BIAB recipe. What do you guys think/suggestions?

[akebrewing]

So I've just finished my second BIAB and have bottled my first. First was really bitter but quite refreshing APA. I've already start researching/putting together a recipe for my next brew a amber ale.


Grain
1.5 kg of victory malt
1.5 kg of crystal malt 30
1kg of munich malt
1kg of vienna malt

Hops
40g of Liberty start of the boil
15g of citra 15min, 15g of citra 10min
then 50g of citra for dry hopping.

 

[Spiesy]

That's a lot of specialty malt, mate.

30% Victory and 30% Crystal Medium (in particular) is a tonne.
>>try and keep your specialties to around 10% of your grain bill, in total.

I brewed a hoppy American Amber yesterday, my grain bill was:
78% Briess 2 Row
11.3% Weyermann Munich 1
6% Simpsons Medium Crystal
3% Simpsons Dark Crystal
1.7% Simpsons Chocolate

Also, what size batch are you doing, what is your mash temp, boil duration and yeast selection?

 

[akebrewing]

Yeah this is my first time making my own recipe. My batch size is 20L. Mash temp around 68-69, boil for about 90 min and for yeast i was just going to use US-05. Any suggestions on what grains i should change?

 

[Phoney]

With a high mash temp and that much crystal its going to be sickly sweet. Is that what you're after?

Maybe have a look at other tried and tested recipes on here and then come up with your own tweaks based on them, using ingredients that you have.

 

[Samuel Adams]

I'd replace 1kg of the crystal & 1.25kg of the victory with base malt
I would also go with a dark crystal instead of light.

 

[akebrewing]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm still learning what each grain are and their properties. So a base malt like Barret Buston- Ale Malt? Also is 2 kg of Munich 1 too much?

 

[philmud]

Munich can be used as a base malt but you might be better off keeping it simple this time round and using the BB ale malt in place of the munich and the Vienna. Munich gives a very malty flavour & if you're aiming for a hoppy pale it might detract from that. If you want a decent malt profile you could consider something like Maris otter as the base.

Get hold of some brewing software (brewmate is free, or Craftbrewer have beersmith for cheap) and punch some of these ingredients in. That'll give you an idea of whether your recipe is to style, and the OG & FG. From there you can tweak it to taste.

 

[akebrewing]

Thanks for your help guys! Do you guys have any articles or info on brewing recipes I could read. I'm guessing it just comes from experience.

 

[nzefactor]

Thanks for your help guys! Do you guys have any articles or info on brewing recipes I could read. I'm guessing it just comes from experience.

Hey mate in regards to info on ingredients, try searching for threads about each malt i.e. searching for 'light crystal' or 'vienna malt' and you'll pretty quickly get an idea on how guys tend to use the different malts in recipes, at what %s, etc. Also check out the other big online homebrewing forums (homebrewtalk, brewingnetwork, beeradvocate, etc) as well as AHB, pretty much any question you've got has probably been covered and has a 20 page thread buried somewhere on the net.

Sites such as BYO.com are also good sources of info.

 

[Spiesy]

Thanks for your help guys! Do you guys have any articles or info on brewing recipes I could read. I'm guessing it just comes from experience.

If you're after info on brewing recipes, I can highly recommend the book 'Brewing Classic Styles'. It's a great way to try out recipes and make your adjustments from there. It's often been a source of inspiration for me.

To read up on malts, you can always consult the maltsters websites, retails sites and forums - as others have suggested.
There will also be a book on Malt coming out in a couple of month, which I've already pre-ordered, to complete the series (Water, Hops and Yeast are already out, respectively).

Hope that helps.

 

[boybrewer]

Do a search here . Go to the top of the page and click on recipes , look for the ones with 3 or 4 stars on them . You could also do Dr Smurtos Golden ale its a ripper recipe . There are also tweaks on this recipe as well . Try a SMASH recipe Single Malt And Single Hop this will give you an understanding of what each malt and hop tastes like . Google grains and adjuncts and it will pop up with a BYO article that gives you a description of each individual grains etc.....