Blonde honey wheat weird

[BenAgee]

5-6 gallon batch using turkey fryer (that's right, aluminum boil pot) - extract and grains recipe, which will be obvious.

i scribbled a basic blonde yakima goldings recipe with some modifications that i, being new to brewing, knew nothing about. please tell me if my modifications make sense. this is for a guy (not me) who wanted a lager, but i don't have the temperature control capability nor the disposition to most lagers, so i came up with a kind of compromise.

i found the simple yakima blonde ale recipe, decided to augment it with a little wheat, and possibly add some honey (the target abv was 3.0, and i can't do that.). so i basically shredded a great blonde recipe to fit my wants.

.5lb american crystal/caramel 10L
.5lb dextrine malt (carapils)
4lbs briess DME pilsen light

i also added...
.5lb vienna
.25lb lt munich
.25lb lt wheat

two pounds honey after boil

recipe called for four .5oz yakima goldings hops at intervals...
replaced with strisselspalt, added an extra oz to = 3 oz, redistributing. balance the extra grain and honey, hopefully.

wyeast american ale 1056 - originally called for nottingham yeast

so thank you to the yakima enthusiast(s), but we kind of winged it when we couldn't find everything. and it became a completely different beer that hasn't been brewed yet, but i hope someone beats me to the recipe, since it sounds so good. and i will tweak it as i go along. i am so new to everything, but i've brewed two great beers out of two. i guess this one will be the test of whether or not i can brew a great beer outside of my favorite styles. love you all, however your disposition.

 

[Camping57]

According to my calculations that is going to end up at 4.8 - 5.0% ABV. Why all the different malts? This is supposed to be a simple recipe and there are 5 different malts that you are adding, I would not add the vienna and munich if I was doing it.
Hops seem pretty good, you might want to substitute another variety to your middle addition to get a little complexity.

 

[BenAgee]

i don't know why five malts. i was bouncing ideas around with the dude at high gravity, and these are what i decided on. i've loved to cook food since i was about 14, and as i've honed and gotten good at it i have to restrain myself from the kitchen sink method. i don't necessarily want this to be a simple recipe, more an easy-drinking beer with complexity that's not too convoluted. we were like kids in candy shops choosing malts, so maybe i went a little overboard, but i do believe the finished product will be fantastic. thank you for calculating the ABV, though i'm embarrassed to say i'm a little disappointed it won't be higher. i'm learning so much so fast from so little base knowledge, but the "mistakes" i've made have produced good beers. and this will only be my third. i like the advice on a variant hop to add complexity, but kind of the point of this beer is to see how complex i can make the malt bill, so the hops will only be there to balance. i don't want to notice the hops. however, what variety would you suggest to spice it up?

 

[fishersfirst]

Hi,

My 2c worth:
I recently did a Belgian blonde with Canadian Belgian WY yeast ( this would obviously taste hugely different from your proposed brew) but with some similarities in my recipe.
I do agree with the previous question of adding too many malts. Sometimes less is more. Like cooking, sometimes the simple flavours work best.

My recipe used Spalter, Saphir and Simcoe (smaller addition late in the boil) as the Simcoe can be a bit rough.
Honey and a half tsp ground pepper a flameout.

I'd personally cut the Munich at least as the Vienna and Pilsen will work well together.

As I said, only my 2c worth. It's really important to find your own way, and if you want to experiment, I say hell yeah!

 

[BenAgee]

had a little delay on the brew date. grandad emergency. brewed it tonight, and i don't think it's probably gonna be close to what anyone who actually thinks of blonde ales thinks of blonde ales. it's dark, and the wort actually tastes almost so good you want to forgo fermentation. so yeah, i suck, i'll learn, i'll probably still suck, but this beer is going to be ****ing good.