Brew Plans Help

[BeerClaw]

Hi, My first brew which is hard cider will be bottled next week so I will be moving onto my first home brewed beer. I thought I would start planning now and was looking for any feedback or corrections on my plan. Here we go:

Partial Mash Pale Ale, 5 gallon batch

2 lbs pale ale malt
2 lbs honey malt
1 lb pale DME
1 lb sugar
2 oz Casade Hops (pellets)
1 oz Saaz Hops (pellets)
Safbrew T-58 yeast

*all ingredients are already purchased, hopefully they will work well

Add grains to 2 gallons of water heated to 150-155f, maintain for 1 hour. Strain into large 6 gallon pot with an addtion gallon of water.

Add sugar and DME, mix well. Bring to the boil until hot break and start adding hops. 0.5oz of casade @ :20, :40, :60, & :120.

Cool wort in an ice bath until 70f and then strain into sterilized bucket. Bring water leave up to 5 gallons and aerate wort. Dry hop 1oz of Saaz and pitch rehydrate yeast.​

So how am I doing?

 

[dracus]

Yummy.

Cascade and sazz two of my favorites.

Check out the stovetop all grain thread for next time. Partial mash is just has hard as full mash imho.

Did you have any specific questions?

Best of luck..

 

[BeerClaw]

Yummy.

Cascade and sazz two of my favorites.

Check out the stovetop all grain thread for next time. Partial mash is just has hard as full mash imho.

Did you have any specific questions?

Best of luck..

I am just looking to confirm my procedures are correct or if anything should be done differently.

 

[WillPall]

I think the procedures look good, but why boil for 2 hours? I think you'd do just as well to boil for 60 minutes. Also, for the style, it's going to be a little on the low side for both SG and IBUs, but maybe you can just make it a light pale ale. Will definitely be delicious no matter what you do.

 

[Zen_Brew]

You are heading in the right direction. Where did you get the recipe? It looks like a lower gravity beer, and the 1 lb of sugar may tend to give you a pretty dry final result. You might want to consider subbing in another 1lb of DME instead of the sugar.

Since you are using a 6 gallon pot you may want to up the amount of water that you boil as it will give you better hop utilization. (More hop flavor will make it into the beer) You could just add 2 or 2-1/2 gallons after you steep your grains instead of the 1 gallon. You can easily safely up the boil volume to 4-1/2 gallons in the pot you have and cut down on the top off water unless you are counting on the top off water to help cool the wort down when you are finished.

For the hop schedule, you are showing a 120 minute addition. Why are you boiling for 120 minutes? There is no benefit to this long of a boil. How long to boil is a matter of preference, but most boil for somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes. Many people who boil for 90 minutes do not do their first hop addition until 30 minutes into the boil.

You are showing a dry hop addition at the same time as the yeast pitch. Most people dry hop later after fermentation is complete, or in the secondary. This is because the vigorous fermentation will drive off most of the floral aromas that you are trying to get by dry hopping.

Also Saaz is a very light flavored hop and is not commonly dry hopped with. It would do much better as the first bittering addition, although the cascade will still overpower much of the saaz effect. If you are looking for more of a European type flavor you may want to up the saaz and use it as a bittering adition during the boil and decrease the cascade. If you are looking for more of a pale ale, you may want to remove the saaz from the recipe or replace it with more cascade.

Hope that helps.

 

[BeerClaw]

I think the procedures look good, but why boil for 2 hours? I think you'd do just as well to boil for 60 minutes. Also, for the style, it's going to be a little on the low side for both SG and IBUs, but maybe you can just make it a light pale ale. Will definitely be delicious no matter what you do.

I am going for a light pale ale, I should have put that in the title. Boiling does seem long I will shorten.

You are heading in the right direction. Where did you get the recipe? It looks like a lower gravity beer, and the 1 lb of sugar may tend to give you a pretty dry final result. You might want to consider subbing in another 1lb of DME instead of the sugar.

Since you are using a 6 gallon pot you may want to up the amount of water that you boil as it will give you better hop utilization. (More hop flavor will make it into the beer) You could just add 2 or 2-1/2 gallons after you steep your grains instead of the 1 gallon. You can easily safely up the boil volume to 4-1/2 gallons in the pot you have and cut down on the top off water unless you are counting on the top off water to help cool the wort down when you are finished.

For the hop schedule, you are showing a 120 minute addition. Why are you boiling for 120 minutes? There is no benefit to this long of a boil. How long to boil is a matter of preference, but most boil for somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes. Many people who boil for 90 minutes do not do their first hop addition until 30 minutes into the boil.

