Looking for a lighter ale recipe......

[brehm21]

I've been searching the forums and I can't seem to find much. Not saying I'm searching correctly.........

I brewed a honey brown ale and saved the yeast off the secondary. I'd like to reuse it if possible, so I'm looking for something a little lighter.
I'm not up for all grain yet, so it would have to be extract or partial mash.
The yeast was a White Labs London Ale WLP013.

Any suggestions for the newbie?

 

[homebrewer_99]

A little lighter...same recipe, but use 1.5 lbs less malt and .5 oz less hops...

 

[brehm21]

Okay then!

Here's the original recipe,

5lbs amber LME
1/2 lb Victory
1/2 lb 20l Crystal
1/8 lb Chocolate malt
2lbs honey
1 oz Kent Golding (Bittering)
1/2 oz Fuggles (flavor)
1/2 oz Fuggles (aroma)
WLP013 London Ale yeast.

Changes.....
I'd probably leave out the Chocolate malt, and I'll likely be using light or extra-light DME instead of amber LME.........wouldn't I use less DME than LME, or do the two convert equally (1#DME=1#LME)? Drop to 1/2 oz Kent for bittering.

I'm gonna start begging the SWMBO to let me get Promash...........

 

[sonvolt]

so I'm looking for something a little lighter.

From my experience, people can mean one of two things when they say that they want a "lighter" beer. Do you mean lighter in terms of alcohol content . . . i.e. a weaker beer? Or . . . do you want a beer that is lighter in color and malt profile (although the two do not necessarily go hand in hand).

Most of my friends who are BMC drinkers will say that my lighter colored beers are better regardless of ABV. For some reason, BMC drinkers associate light color with "lightness" and "goodness"

If you want a beer that is less alcoholic, back off of the malt extract - but you'll also need to back off of the hopping rate. If you want a beer that is lighter in color, ditch the chocolate malt and cut back on the crystal malt.

 

[cweston]

Changes.....
I'd probably leave out the Chocolate malt, and I'll likely be using light or extra-light DME instead of amber LME.........wouldn't I use less DME than LME, or do the two convert equally (1#DME=1#LME)? Drop to 1/2 oz Kent for bittering.

No: use about 4 lbs DME per 5 lbs LME.

DME = about 1.045 SG per pound per gallon
LME = about 1.037 SG per pound per gallon

I'm gonna start begging the SWMBO to let me get Promash...........

For extract recipes, the Beer Recipator is free and more than adequate for these types of calculations. http://hbd.org/recipator/

 

[david_42]

Another possibility is to substitute wheat or rice extract (lb for lb) for 1/3 of your LME.

 

[mysterio]

If you're trying a partial mash, how about trying half a pound flaked of maize to lighten the body a little? This is quite common with English bitters, which would be true to style if you're making a low IBU pale ale. Maybe substitute the chocolate malt with some Munich malt or maybe even a couple of ounces of special B to add some malty complexity. If you're dropping the bittering hops down a bit try dry hopping with the extra Goldings.

 

[brehm21]

Thanks for all the input!

sonvolt: I was thinking more along the color terms of "lighter" guess I'll learn to be more specific eventually! Although, I'm still after flavor and ABV.

As per cweston's advice, I checked out hbd.org and played around with it. I think I might also try some wheat extract in there just for sh*ts & giggles

Here's what I came up with:

Beer: Notemigonus crysoleucas
Style: English Pale Ale
Type: Extract w/grain Size: 5 gallons
Color:
11 HCU (~8 SRM)
Bitterness: 2 IBU
OG: 1.063 FG: 1.009
Alcohol: 7.0% v/v (5.5% w/w)

Grain: .125 lb. British Munich
.5 lb. American victory
.5 lb. American crystal 20L

Boil: minutes SG 1.317 1 gallons
4 lb. Light dry malt extract
1 lb. Wheat extract
2 lb. Honey

Hops: 1 oz. Fuggles (4.75% AA, 60 min.)
.5 oz. Kent Goldings (5% AA, 30 min.)
.5 oz. Kent Goldings (aroma)

My one concern.......will the WLP013 yeast handle the 7% ABV? If not, I'll cut back the extracts a little and get it back to around 6.2 ABV, like the original recipe was.

 

[cweston]

Do you really only boil 1 gallon?

Something's wrong with your IBUs: they're obviously higher than 2.

But with a gravity in the 60s, you probably want IBUs of 40 or more in order for this to taste like an English Pale Ale.

With a 1 gallon boil, you're going to get pretty low hops utilization. Is it possible for you to boil a larger amount (like 2.5 or 3 gallons)? That will help you get more bang for the relatively small amount of hops you're using.

 

[brehm21]

Do you really only boil 1 gallon?

Something's wrong with your IBUs: they're obviously higher than 2.

I started with one gallon in the original honey brown recipe. When I ran that one on the recipator, it came out to 4 IBUs. I'm new to the IBU's thing, but it tastes a lot like Newcastle Brown Ale, with honey. I like it.

So if I boil 2.5 gallons, it yeilds 13 IBUs. I could do that for sure.
3 gallons would get me to 16. Learning is fun!

I had more time to play with the Recipator and figured out more about the beer styles and how it will tell me how many hops for a set IBU. Cool!
I'll probably add some hops and try to get it up near 20 IBUs and see how I like it!
Thanks for the advice!

 

[Levers101]

I believe one trick is to do the biggest boil possible considering your equipment for a lighter color. This keeps caramelization of the wort to a minimum. You are going to have mega caramelization with a 1 gallon boil. Try this on for size: the more sugars ect you put into your boil the greater the boiling point of the water. And this increased temperature causes more caramelization. With a 1 gallon boil I'd only have probably 1/2 gallon left after an hour in my pot, and that would be a pretty thick syrup for a 5 gallon batch...