50% Rye Pale Ale w. Simcoe

[thehaze]

Hello,

I am working on a new ( bet it was done before ) Rye Pale Ale recipe with all Simcoe hops ( crop 2017 ) and would like your thoughts.

I already have all the grains and I am more interested in how much Crystal malt to use.

The recipe looks like this until now: https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/512076/05-rye-pale-ale-simcoe

If anybody wants to read on the different grains from the recipe, it can be done on the following links:

Simpsons Malted Rye
Simpsons Golden Promise
Simpsons Premium English Caramalt

I feel like 8% of the " Premium English Caramalt " would not be too much in this recipe. Hopefully, it will nuance the colour, by adding a bit of orange hue to the beer and add honey sweetness to pair with the spiciness from rye and the piney/resiny notes from Simcoe.

Do you think I should reduce the amount to 5%?

Thank you for taking your time to read and go through this thread.

 

[mongoose33]

I'd leave it as is, i.e., 8 percent.

That beer has 50 percent Rye in it, which is the most I can recall seeing in a Rye recipe. I brew a Rye beer with 11# Maris Otter, 3# Rye Malt, 7 oz Chocolate Wheat, and 4 oz Flaked Rye. It has plenty of Rye flavor, and that Rye is less than 25% of the grain bill.

I think the Caramalt will help smooth that out. I wouldn't go any lower.

 

[Queequeg]

I brewed a traditional Roggenbier with 40%. It is epic! You need to do a betaglucan and fluerric acid rest at 43°C though to make it's not too syrupy and so you get plenty spice.

 

[thehaze]

Thank you. I will read more and consider the betaglucan rest with the Rye.

I definitely want a more present Rye character in this one. I am kind of dissapointed with the " Rye " beers I can get my hands on here and usually they pack less than 25% Rye.

 

[couchsending]

You will get Rye character big you will also get the thickest most mouth coating beer you’ve probably ever made. Lots and lots of betaglucans.

 

[thehaze]

I decided to include a 30 minutes rest at 110F/43C for this recipe, just to try to avoid the beer being too syrupy. It sounds like a very reasonable step, at least for this particular grain type.

 

[mongoose33]

I don't do any rests with mine. Given the large amount of Rye in yours, perhaps that is reasonable.

 

[Queequeg]

If you rest and use husks in will launter no problem.

 

[thehaze]

Right. The final recipe was 50% Rye, 40% Golden Promise and 10% English Premium Caramalt. I added around 0.35 lbs rice hulls and had no issues with sparge or anything. I also skipped the rest. The wort did not look or taste overly syrupy/thick.

OG was 1.048 ( I went and crushed grains at some brewery ) due to bad crush on the Rye, but acceptable. It will probably go under 1.010, but that's fine for me.

It ferments happily as we speak and hopefully, fully drinkable in around 3 weeks.

 

[Miraculix]

Right. The final recipe was 50% Rye, 40% Golden Promise and 10% English Premium Caramalt. I added around 0.35 lbs rice hulls and had no issues with sparge or anything. I also skipped the rest. The wort did not look or taste overly syrupy/thick.

OG was 1.048 ( I went and crushed grains at some brewery ) due to bad crush on the Rye, but acceptable. It will probably go under 1.010, but that's fine for me.

It ferments happily as we speak and hopefully, fully drinkable in around 3 weeks.

Let us know how it turns out!

 

[thehaze]

Here is a picture of the beer: https://imgur.com/a/XBZsDAB

I brewed this on May 16, 2018 and bottled it on May 27, 2018. The OG was 1.048 ( lower than expected due to a poor crush of the Rye malt ) and FG is 1.010. That puts it at exactly 5% ABV and 40 IBUs, although it does not feel like 40 due to the late hopping schedule and whirlpool. I did not dry hop the beer either.

I opened a bottle today, which is June 2, 2018 and it is already very good. It's hazy, but I don't mind that. Aroma is piney/resiny, with hints of sweet fruit and oranges, tropical fruit. Flavour follows with mild piney and resiny notes, sweet tropical fruit/berries and spice, which must be the Rye. Good body and mouthfeel, without being overly dry, nor cloying.

Seeing I didn't dry hop it, it is not " green matter/vegetal ", nor very intense/in your face, but quite enjoyable, especially with the faint hints of sweetness coming through. At 5%, it's dangerous. I had some female drinkers which said it was good, and they do not drink " bitter + hoppy " beers.

Lastly, my initial thoughts and future changes are:

- If I were to brew this again exactly the same, I feel the % of Rye must be lower. Something like 30% maybe. It's a wonderful malt, with lots of character, which seems likely to overwhelm some of the other flavours, hops included.
- I would definitely brew this again with the same amount of Rye and Simcoe hops. They do work nicely together, for my taste at least.
- I think it would benefit the beer to bump the IBUs to maybe around 45-50.
- I would also bump the ABV close to 6% and possibly dry it out more. Maybe sugar or get the OG around 1.052-1.053 and force the OG under 1.010. I feel this will further enhance the drinkability and dryness of the beer.
- Possibly add a bit more sulfate ( the water profile for this one was Ca: 92 ppm / Mg: 5 ppm / Na: 3 ppm / Chloride: 50ppm / Sulfate: 150 ppm )

But until next time, this turned out very well. I like how the spice/earthiness from Rye, the sweetness from Premium Caramalt and Simcoe hops come together in this recipe. I know some of you might say 10% Caramalt is a lot, but I feel it works well with the rest of the grainbill and the Simcoe hops. ( BTW, no cat pee flavours from the hops or anything similar - just pure pine, resin and fruity goodness * I can only imagine how much better it would have been with just a touch of dry hopping )

Sorry for the overly long post. Have a great weekend!

 

[thehaze]

I have tried this again today: boyyy! this is one tasty brew. Bitterness is on point, lots of sweet, tropical/citrus notes in the nose, flavour is mellow piney and resiny notes, with more of that sweet citrussy+piney flavour and some of that spicy, rye zing.

It's not cloying at all; it's crisp, dry, fresh, easy drinkable and overall, very " summery ".