Am I reading recipes correctly?

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Jacskon

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Hi there,

I am trying to emulate this recipe: Very Pale Ale - BIAB American Pale Ale Homebrew Beer Recipe - Brewer's Friend

I'm a total newbie so struggling to translate into actionable instructions. Also, given I've only got a 20L pot, I'm making a few modifications.

Is the below correct? I've bolded a few things I am unsure about.
  1. Put all grains in brew bag
  2. Bring 15L in a pot to 65 degrees celsius
  3. Add in brew bag with grains for 60 minutes
  4. Remove grains
  5. Boil for 60 minutes
  6. With 15 minutes to go, add 10g of Centennial hops
  7. With 5 minutes to go, add 12g of centennial hops, 12g of Citra hops and 14g of amarillo hops
  8. Strain to fermentor
  9. Add additional water to get it to 12L
  10. Stir well
  11. Dry hop 11g of Centennial, 10g of Citra and 11g of Amarillo for 4 days then remove the bags
Going from 15L to 12L seems like a big drop?

Cheers,

Jackson
 
I boil off around 4.5L per hour in my Guten, so 3L is not a huge drop in my opinion. Also, the grain will absorb roughly 1L per KG of grain, so 15L of water + 3kg of Grain will reduce to around 12L before you boil. Then you boil it for an hour you will end up with around 9ish liters. I would

Add grain bag to pot, and drape around it so you can pour your grains in directly
Bring 15L to strike temp (higher than 65, as adding the grains will reduce the temp)
Pour grains into the bag, so you can give them a good mix / stir to eliminate dough balls (dry balls that haven't been wet by the water)
Insulate the pot as best you can, using a lid and towels etc to maintain as much heat as possible
Let mash for 60 minutes
Remove bag, and give a good squeeze
Add 3L of water to the liquid, should bring you back to 15L pre boil
Boil for an hour, adding hops as per recipe
Chill as fast as possible, if you are able to. Add it to a bath of cold water or sink in the kitchen with ice
Reduce temp down to around 20c and transfer to fermenter
Add yeast
Dry hop as you see fit
Bottle
Enjoy

Be aware, the more hoppy the beer the more volatile it is, and likely to oxidise. Bottling will make this worse, and as such bottling hoppy beers is a hard one to get right. Don't be upset if it starts to oxidise, treat this is a learning experience.

After 10 years I am still treating every brew session as a learning experience.
 
Thanks! Super clear.

Couple questions:
1 - Is the chilling as fast as possible purely for the clarity?
2 - Oxidised beer. What exactly does that mean and what is the consequence?

Thanks again!
 
-1 - Search for a "Strike Water Calculator" find one in metric, it will tell you the right temperature to heat your strike water to so that when you mix the hot water and the air temperature malt the mixture will be at your mash temperature.
1 - Not really, its mostly to prevent SSM being converted to DMS. This is most noticeable in Lager brewing, if your base malt is an Ale it probably wont matter, there are a few other advantages to rapid cooling but many people No-Chill. Transfer the hot wort after its had time to for all the hops and hot break to settle out, usually 15-30 minutes, to a closed container (well go read up on no chill if your interested).
2 - Oxygen will damage beer, early in the process its called Hot Side aeration, forget about that for now. Just before the yeast goes in, many brewers add Oxygen to help the yeast reproduce, if you are using the right amount of dry yeast you can skip that for now to. After the start of fermentation Oxygen will harm beer, especially very hoppy beers.
About all you can do is minimise the chances the beer has to get exposed to Oxygen, when you are bottling its hard but filling from the bottom, avoiding stirring or shaking... getting the beer to foam a bit in the bottle and capping on top of the foam are about all you can do.
Mark
 
Thanks! Super clear.

Couple questions:
1 - Is the chilling as fast as possible purely for the clarity?
2 - Oxidised beer. What exactly does that mean and what is the consequence?

Thanks again!
What MHB said, he's very knowledgeable.

To expand a littler further,

Cooling the wort rapidly is good for avoiding infections, unless you are able to 'hot cube' the beer, but a small volume in a big container won't work well. What some people do is transfer the virtually still boiling wort (around 90c) into a HDPE jerry can type 'cube' and squeeze any excess air out. You then seal it closed and let it cool down slowly. This will impact the bitterness you get from the hops so some adjustment is needed to work out bitterness.

If you just leave it in your pot to cool down or in the fermenter, depending on the type of fermenter and location it can take HOURS. like over night at least, and once it's below around the 40s bacteria, microbes and wild yeast can take hold. Most brewers chill down rapidly and get into a fermenter and pitch the yeast, or do the no chill 'hot cube' method, to avoid infections.

12L won't take that long to cool if you do it in the pot in a sink full of ice slurry, and is best practice. By all means, you can transfer to your fermenter, just know that it needs to be HDPE (those barrel looking ones) or Stainless Steel. Any of the new PET fermenters will melt (the clear plastic fermentasaurus type ones)

Oxidised beer

As for the oxidising of beer, essentially if you think about nappy san or oxyaction cleaners etc, they use oxygen to clean things, because oxygen binds to the molecules and helps with elimination of them. The main form of oxidation you want to concern yourself over (read obsess once you get right into it) is cold side, post fermentation. This means, once the yeast have begun fermenting, any excess oxygen or introduced oxygen will damage the beer.

