First time all grain recipe, please review

[BDFST507]

New to the forum and new to brewing. A little background, I bought a 5 gal kit a yr or so ago and got a dry extract IPA kit. I didn't really do any research and just tried to follow the instructions. Well I made a few mistakes (I blame the instructions and only a few bottles turned out decent.

Well, now I have done my research i'm ready to try again. I've decided that I want to do all grain brewing and stick with kegging it. I've looked over a few recipes for IPAs and this is what i've come up with.

5 gal batch

14lb Maris Otter
1lb 20 crystal
Mash in mesh bag @ 153 for 60 min in 30qt water
Then I would have roughly 5.6 gal wort

Sparge mash in 1.3 gal water and add to wort for a total of 6.8 gal wort to boil.

Boil 60 min....hops 60 min 1oz magnum, 30 min 1 oz magnum, 10 min crystal.

Cool, strain and transfer, ad yeast and dry hop .5 oz magnum, .5 oz crystal, .5 citra

Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks.
Haven

 

[jaythebassist]

Hey Haven. Welcome to HBT.

The recipe looks pretty good. In a bag, you might only get 50-60% efficiency, but even at the low end, you should still wind up with a 5.5% abv beer. Shoot, even at 40% you'd still get ~4.5% abv. What yeast are you using? American Ale?

It's a little unclear what type of system you are using. Stock pot with grain bag for mash, stock pot for boil, and bucket for fermenting? How do you plan to cool the wort down to pitching temps? How much Crystal for the 10 min addition?

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Tip #1: sanitize EVERYTHING more than you think you should. Get ahold of some StarSan, and use it. Remember, everything that touches the wort (or that the wort touches) from the time you start cooling down moving forward must be sanitized. You stir the wort with a sanitized SS spoon.. put it back in the sanitizer until you use it again.

Tip #2: Take good notes. That's the only way you can guage your progress.

Tip #3: Have fun.

good luck!

 

[Yooper]

That seems kind of bitter. Magnum hops are great, but tend to be high in AAUs. You may have a very seriously bitter beer with an ounce of them at 60 minutes and 30 minutes. I'd also skip magnum as a dryhop. It's great for a bittering hop, but you won't want to use it as a dryhop. Leave out the 30 minute addition entirely, if you want to actually drink this beer!

Crystal hops are nice, but you've got a rather bland hop schedule with just bittering hops and then crystal hops for flavor hops. I'd consider using the citra in the boil for some interest, but you could just use it from dryhopping. I'd do hops at 60 minutes (magnum, bittering), 15 minutes (citra or crystal, flavor hops) and 5 minutes (crystal, aroma hops, if you're set on those hops.

I'd totally change the hopping. You've got an English grain bill, but German hops (mostly, with the magnum and the crystal which taste like German noble hops) and one citrusy US hop (citra).

I'd either go with US citrusy hops, or earthy UK hops. I'd get rid of the crystal hops entirely in this beer. The magnum is fine for bittering either US or UK beers, but I'd add a flavor hop and aroma hop of one type instead of a German-ish ale with an English grain bill and one citrusy hop in the dryhop.

Depending on your efficiency, you may have a higher OG than you planned. I'd go with 10 pounds of basemalt, for an OG of about 1.050-1.060.

 

[BDFST507]

was planning on california ale yeast. Yeah stock pot and turkey fryer for mash and boil, ive got a plastic carboy or two large plastic buckets that came with the kit for fermenting. I plan just to cool in my kitchen sink with ice, water and salt for now. Was going to use 1oz also of the crystal hops for the 10 min......Yes going to brew shop mon for starsan, keg, maybe a few other small things. I dont think I sanitized enough last time and also i didnt let the wort cool enough before pitching yeast. Like I said I kinda just jumped in without researching properly. I will definitely over sanitize this time

Thanks for the input!!

 

[jaythebassist]

Do you have all the ingredients already? If not, I would suggest brewing a tried-n-true recipe. Like one from here, or a clone of your fave IPA. You will just have to increase the grainbill to suit the poor eff % you'll prolly get with the hardly-sparging method you're doing.

If so, then def take Yooper's advice about the hops. I wasn't even thinking about that, but you're looking at like 75 IBU with that recipe. Plus Magnum is a neutral flavor hop... won't do much for you at 10 or 5 min or dryhopping.

 

[BDFST507]

Yooper, Big thanks for the input....another hop line-up i saw was centennial, cascade and citra. Roughly the same weights and increments. Do you think this would be better?

 

[HomebrewMTB]

Agree with the others. Go with a known recipe to work on your process before getting adventurous with your own creations.

 

[BDFST507]

Do you have all the ingredients already? If not, I would suggest brewing a tried-n-true recipe. Like one from here, or a clone of your fave IPA. You will just have to increase the grainbill to suit the poor eff % you'll prolly get with the hardly-sparging method you're doing.

If so, then def take Yooper's advice about the hops. I wasn't even thinking about that, but you're looking at like 75 IBU with that recipe. Plus Magnum is a neutral flavor hop... won't do much for you at 10 or 5 min or dryhopping.

No, i havent bought anything yet...I got the recipe from the youcanbrewit.com but it does not call for magnum at 30min so i will not do that. And would it make a difference that my grain bag will be large and open over the lip of the pot.

 

[Yooper]

Yooper, Big thanks for the input....another hop line-up i saw was centennial, cascade and citra. Roughly the same weights and increments. Do you think this would be better?

Definitely.

The recipe you posted is just plain "weird". I mean, I like mixing things up, but that beer isn't any defined style, and the strange mix of UK malts and German and US hops means it will just taste funny.

If you go with the same malts, a centennial/cascade/citra pale ale will be fine. But don't go over about 50 IBUs!