First AG batch recipe plans..

[Jayjay1976]

Before I brew my first batch I wanted to post my plans and invite comments or advice. It will be my first AG batch in a brand new 44qt electric kettle BIAB setup, I'm planning on buying a whole sack of avangard pilsner malt and some red or white german wheat. I already have a pound of hersbrucker whole leaf and a pound of opal pellet hops I bought because I like kölsch and hefeweizen. I want to brew a few smash batches to get the hang of it and hopefully produce something palatable to drink with the recipes below. I'm setup for 5 gallon batches and plan to try beersmith to calculate the grain bill and IBU's but I could use some guidance on hop schedule, step mashing temps, etc. I was hoping to find a collection of smash recipes but so far I haven't.

1. 100% pilsner malt, hersbrucker for bittering, opal for aroma, kölsch yeast, ferment at the lower end of the temp range.

2. 50/50 pilsner/wheat, hersbrucker hops, weihenstephan yeast fermented at low end of temp range.

3. 50/50 pilsner/wheat, hersbrucker and opal hops, Belgian ale yeast, ferment at top of temp range.

Do these look reasonable? I really don't know what I'm doing and I'm trying to resist the urge to just make it up as I go. I really don't want to brew from a kit either.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

I vote for #2

My go to wheat (pretty much always on tap for me and the neighborhood mooches) is 50/50 pils/wheat, 3068 yeast, saaz at 60 min to about 15 ibu, citra at 8 min to about 3 or 4 ibu. Your hersbrucker will be slightly similar to that combination. I do a 20 min rest at 112, then 154 for 60 min. I like some banana to go with the clove so I ferment a bit warm (75 to 77). Really light and refreshing. About 4.9 ABV.

I would toss in some rice hulls to help keep things flowing nicely through it all.

 

[Jayjay1976]

I vote for #2

My go to wheat (pretty much always on tap for me and the neighborhood mooches) is 50/50 pils/wheat, 3068 yeast, saaz at 60 min to about 15 ibu, citra at 8 min to about 3 or 4 ibu. Your hersbrucker will be slightly similar to that combination. I do a 20 min rest at 112, then 154 for 60 min. I like some banana to go with the clove so I ferment a bit warm (75 to 77). Really light and refreshing. About 4.9 ABV.

I would toss in some rice hulls to help keep things flowing nicely through it all.

Sounds easy enough, I'll give it a shot. I'm also a big fan of esters so I'll ferment it at room temp and maybe try out my ferm chamber on the next batch. Thanks for the input!

In addition to the pilsner and wheat, can you recommend another versatile grain I should have on hand? After I have a few successful batches under my belt I'd like to try cloning hacker-pschorr sternweisse, and maybe start experimenting with belgian blondes. Whatever grain I need, I'll probably end up buying a whole sack.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

Maris Otter is quite popular. Very versatile and a great base malt. Slightly more expensive than generic 2-row's. Others swear by Golden Promise. Many stick with the American 2-Row and leave it to the specialty malts and yeast to step up the flavor profiles. It really depends on what you are brewing, what you want to achieve and how "pure to style" you want to be. Using a Scottish malt in a German hef or Irish Red, makes some people cringe.

If you think you will be brewing a lot, and have your own grain mill, bags are definitely the way to go. You might try a few more recipes with different malts before you order too much. Everyone's taste buds are different.

 

[65C]

Maris Otter is quite popular. Very versatile and a great base malt. Slightly more expensive than generic 2-row's.

I have a sack of Pils and a sack of MO in the house. All my brews use one or both.

Initially I started with just MO but it is quite strong (malty) so I now use 100% MO for Porters, 30-60% MO for IPAs and 100% Pils for my very light beers.

(when I say 100% I mean as base grain - I'll obv. add specials, oats, Vienna etc. depending on what I'm doing).

tl;dr - MO for darks, Pils for lights

 

[Jayjay1976]

Thanks for the input, I'm going to pick up a few pounds of a couple specialty grains to mess around with. From reading the descriptions I'm interested in gambrinus honey malt, simpson's golden naked oats, and dingeman's belgian special B. I'm not really interested dark/roasted flavors and I like estery belgian saisons, blondes, hefeweizens, sweeter lagers and kölsch, all with heavier bodied mouthfeel, some residual sweetness, and sticky lacing in my mug. Is this a reasonable way to approach learning ingredients?

 

[Jayjay1976]

Sorry if I'm getting wonky with the particular ingredients I have in mind, I'm just looking to put together a basic "toolbox" of grains to start brewing. I'm open to any suggestions.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

This might be up your alley. Here's a saison ive brewed a few times and definitely love it. Quite popular with my friends (the ones that don't freak out when they taste saison yeast). My buddy did this recipe once and added ginger and sage to the boil. I still cant decide if I liked that version or not. It was kinda weird.

Got it from a disgruntled bartender at a brew pub back east while travelling for work. He is also a home brewer and was quitting that night. He snapped a picture of the recipe for me when I asked for some hints about it.

