Another Newbie Biab Recipe

[stixjew]

Hi all, i joined this excellent resource a few months ago and have read as much as humanly possible since then everyday on here.Ive done 4 kit brews so far with decent yeast, temp control spec malts and added hop pellets to every brew ( they taste nice )but now have decided to go AG and just jump in.

I just purchased a second hand a keg with top cutoff,2 wort chillers (copper coils) got mum to make me a swiss voil bag, a valley grain mill second hand, 4 corny kegs and a few fonts. I have a fermenting fridge,heat pad and stc 1000 going great guns so hav that part done and fermenters and temp probes etc.All i need to get is a 4 ring burner now and im ready for my first full BIAB.Plus an easy recipe.I read somewhere (which i cant now find) an (one of many) excellent post by NIckjd about an easy Aussie Alewith POR hops? I wish to do a full boil to finish with 23 odd litres of wort for fermenting.
Basically i want to buy a 25 kg bag of grain for my first few easy brews and was thinking of adding just one spec malt to start with along the lines of NIckjds recipe and POR hop pellets. First question is, is the Aussie Ale Malt 25kg from Craftbrewer a good starting point or should i fork out a bit more for quality or another base malt? Also how much crystal ( or other ) could i put in to improve the base malt for head, body and mouthfeel. I just want an easy starter, easy swilling beer first. Thanks for your suggestions, what a great forum- keep it up!

 

[ekul]

I use barret burston ale malt for everything. Its a great base malt and n excellent place to start.

If you follow AndrewQLD recipe for coopers pale ale from the database you can do three things when it comes to adding yeast. Use US05 and ferment at 18C for an aussie ale, use s189 and ferment at 12C to make an aussie lager or reculture some coopers yeast and ferment @ 16.5C for a coopers pale ale clone. I've done all three and my favourite is the coopers yeast, however the s189 aussie lager always goes down well with mates.
I make the sugar version, however i've tasted the all malt version and its great as well.
Good luck with it mate!

Hi all, i joined this excellent resource a few months ago and have read as much as humanly possible since then everyday on here.Ive done 4 kit brews so far with decent yeast, temp control spec malts and added hop pellets to every brew ( they taste nice )but now have decided to go AG and just jump in.

I just purchased a second hand a keg with top cutoff,2 wort chillers (copper coils) got mum to make me a swiss voil bag, a valley grain mill second hand, 4 corny kegs and a few fonts. I have a fermenting fridge,heat pad and stc 1000 going great guns so hav that part done and fermenters and temp probes etc.All i need to get is a 4 ring burner now and im ready for my first full BIAB.Plus an easy recipe.I read somewhere (which i cant now find) an (one of many) excellent post by NIckjd about an easy Aussie Alewith POR hops? I wish to do a full boil to finish with 23 odd litres of wort for fermenting.
Basically i want to buy a 25 kg bag of grain for my first few easy brews and was thinking of adding just one spec malt to start with along the lines of NIckjds recipe and POR hop pellets. First question is, is the Aussie Ale Malt 25kg from Craftbrewer a good starting point or should i fork out a bit more for quality or another base malt? Also how much crystal ( or other ) could i put in to improve the base malt for head, body and mouthfeel. I just want an easy starter, easy swilling beer first. Thanks for your suggestions, what a great forum- keep it up!

 

[loikar]

Hi all, i joined this excellent resource a few months ago and have read as much as humanly possible since then everyday on here.Ive done 4 kit brews so far with decent yeast, temp control spec malts and added hop pellets to every brew ( they taste nice )but now have decided to go AG and just jump in.

