First AG "own" recipe

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Elderfi

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Hi,

After using my GUTEN 40L system to knock out a few recipes, with pretty good success, I want to try my hand at creating my own beer. I got myself a subscription to BeerSmith (pretty cool software!) and started playing around with it to come up with a pale ale I want to put down on Friday. Be great to get peoples thoughts! Here is what I am thinking:


Fermentables:
5kgs of American Ale (Gladfields)
0.5 kgs of medium crystal

Pre boil volume: 26 litres
Post boil volume: 21 litres

Hops:
14g of Magnum @ 60 mins (24.9 IBUs)
28g of Centennial @ 0 mins (10.8 IBUs)
28g of Amarillo @ 0 mins (9.9 IBUs)
28g of Centennial @ 4 days before bottling (0 IBUs)
28g of Amarillo @ 4 days before bottling (0 IBUs)

Yeast:
US-05

Steep / Whirlpool till temperature drops to 85C-80C (my guess around 15-20 minutes) then transfer to cube. Sound OK? This will also be my first time whirlpooling / steeping, my previous brews I have cube hopped, and while they have turned out OK, probably a little on the bitter/astringent end. So I am hoping that this will improve on that?

Any advice, as always, is much appreciated!

As an aside, I have deliberately left out the mash steps, as I will be doing a standard GUTEN mash process (well standard for me) where I fill to 20L mash then sparge up to 26L mark - which seems to work well.

Thanks

Adam
 
There is nothing irrational in there. 5-10% crystal, balance base malt describes the grain bill for a large fraction of the worlds commercially made ales, your at about 9% so the grain bill is fine.
35-36IBU isn't outrageous, how well that fits into your finished beers flavour will depend largely on your mash temperature and the resulting FG. With that bitterness and a reasonably large amount of late hops. If you mashed for a medium to full body it should taste pretty balanced. Magnum is one of my go to bittering hops, its so clean and neutral it shouldn't interfere with your other hop choices.

Without a lot more information its hard to say other than that it looks like a sensible APA
If you are doing any water chemistry I wouldn't go all Sulphate, probably choose 2:1 Sulphate to Chloride or 1:1 if you want a softer beer. Do de-Chlorinate your water!

Couple to think about or maybe to try later.
Personally I would choose something a bit more interesting than just a medium crystal malt, Heritage Crystal would bring a little something extra without changing the beer too much.
You could substitute 5-10% of your base malt for Wheat malt it helps with head retention in the finished beer. When I'm designing recipes I usually add some wheat, both for the better head. Wheat, lacking a husk denser than barley malt, I mostly brew on Baumeister's and like all the other single vessel systems, there is a pretty tight limit on how much malt you can fit in, use a whack of wheat and you can get a bit more in if you are looking for more gravity or volume.

Good first recipe, looks like your heading in the right direction (toward good beer)
Mark
 
Looks like a great recipe - a really good way to start. +1 for MHB's comments on crystal & wheat malt for head retention.

I would say to keep it less complicated to begin, see how it goes & then add/change/remove ingredients based on taste/result, see how that goes on the second attempt & so on...
 
Thanks for the comments both. I was worried about having only zero minute additions and letting that steep before transferring to the cube but I read an article by the guy who created BeerSmith and his view was late kettle additions are not all that chop anyway and big hop additions at flame out and dry hopping was where the action is.

In any case, worst case scenario I'll make a good beer, best case scenario I'll make the best beer I have to date :)
 
I have only used a little of the Gladfields malts, they were good malt, very good in fact.
They do have a world class website, there is lots of good information on different types of malts and how they play in a brew. A few other maltsters could take a bit of notice. The Recipes are well worth a brows to.
Mark
 

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