Check My Recipe

[jayrodoh]

Did my first recipe free trip to the local brew supply store. Wanted a lighter crisp fresh beer. How do you think this'll turn out:

10 lbs 2 row pale ale
1 lb Crystal 10l

Mash at 175 for 60 min

Sparge at 170 for 45min to get 6.5 gallons

60 min boil

1 oz Mt Hood with 50 min remaining

2 tbl Candi sugar

1 oz German Hallertau with 5 min remaining

Cooled to 75 and pitched Wyeast European Ale yeast (Wanted the London Ale)

 

[Yooper]

Well, the mash temp must be a typo. Surely you meant something like 150?

Did you use 2 tablespoons of candi sugar? How come? I've never seen that before.

I like the malt bill and the hops- I think it'll be a nice beer!

 

[BigEd]

Mash @ 175??? A misprint I hope. Something like 152F would be more like it. You may want to run the recipe through some brewing software and check the IBUs and the OG. One ounce of Mt. Hood seems like it would only provide about 15 IBU and IMO somewhere in the mid 20s might be preferable.

 

[Jimmeh]

if you want to keep it crisp, drop the crystal to 1/2 - 3/4lb and mash LOW like 149 - 150F. also drop the candi sugar.. thats a weird addition for this kind of recipe

 

[jayrodoh]

I've always mashed around 170, is that bad? I had the sugar already, figured why not

 

[Yooper]

I've always mashed around 170, is that bad? I had the sugar already, figured why not

Yes- you denature the enzymes when the mash gets above about 162 or so.

You want to mash at 149-158. At 149, you'd have a thinner drier beer. At 156-158, you'd have a full bodied less fermentable beer.

I'd check the thermometer. If you're mashing at 170, and getting good beer, there is something wrong with your thermometer.

 

[strat_thru_marshall]

I've always mashed around 170, is that bad? I had the sugar already, figured why not

Was the wort you ran into the kettle sweet? I'd be surprised if you got really any conversion to speak of at 175. Hopefully your thermometer is wrong...

 

[foltster]

It might make sense if your strike temp is 175, which would probably end up near 160 after adding grains?

 

[jayrodoh]

The wort was sweet and sticky, it's bubbling pretty good in the fermentor (didn't check gravity change yet). Could be a bad thermometer, the water in my HLT was 180ish when I was recirculating, not 100% on what the temp in the MLT was. Time for a thermomter in the return line to the MLT. I'll try a lower temp next time and see what happens.

 

[jayrodoh]

You guys were dead on, the beer is underpowered with a funk to it. Close to the worst beer I've brewed since I started. Drinkable and good enough for band practice drinking. It was a little sweet and not bitter enough as BigEd predicted.

I've since added a return mash thermometer to monitor the temps. I calibrated it before installation, turns out the one I was using was about 34 degrees off! Never knew you could calibrate them, learn something new everyday on here.



Brewing again tomorrow!

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