I just purchased a second hand a keg with top cutoff,2 wort chillers (copper coils) got mum to make me a swiss voil bag, a valley grain mill second hand, 4 corny kegs and a few fonts. I have a fermenting fridge,heat pad and stc 1000 going great guns so hav that part done and fermenters and temp probes etc.All i need to get is a 4 ring burner now and im ready for my first full BIAB.Plus an easy recipe.I read somewhere (which i cant now find) an (one of many) excellent post by NIckjd about an easy Aussie Alewith POR hops? I wish to do a full boil to finish with 23 odd litres of wort for fermenting.
Basically i want to buy a 25 kg bag of grain for my first few easy brews and was thinking of adding just one spec malt to start with along the lines of NIckjds recipe and POR hop pellets. First question is, is the Aussie Ale Malt 25kg from Craftbrewer a good starting point or should i fork out a bit more for quality or another base malt? Also how much crystal ( or other ) could i put in to improve the base malt for head, body and mouthfeel. I just want an easy starter, easy swilling beer first. Thanks for your suggestions, what a great forum- keep it up!

Awesome!, another one keen to make beer from grain!

Great work!!

Now, your grain.....

First question..... do you own a grain mill??
If not, you're going to need one to 'crack your grain sack'... (SCADOOOSH!!! see what I did there?.... ******* comical genius!!)

First thing I would do is work out what beer you like the best, be it commercial or craft. And which one you could drink the most of.
Purely because there's no point buying a sack of pilsner malt if it's really a pale malt you're looking for.
Then research some clone recipes for your selected style\brand.

For your first brew, just order the grain you need, brew it and make sure you like what you made.
From there order your sack of base malt. then you can tweek the specialty malts with each brew.

For an easy ale, try:
85% Base malt
10% Wheat
5% Crystal

As for your hops, look at your selected style of beer and what hops they use in the recipe.
from there you can work out what hops you like and from there you can sub in and out different hops to see what impact it has.

Welcome to total control over your beer...

It's a beautiful thing...

Cheers,

BF

 

[Nick JD]

I find there's very little difference between BB's Ale, and Pale malts except the Ale is slightly darker.

Both make a good Aussie beer.

I use Weyermann Pale Ale malt for my APAs because I reckon it's got a great flavour.

For a simple Aussie lager it's a good idea to add about 5% BB Caramalt. If you mash at 65-67C you really don't need any spec malts to inprove body and head retention.

Go for a Premium Aussie Lager - where there's some malt flavour, and some body - what the megaswill companies would do if they wanted to shit on their shareholders and please their customers.

Or, forget about average beers altogether and get some Weyermann German Pilsner and some Hallertau and make a Euro Lager.

While the German grains cost $15 more a sack, that's only cents per schooner extra. Someone else can school ya on the Pom malts, that's my next excursion and currently I know nuffink bout it.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

My base malt (for winter especially) is Bairds Perle Malt (though I'm currently fermenting TF FM Perle as a comparison).

Great malty flavour, good for english beers, APA (so long as you adjust the hops up) and even good for a continental style lager. Sure, not quite into style, but the speed as which the keg disappeared bespeaks others like for the beers it produces.

Goomba

 

[Bribie G]

Another good all rounder malt is Bairds Perle, by the sack from CB.
It's a lovely pale malt with a clean malty richness that also goes well in "lager lookalikes"

LRJ beat me to it

 

[RdeVjun]

Another vote for Perle for versatility, considering you want to buy it by the sack. Not sure if you can get Bairds in anything less than a sack ATM from CB, but the Thomas Fawcett stuff should be quite OK regardless. :icon_cheers:

 

[stixjew]

Ok so bairds Perle it is for the base malt, should i add anything else to tart it up a bit, mabee one spec malt? IM keen on most styles of beer and tend to buy a different six pack of imported or Aussie craft beers each time i hit the bottleo.I would like a clear beer that my friends who all love yukky megaswill can drink easily but nothing too bland as i have to like it as well, so nice and malty with a nice light hoppy finish or run of the mill POR!

Also should i start with around 35 litres of water for the mash to end up with around 23 litres of wort post boil? And is a grain bill of around 5kgs total a good round figure to start with.Ive downloaded beersmith but its a bit daunting to me still, soo many variables and hard to find some of the abovementioned malts on the list. Thanks again for some great advice.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

My house lager is 5kg Perle, 200g of Caramunich I. Works a treat. I have currently a beer that uses 300g caramunich I and 200g of Rye, but if clarity is what you're looking for, don't use rye.

