First Recipe Help! Amarilla Pale.

[Morgz]

G-Day!

Long time reader, first time poster. Have been brewing for a bit over a year, all grain for 9 months and now use the Brewzilla 35L. I still bottle at the moment.
Have been working on creating my own recipe for months. I enjoy all styles, but find myself coming back to PA, APA, XPA, IPA.

I am a father of 1.5, (Pregnant wife) and like to have a couple of beers after work. I enjoy running around wearing the little one out, so hence the low ABV.
The recipe I am trying to design is going to be an APA around 4%, light to drink, medium/ high hop forward, but still with a little body to not make it feel like a low ABV beer. Can anyone look at my recipe and give any pointers. Feel free to tear it to shreds or pat me on the back. I'm all ears.
Amarilla Pale
37% Traditional pale Joe White
37% Pilsner Joe White
15% Flaked wheat
5% Carahell Weyermann
5% Carapils Weyermann
1% Acidulated Malt Weyermann

21L 3.5%ABV then bottle condition, almost 4%
BU:GU 0.88
Ph-5.4
Water Profile ppm
CA-110
MG-18
NA-17
CL-50
S04-350
CAC03-57
HC03-69.5

Hop schedule
First wort nugget 5.3IBU
10min Amarillo 6.9IBU
Citra 2.5IBU
Yeast nutrient and whirfloc
5min Amarillo 7.7IBU
Citra 2.5IBU
Hopstand 80°C for 10min
Amarillo 4.4IBU
Citra 2.4IBU

Mash was thinking 70°C for 60mins
Mashout 75°C 10mins

Ferment US-05 @ 18°C for 14-21 days.
No dry hop.
Carbonation 2.5Vol/Co2.

 

[Barry]

Looks good. I don"t like carapils, it does nothing that the other grains are already doing. I would replace it with carared or cararuby. If not available double the carahell to had a bit more balancing character. All the best.

 

[MHB]

Sort of agree with Barry, Carapilis is much misused, love Carahell and the subtle caramel flavour and golden hue it brings. But a 5% addition should help with head formation/retention, which is probably why its in there. Wheat malt helps to.
Don't understand why people are using multiple or mixed base malts, Ale will bring more body to the beer, which is what you are looking for, so why use Pilsner at all?

Acidulated Malt is used to lower the pH. Looks to me like you are adding Bicarbonate, at least the local water hasn't got all that much in the way of Bicarbonate, pretty low in Carbonate to. Both of these raise the pH so if you are putting them into your water - Why?
I also suspect you wont get a pH of 5.4 with what you have there, I get closer to 5.6-5.7pH (fingercounting). Might be worth adding a bit more Acid malt, remember 1% of grist lowers the pH by 0.1.

I would be tempted to mash a little lower, say around 66-67oC trust the Flaked Wheat to give you the body, at 70oC I think it might be just a bit too dextrinious (gluey).
75oC isn't really a mashout, a mashout is to end all enzyme activity and to make the wort as fluid as possible, try 78oC or even 80oC. Same for sparge water if you are doing a sparge 80oC with a touch of acid added is the nuts.

S-04 being less attenuative would leave a little more body in the beer than would US-05.
The ferment should be finished in a lot less than 14 days. Its a pretty good rule of thumb that if the ferment isn't over in 7 days - you underpitched. One 11g packet of either should see you there, especially in a lowish (~1.036) gravity beer. I'm guessing your OG will be around 1.035-6 all things being equal there is a good chance it will finish around 1.006-1.008, might give you a touch more alcohol than your expecting.
If you leave beer on the yeast for more than 14 days you will start seeing harm from yeast autolysis. The first sign is usually the release of Protease A an enzyme that degrades some of the key head building proteins in beer. After that you start to see off flavour's.
Best to get the beer out of the fermenter within 14 days, either to package or into a second fermenter (racking), or pitch enough yeast that you don't need to wait longer.

Not trying to tear you a new one. As is you would make a good beer, I do think there is a bit of room for refinement and a slight case of over exposure to forum thinking, stuff like leaving beer in the fermenter too long is pretty basic - just not a convenient truth for many. I find you make the best beers by getting your processes right and keeping the ingredients simple, get the basics right then build on them.
Never add Carbonate unless your getting a pH lower than 5.2, its just pointless.
I'm only getting around 8 EBC, which is very pale, maybe a bit of Vienna or Light Munich in your base malt would be a good way to get body and a bit of colour...
You know the old "ask 4 brewers and get 5 opinions..." lots of ways to get where your going luckily enough its a fun journey.
Mark

 

[Morgz]

I thought that too Barry, about the carapils, they don't contribute much in terms of flavour, i just thought it may fit by adding a little body. I have made so may versions of this recipe its not funny.