In non hoppy beers, think traditional ales etc, I perceive it as a slightly wet cardboard type flavour / smell. Not really pleasant, but if it's in a big beer that's meant to have it, it can come across like a sherry type vibe. It's great in barrel aged beers, trappists, Russian Imperial Stouts etc which can benefit from a little oxygen.

In hoppy beers, it basically destroys the aroma and flavour. You end up with a muted hop character, and the beer starts to turn a brownish colour. Think of an apple or banana that you cut open and leave out. Or avocado. It turns brown and the flavour isn't quite there. Hop oils are the same. By no means is it 'bad' for you, or anything. I had a keg of it slowly oxidise when I didn't realise I was introducing air during the transfer and also on a Galaxy SMASH beer I bottled. It was awesome at about the 3 week mark when bottle carbing had really taken effect, but another 2 or 3 weeks later it started to dip down pretty quick. By the end it was like a VB megaswill style taste, where there wasn't really any hop flavour or aroma and more of just a bitterness.

Not saying that it cannot be done, just that hop forward beers traditionally are best kegged, while other beers are better bottled. You may need to brew to your equipment further down the track. Something like a Belgian Wit or a hefe type beer is far better out of a bottle than a keg. So consider chasing down the perfect wheat beer with zesty, fresh, pillowy heads that zings of orange and corriander with hints of banana and clove. Just my opinion, as I feel if you are starting out, NEIPA or hoppy hazy IPAs are one of the hardest beers to get right, and then they go down rapidly if not cared for.
 
As MHB implied, your strike temp is too low. The overall temp of your grains+water is simply a weighted average of the two:

(mass_water*temp_water + mass_grain*temp_grain)/mass_total
So a strike temp of 75°C in your case is more appropriate to get the right mash temp, if we assume your grains are at 25°C:
(15*75 + 3*25)/18 = 66.6°C
 
Close
Its (mass grain *0.4), malt has a much lower thermal capacity than water which is 1
Mark
 
Ah, good catch! I've always done BIAB with a high water:grist ratio, so it's probably been negligible. Good to keep in mind for thicker mashes.
 
Thanks all!

Another follow up q: If i am taking a recipe and halving the amount of grain (due to only having a 20L pot) would this change the mash and boil time??
 
No, mashing and boiling are processes, if you are halving the grain bill you will (hopefully) be halving the water to so its going to be very close to the same L:G (Liquor to Grist or water to grain). So whether its a handful or half a ton of malt process time is the same.
Wishful thinking?
Mark
 
Makes sense - thanks. I've tried converting this recipe to metric, and halving as I only have a 20L pot.
 
Makes sense - thanks. I've tried converting this recipe to metric and halving as I only have a 20L pot.

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/318315/mango-blonde-ale-v2-2
Metric conversions below.

Grain:
  • 1.5kg American - Pale 2-Row
  • 0.9kg American - Pilsner 37 1.8 21.1%
  • 0.45kg Carablonde -Chateau
Hops:
  • 12g Galaxy (Pellet)
  • 10.5g Mosaic (Pellet)
Yeast
  • American Ale Yeast US-05
Steps:
  • Bring 15L to 65 degrees celsius (+ strike temperature)
  • Add grains and mash for 30 minutes
  • Remove grains
  • Bring to boil for 90 minutes
  • Add 1.5 grams of Galaxy
  • With 15 minutes to go, add 3.5 grams of Mosaic
  • With 1 minute to go, add 3.5 grams of Mosaic
  • Reduce head to 76 degrees ceclius
  • Add 3.5 grams of Mosaic
  • Add 10.5 grams of Galaxy
  • Whirlpool for 5 minutes
  • Crash cool to ~20 degrees
  • Add yeast
  • Done
 
I don't have enough information here to put this through my software to see how this pans out. What IBU are the hops? The quantities seem low to me.
A few other things I'd query:
1. Heating your water to 65ºC is not enough. Once you put your grains in, the temperature will drop. You need to raise it by about 5ºC to about 70ºC (well, that's what works on my system) to get back to 65º actual mash temperature.
2. Mashing for 30 minutes will probably give you enough conversion, but I never mash less than 60 minutes, and often longer. I think you will benefit from a longer mash.
3. Seems a lot of the Carablonde for your batch size. I've never seen it sold in Australia, but assume it is simply a light crystal malt.

FYI, American Pale 2 row is simply Pale Ale Malt. Doesn't have to be American. What we get in Aus is local, UK or German. Same with Pilsner Malt.

Anyway, good luck! I'm sure you'll make beer!
 
Here are the IBUs

AmountVarietyCostTypeAAUseTimeIBUBill %
0.10 ozGalaxyPellet16.3Boil90 min6.316.3%
0.25 ozMosaicPellet12.5Boil15 min5.6115.6%
0.25 ozMosaicPellet12.5Boil1 min0.4915.6%
0.75 ozGalaxyPellet16.3Whirlpool at 170 °F5 min7.6346.9%
0.25 ozMosaicPellet12.5Whirlpool at 170 °F5 min1.9515.6%
 
I would not use galaxy for anything more than 10 minutes. It should not be used as a bittering hop, but that's my opinion.

I'm pretty much just moving to Magnum for all bittering to the required IBU for anything at 60.

Also 90m is a long time for bittering, not sure on the reason for it?

Galaxy can give an unpleasant astringency if used as a bittering hop. In my own experience, and I fking LOVE galaxy. Like its in all my hoppy beers.

I have a Citra, Galaxy and BRU-1 on the go right now.
 
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