Developing First Partial Recipe But Fairly Confused

[manticle]

For my next brew I'm aiming to do a partial mash. Up until now I've done a couple of extract + specialty grain, a few kits and extracts and quite a few kits.

While I found it easy to develop basic recipes with LME, I'm not so sure when it comes to calculating amounts of grain and how they'll effect the wort gravity. I also have no idea in the world how to calculate efficiency.

Basically I want to make a strong stout with distinct coffee and chocolate flavours. To the potential chagrin of some people on this boar, I've previously made coffee/chocolate extract/kits and bits brews in which I used organic cocoa and ground coffee. They turned out well BUT (to the possible delight of aforementioned people) I've tasted some lovely stouts which contain similar flavours which are far better integrated and come only from the malts (Holgate being one of those).

So I'd like to try a similar thing. They possibly roast their own - I'll be fiddling with available products.

The types of grain I think may be pertinent are:

British Black patent
Some kind of chocolate malt (possibly Belgian and/or british??)
Some kind of crystal malt
Roasted Barley
Belgian biscuit (just because it sounds delicious)

If there are other suggestions I'd love to hear them.

I'll be adding liquid malt extract - probably Morgans and probably chocolate malt and/or black malt.
I am also looking at lactose for a little bit of sweetness and maybe some liquorice or a house stout mix with DME and liquorice (available at my LHBS)

Hops - Northern Brewer for bittering and fuggles for flavour and aroma.
Total volume probably 20 L
Eventual ABV around 7-8

How do I go about working out amounts of each? I tend to use beer recipator to calculate my recipes but nomally I have a much better idea of how to start it.

Any guidance is greatly appreciated.

 

[Gavo]

I am not one for manually working out the calculations involved. Instead I use Beersmith. Here is a link. Download the free trial and give it a go. Makes life a lot easier even if it is just used as a guide.
Since this would be your first partial go with 70% efficiency and then work from there. Post your recipe up for others to look at and use the recipe DB.

Cheers
Gavo.

 

[manticle]

Ok.

@gavo

I tried downloading the demo version of beersmith several weeks ago and it confused the **** out of me.

However your suggestion made me think (a rarity but not the first time) that if I fiddle around with amounts in beer recipator.org (which is fairly straightforward) I should be able to hit my target IBU and ABV. I'm not knowledgeable enough to work out the balance of flavours so maybe that's where others can help. I'm also not sure about the ratio of water to grain which I understand is more important with mashing than with steeping.

So far I have:

Beer: 1st partial stout
Style: Imperial Stout
Type: Partial mash
Size: 20 liters
Color: 402 HCU
Bitterness: 33 IBU
OG: 1.084 FG: 1.020
Alcohol: 8.3% v/v (6.5% w/w)

Grain:
300g Belgian biscuit
300g British crystal 50-60L
400g Belgian chocolate
400g British chocolate
400g British black patent
300g Roasted barley
Mash: 70% efficiency
Boil: 60 minutes
SG 1.113 15 liters

Extracts:
3kg Dark malt liquid extract (probably Morgan's Chocolate malt or chocolate + black)
1kg Dark dry malt extract (probably cellar plus stout mix which is DME + liquorice + dextrose although I'm keen not to add any simple sugars so it may be just DME + Liquorice)

Hops:
20g Northern Brewer (8.5% AA, 60 min.)
15g Bullion (8.5% AA, 45 min.)
15g Northern Brewer (8.5% AA, 45 min.)
20g Fuggles (4.75% AA, 30 min.)
10g Fuggles (4.75% AA, 15 min.)

Adjuncts: 200g lactose


Does that look on the right path or simply terrible?

 

[Josh]

When I first got into making my own recipes, I found beertools.com a pretty handy resource. Using the recipe calculator, you put in what style of beer you want and the amounts of ingredients you want to use and it'll tell you what you should end up with and how close to style it is.

After you decide partials (and AG) is where you're heading, I recommend Daniels "Designing Great Beers" to help you with recipe formulation. I wound up writing my own excel spreadsheet based on the principles in this book. Pretty much the only place I make my recipes these days.

 

[Gavo]

Not all that good at putting all the flavors together yet myself. I generally use the recipe DB and change the grain bill and hop schedule to what I think I will like. I also read the descriptions of the malts from CraftBrewers website. It has worked well so far.
I have only brewed the one stout so far and it is still in the cube. It is a partial and was a full boil. However looking at the recipe (not crunching the numbers) I would look at the chocolate malts as they apparently can be quite strong in flavor.
According to beersmith, an imperial stout should be between 50 and 90 IBU.
Amount of water is easy, 2 - 2.5 liters per kilo and mash for 60min. For a partial you can sparge until the boil volume is reached.

Cheers
Gavo.