 

[Morgz]

Mark, mate, you hit the nail on the head with everything you said. I appreciate your advice mate. You are right, internet trolling can be confusing at times.
I actually agree with you about the mixed base malts, I haven't ever tried it, in my mind it would only work with say a mix of pilsner and vienna, or pilsner and maris otter. Think i will scrap that too. Maybe one day I will do a side by side brew to see a difference.
I thought of using S-04, jowever, have been playing around with lallemand new England with my last 5 brews, and am starting to get a little over the estery flavour it contributes. I'm sure S-04 is totally different though.
Thanks on the tip with mash temp, a few batches ago I tried 69°C and wasn't impressed with the results. The best pale I've made was at 67°C. It sounds like the flaked wheat will do what I want it to do then, its another first for me. Was planning to add a little rice hull aswell to get consistency right.
You are spot on with the OG, and I was worried about the FG getting low like you said, hence the high mash temp. As I'm writing this, I remember reading about one way get the FG where you want it is with yeast selection, i will try S-04, ive used 05 a couple times.
I've heard about autolysis, but have also heard about leaving it on the cake to "Clean up." I guess its a fine line. I don't believe I under pitch, I usually wash and build up, or just buy a liquid and build it up, steal a bit for reserves and pitch the rest.

It didn't sound like you were ripping me a new one at all, I'm just happy with any advice I can take, I'm honered to have you respond to my thread, I've read your advice all over this forum. Its funny, but different versions of my recipe have had vienna and munich in them at different stages. I think i just need to pick one and brew it, then modify and keep refining.
Brewfather is saying 6.5ebc, you are good.
I'm adding gypsum, calcium chloride and Epsom salt to both mash and sparge water.
Haven't had to use carbonate ever.
The acid malt truth be told in brewfather is 2.1%. I just started rounding all other percentages up to next whole figure and realised I'd go over 100% if I put that in. I will give it one more crack and post the new malt grist if you don't mind having a look just before I order ingredients and have a crack.

Cheers again.

 

[MHB]

We probably share a local home brew shop, Brewman, I'll be out there tomorrow getting some malt and doing a bit of work. Anyway Steve is always worth hitting up for some recipe ideas and there are a bunch on BrewBuilder that you can play with.
~2% Acidulated malt sounds about right in our local water (typical analysis attached), the carbonate is way lower than you are reporting, I suspect you might have used "Total Hardness as Calcium Carbonate" which is sort of a sum of what all the hardness added together would be if it was all CaCO3 not made of bits and pieces.
Mark

 

[Morgz]

Hey guys,

I have modified again, see attached pictures of brew father, let me know what you think for a 4%er bottle conditioned.

 

[Morgz]

Hey Mark, a fellow novacastrian. I used converted CAC03 to HC03. CAC03 x 1.22.
57x1.22=69.5. I used the current version on their website, its dated 2018. Im not going to pretend I know much about water chemistry. Gavin taught me that, aka Gash Slugg.

 

[MHB]

There are about a million right answers - looks like one of them!
You could make lots of other choices, like I would go for UK Crystal over Australian most times, probably even German like Carahell or CM1. Not a right wrong choice just personal taste and you're brewing for you.
Haven't done any numbers but the mineral salts, especially the CaSO4 looks pretty high, might be worth running an eye over it again.
Brew it and see how you like it, be good if you let people know how it turns out.
Mark

Had to look up who Gash Slugg was - Hum
Go to bru'n water and have a read
M

 

[Morgz]

I'm beginning to learn that Mark. You know what's funny, that recipe is similar to my first attempt at this. None of which I have brewed.
I will have to open that link on a PC I think, doesn't seem to open on phone.
I will re-evaluate water profile.
My target profile is as follows.
Ca-127
Mg-20
Na-24
Cl-52
S04-350
Hc03-62
Will have to read up further if this may not be suitable.
Looks like I have a decent start, I will brew it, sample and see if I can work out what might make it better. I will report back, i will need about a month to give a carbonation taste, still bottling. I will come back to talk about brew day first.

 

[Kranky]

Just to add a bit on what's already been said - mashing at 70C will give you a sweeter beer. Sweet alcohol puts more strain on your liver as it has to contend with both sugar and alcohol so will make hangovers worse. Mashing at 66C will give you are dryer beer with less sugar.

 

[Number99]

Like the look of this recipe - and a sessionable IPA for a father of 2 (you'd think we'd wanna up the ABV ).

Be keen to know how turns out.

 

[Morgz]

Kranky, thanks mate. I didn't think of that, it makes perfect sense to me. I've changed it to 67°C with the new recipe design, along with a lower attenuating yeast to stop it from going bone dry. Im usually pretty happy with around 1.010 FG.

 

[Morgz]

Alright lads,
I finally got around to brewing this. The final recipe was as follows.
21L
2.2kg JW Traditional pale 64%
.5kg Gambrinus dark munich ( made a mistake, was meant to get light) 14.5%
.5kg flaked wheat 14.5%
.18kg Weyermann Carahell 5.2%
.06kg Weyermann Acidulated 1.7%

FWH 3g nugget
10min 15g Amarillo
2g citra cryo
5min 25g Amarillo
3g citra cryo
Hopstand 80°C 15min 50g Amarillo
10g citra cryo
Water
Ca 127
Mg 20
Na 24
Cl 52
S04 350
HCO 62

PH 5.3
BU:GU 0.87
IBU 32
67°C mash
13.8 EBC

So, I won't lie, I had a shocker with the efficiency, target was 1.036, I got 1.030. I didn't want a 2%er, so I added some coopers BE 1, that's all I had on hand.
So the beer will turn out differently than it was meant to, i will have to use light munich next time and brew again. Think my eff is down from the fast sparge, not sure how to slow it down on Brewzilla.
On a positive note, the flavour was great, looking forward to the final result. Will report back.