check out that app! Cheers!

 

[IslandLizard]

Additionally, this is my first time using liquid yeast, so I want to make my first starter. Would someone be able to help me ratio wise with this? Also, is yeast nutrient necessary to add to a starter? Should I pitch more than 1/2 pack of yeast into the start for my 1 gallon batch?

Liquid yeast loses viability due to age and adverse storage/transit conditions from the day it's packaged.

With liquid yeasts, look for the "best by date." The date of packaging is usually 6 months before. During that time it should always be stored refrigerated, but protected from freezing. It can be successfully frozen and defrosted, but only under certain conditions, well outside the scope of this subject.

As @Pappers_ pointed out, a sleeve of yeast is generally sufficient for a 5 gallon pitch (1.060 gravity or under).
Theoretically it would be sufficient for five (5) 1 gallon pitches.

It's also common for yeast to be 2-4 months old. Thus, viability of those White Labs' PurePitch sleeves may be anywhere between 40 and 80%. So how much would you use?

In addition to the 2 yeast calcs already mentioned before, I offer a 3rd one, which I've been using for many years. Again it provides an estimate:
BrewUnited's Yeast Calculator

Now pitching a whole such sleeve into 1 gallon of beer would normally be a royal overpitch, and surely is not very efficient $ wise. Chances are your yeast will have cost more than the rest of the ingredients.

Although larger over-pitches are not as bad as severe under-pitches, it won't make better beer either. So we try to pitch the correct amount.

Aside from making yeast starters to increase yeast cell count it also proves it's viable and improves her health.

Yeast can also be harvested from a previous fermentation. (Part of) that yeast cake can be used again, and again. Since yeast cell count easily quadruples during fermentation, you'd only use a part of a harvested cake, to avoid overpitching. One of those calculators will again, give you some insight.

 

[eric19312]

I think the whole pack of yeast...unless it is quite old....would be too much yeast for a 1 gallon batch. Over pitching may result in less of the estery belgian character you want in a Tripel. I'd probably use half the pack and not make a starter.

But if you want to make a starter just for fun and save the unused yeast I'd play with this calculator
http://www.brewunited.com/yeast_calculator.phpand overbuild the starter to make the yeast you need for this batch and have 50 or 100 billon cells left to save for next time.

The question would be what target pitch rate you want for the beer. I'll defer to those who make a lot of belgians on that question, my thinking would be the ale rate or a custom lower rate of maybe 0.5 mil per mL per degree plato...based on an old BYI article I found about Duval.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Cross linking (for future readers)

more discussion here: Recipe help and beginner questions