IBU to 30 IBU for megaswill mates. I generally go with about 20 IBU at 30mins (using a 10-14% AA hop) and the balance up to 30 IBU (i.e. the other 10 IBU) at 10 minutes. It's a simple rule of thumb that produces a fairly consistent result. I can replicate it across different malt bases and hops, and know I'm going to be in the ball park for a good APA.

US05 for the yeast. Or nottingham for a basic lager-esque beer.

Dry hop the crap out of it, since it adds no bitterness, but you'll pour a glass and they'll spend the next 10 min sniffing it, trying to figure it out - it's priceless, seriously.

Goomba

Edit: look in my sign for a couple of my APA, you'll get the gist. Make your own recipe, but the fundamentals are there for your tweakage.

 

[stixjew]

Thanks a million, will try the 5kgs Perle - 300gms of caramunich 1 and POR for main bittering then tart it up with some dry hopping and mabee a touch of a small 10 minute addition of something like galaxy or Amarillo.Cant wait to get started!

 

[manticle]

Personally I'd keep it simple and just use the PoR for bittering and nothing else (no late hop or dry hop). Cluster and PoR work well as a bittering addition together though and plenty of flavour carries through.

A lot of people insist bittering additions have no impact on flavour but I beg, very strongly, to differ. Galaxy and amarillo will probably work together but I wouldn't be in a rush to mix either with PoR.

 

[kymba]

don't complicate it in the beginning - i did and regret every time i swayed from tried & true recipes

learn to know the differences that different malts & hops bring to the table (not that i do ), not just chuck the whole lot in and hope you pick what X amount of spec malt did what to the flavour

or hey, tell me to get fkd and do whatever you want, it's your beer - but maybe try just the one addition of POR, then next brew add the amarillo and whatnots

 

[stixjew]

Thanks for the heads up guys i will just stick with POR as suggested and try not to get too excited just yet lol, it's hard too refrain, reading so many different posts about wonderful flavours.I liked my extract version of Dr Smuro's recipe with the Amarillo but may wait a few more brews first, admittedly i have only tried 3 hop styles thus far and liked them all, not that i am hard to please. Cheers

 

[stixjew]

Just put my order in to Ross at CB. He didnt have the Bairds Perle anymore so substituted for the Thomas Fawcett Floor malted Perle instead, cant wait to get started milling!!!!

 

[stixjew]

O.k so i have another million questions but will refrain and only post two! I have a "The valley grain mill" and i cant find much info online about the settings, so how fine do i mill my grain, im guessing quite fine like flour for biab? Can i do it too fine though?
Secondly how do i work out efficiency easily?, or which is the best site with easy calulations to follow. I have all the ingredients and my burner turning up in the next few days and will be brewing saturday first October weekend, can't wait.

 

[QldKev]

O.k so i have another million questions but will refrain and only post two! I have a "The valley grain mill" and i cant find much info online about the settings, so how fine do i mill my grain, im guessing quite fine like flour for biab? Can i do it too fine though?
Secondly how do i work out efficiency easily?, or which is the best site with easy calulations to follow. I have all the ingredients and my burner turning up in the next few days and will be brewing saturday first October weekend, can't wait.

Between these and your prior questions, just letting you know there is a search link

 

[manticle]

And use the google bar just above the default search bar as the default one is useless.

I think the existence of the default search bar may be responsible for the bad searching skills/repeated questions of many here.

 

[Nick JD]

The lack of existence of a "Searching Sticky" on forums that have a dedicated army of "DO A FUCKIN SEARCH, NOOB" type people is probably because...

...none of the "Do a search" people have bothered to actually teach people how to search.

After the tenth, "Do a search" - how about writing a searching sticky? It'll make you feel all warm and fuzzy.

 

[Bribie G]

My results for "Irish Red" in the Recipes and Ingredients Sub Forum using the default search button.

Nuff Said <_<




Search on mill gap settings? I dooont think soooooo..... :blink:

 

[1974Alby]

And use the google bar just above the default search bar as the default one is useless.

I think the existence of the default search bar may be responsible for the bad searching skills/repeated questions of many here.

Agreed..I never use it anymore..just the google one. I reckon they should take it off