80% Pilsner (ive also used half and half with MO)
5.3% Carapils
5.3% Munich I
5.3% Vienna
4.0% Special B
Saaz 60min to 19.8 IBU
Citra 5 min to 4.4 IBU
3711 yeast

150 for 75 min
75 min boil

Water:
Ca 53, Mg 14, Na 7, SO4 98, Cl 73

In beersmith, it shows 1.054 at 6% ABV, 24.3 IBU and 8.8 SRM.
FG will calculate at about 1.008. No way. 3711 is a beast. Expect it to go lower.

 

[Jayjay1976]

This might be up your alley.

Sounds tasty and looks easy enough, thanks! Guess you were in the right place at the right time, eh?

The 3711 range is 65-77f, where in that range should it ferment? Can I just leave it at room temp?

 

[65C]

Thanks for the input, I'm going to pick up a few pounds of a couple specialty grains to mess around with. ... Is this a reasonable way to approach learning ingredients?

This is all I do - I have the big bags of Pils and MO - which I use diff quantities of depending on beer type - and then I have a bunch of 1KG bags of Vienna, Special III etc.

I get that some people like to follow recipes exactly and hit the numbers - but I've got the 3 beer types - Porter, medium hoppy IPA and Light Pils that I brew in the same 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 sequence - so I've a range of beer around. I mix it up by varying the speciality grain and hops for each batch and changing the yeast occasionally. I try not to vary too much between batches so I know reason why it's better/worse

This is the best part of brewing for me (and the 80%+ cost saving per bottle)

 

[Jayjay1976]

This is all I do - I have the big bags of Pils and MO - which I use diff quantities of depending on beer type - and then I have a bunch of 1KG bags of Vienna, Special III etc.

I get that some people like to follow recipes exactly and hit the numbers - but I've got the 3 beer types - Porter, medium hoppy IPA and Light Pils that I brew in the same 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 sequence - so I've a range of beer around. I mix it up by varying the speciality grain and hops for each batch and changing the yeast occasionally. I try not to vary too much between batches so I know reason why it's better/worse

This is the best part of brewing for me (and the 80%+ cost saving per bottle)

This sounds a lot like what I want to do. I know what I like to drink and I have little regard for staying true-to-style or hitting high efficiency for that matter, I just want to make some nice enjoyable beer till I really understand the process and all the variables.

For right now I need to stretch each dollar I spend on ingredients because I have invested quite a lot over the past year in setting up to brew. Someday I might start to get serious about precision and consistency but for now I just need to learn which lever does what and gain some confidence. Complicated hop schedules, decoction mashes, and intricate recipes won't matter if I haven't established good sanitation habits or learned how to operate my rig.

To be honest, I would start with AG recipe kits if sacks of grain and bulk hops weren't so much cheaper per batch, but having a few easy recipes like Doug's saison that I can easily follow and learn from sounds like just the ticket and a better use of funds. I just sold off some stuff from my other hobbies to scrape together $250 for base malt and specialty grains, so I think I'll go shopping this weekend

 

[65C]

I did a couple of recipe kits originally but they really skimped on the hops and cost much much more than buying the separate ingredients

With careful shopping you can stay very cheap on the ingredients and produce some really good beer - I buy the cheapest high alpha hops for bittering - and get the more expensive ones for later in the boil - but I'll only buy what is on offer - so don't often use Citra but have found a bunch of other great hops like Sticklebract

I'm drinking beer exactly how I like it now and at a big discount to what I used to pay - also it gets me off my arse for 6h to make a batch

 

[SoCal-Doug]

The 3711 range is 65-77f, where in that range should it ferment? Can I just leave it at room temp?

It is said that with 3711, higher = peppery and fruity, lower = less of those. And by the way, when your FG hits 1.003 or less, don't freak out, your hydrometer is not broken

According to my records, my last two batches averaged 76 to 78 (ambient). I don't remember any peppery, but there was a very slight fruity (not a sweet fruity, and in no way overpowering) which I liked with the citra hops and fairly complex malt blend.

Saison recipes are all over the place with never-ending options. Many use sugar. My preference is refreshing, slightly on the dry side, but I want the malt and definitely the yeast to shine through with just enough mellow hop to balance it. If you change the recipe to fit the grains you have or the taste you like, i'm sure it will be just as good. IMO good yeast makes a good saison. The history of the brew was basically "whatever that farm had, they used it".

This weekend i'm brewing that exact recipe with yeast I harvested from a couple bottles of Dupont, and doing my first attempt to brew something close to Red Trolley Ale. Fingers crossed.

 

[Jayjay1976]

Harvesting yeast from a bottle sounds like so much fun. I have a lab stir plate and erlenmeyer for making starters, but once I get the hang of it I want to try harvesting from some Belgian imports. I know some breweries bottle with a different strain so I'll just replicate what has worked for others.