You are showing a dry hop addition at the same time as the yeast pitch. Most people dry hop later after fermentation is complete, or in the secondary. This is because the vigorous fermentation will drive off most of the floral aromas that you are trying to get by dry hopping.

Also Saaz is a very light flavored hop and is not commonly dry hopped with. It would do much better as the first bittering addition, although the cascade will still overpower much of the saaz effect. If you are looking for more of a European type flavor you may want to up the saaz and use it as a bittering adition during the boil and decrease the cascade. If you are looking for more of a pale ale, you may want to remove the saaz from the recipe or replace it with more cascade.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for all the advise.

-The recipe came from a friend, the sugar I added myself. I was adding it to make it drier, perhaps I should half it?
-I will increase the water in the boil, I was not using the top up to cool
-boiling does seem really long, I will cut the boil to 60 after the mash. What do you recommend for a hop schedule?
-I didn't know dry hopping was done at a later time, I will dry hop in the secondary

 

[Zen_Brew]

zaireeka

60 minute boil will be perfect.

If you remove any or all of the sugar I would replace it with DME or you will have a very low alcohol ale. You may prefer your ale dry, I don't know. That just seems like a lot of sugar for a beer that will not have a very high gravity.

As to the hop schedule. If you will use the hops that you have than here is what I would reccommend. Note I am listing the amount of time left in the boil for the addition. So a 60 minute means at start of boil, a 40 minute means 40 minutes left in the boil etc.
1 oz Saaz 60 min
1/2 oz cascade 30 min
1/2 oz cascade 15 min
1/2 oz cascade 1 min
Dry hop with last 1/2 oz cascade after fermentation is complete for 5-7 days.

 

[BeerClaw]

zaireeka

60 minute boil will be perfect.

If you remove any or all of the sugar I would replace it with DME or you will have a very low alcohol ale. You may prefer your ale dry, I don't know. That just seems like a lot of sugar for a beer that will not have a very high gravity.

As to the hop schedule. If you will use the hops that you have than here is what I would reccommend. Note I am listing the amount of time left in the boil for the addition. So a 60 minute means at start of boil, a 40 minute means 40 minutes left in the boil etc.
1 oz Saaz 60 min
1/2 oz cascade 30 min
1/2 oz cascade 15 min
1/2 oz cascade 1 min
Dry hop with last 1/2 oz cascade after fermentation is complete for 5-7 days.

-Thanks for the times, would appear I was timing backwards

-for the dry hopping, when is the best time to add it. Should I add to the primary 5-7 days before I rake to the secondary or 5-7 days in the secondary before bottling?

-what are your thoughts on replacing the 1lb sugar with 1/2lb of honey? A Light Honey Pale Ale???

______________________
Check out my brew blog:
Daniel's Home Brew

 

[Zen_Brew]

If you are using a secondary fermenter, that is the time to add the dry hops, when the beer is put into secondary.

I have not yet brewed with honey. I understand it will help increase the body of the beer a bit. Also when you add affects how much honey flavor can be detected in the beer. Near the start of the boil will give you less detectable honey flavor as the boil drives off much of the aromatics, at the end of the boil will give you a bit more honey flavor.

In your case the honey should work well with the honey malts you already have. If I was going to swap the honey in I would probably replace the 1lb of sugar with 1lb of honey. As I said I have not personally brewed with honey, and I really can't say how it will play with the cascade hops, but since there is already honey malt in your grain bill it shouldn't change the flavor much over what you would have gotten without it.

 

[BeerClaw]

If you are using a secondary fermenter, that is the time to add the dry hops, when the beer is put into secondary.

I have not yet brewed with honey. I understand it will help increase the body of the beer a bit. Also when you add affects how much honey flavor can be detected in the beer. Near the start of the boil will give you less detectable honey flavor as the boil drives off much of the aromatics, at the end of the boil will give you a bit more honey flavor.

In your case the honey should work well with the honey malts you already have. If I was going to swap the honey in I would probably replace the 1lb of sugar with 1lb of honey. As I said I have not personally brewed with honey, and I really can't say how it will play with the cascade hops, but since there is already honey malt in your grain bill it shouldn't change the flavor much over what you would have gotten without it.

Thanks for all the help! I will dry hop in the secondary then. The honey I will add at :01 with the last hop addition and mix well.

I will be starting this brew next week and will be taking lots of photos for my blog. I will make sure to post a few here as well.