Low Alc, Strong Flavour Recipe Needed

[wbosher]

Hi guys,

It may go without saying, as I'm posting on this forum, but I like beer. I especially like great tasting, hoppy beer, as opposed to bland commercial ****. That's why I'm doing home brew.

I would like be able to drink a few beers a night, enjoying the great flavour, without getting pissed or feeling dodgy the next morning. Most of my favourite beers are quite high alc like IPAs.

Does any one have a recipe for a BIAB type brew, that tastes like an IPA (or any strong hoppy ale) but with only about 3% alcohol?

I've found a couple of suggestions using kit beers, but not AG.

 

[mje1980]

You could do a midstrength american wheat. 40% wheat, the rest pils, then hop it with your fave US hops. Not stupidly though. Or a US blonde, kind of similar, simple grain bill, maybe 5% light crystal, some wheat, then base malt, and again, hop it with your fave US hops, but not stupidly. I prefer the american wheat kind, they drink really easy, but i think you could get away with dropping it down to 3.5% or so.

 

[Bribie G]

I won a few gongs with a mild that came out around 3.6% and I bet you could apply the same principle to a hoppier ale.
Basically you design a 5% beer then mash it at 71 and use a poorly attenuating yeast such as Ringwood so that the fermentation starts at say 1049 stops at around 1022.
You have to be very careful to hit your strike temp spot on, and don't let it stray into the 60s. I did that once and ended up with a 4% plus beer that I couldn't enter (we had to reveal our starting and finishing gravities on the entry form).

The beer ends up with a lot of malty flavour and body and no it isn't sweet. The idea that dextrins make a beer sweet is ballocks, sort of kittens/airlocks urban myth stuff that has crept onto not just this forum.

Chris White in the Yeast book strays into mashing and knocks that idea firmly in the head, quoting some highly attenuated beers that still have malty sweetness.
Coincidentally I'm doing Xmas brewing right now and thinking of doing a Whale Ale along Mje's lines above but mash at 69 so it doesn't cause family brawls when the rellies descend on us

(Edit: won gongs not the entire comps)

 

[wbosher]

So I'd set the strike temp at around the 74-75ish, and mash at 71.

Does it need to stay at that temp for the entire 90 minutes? I read somewhere that the first 20-30 minutes or so of the mash are the most important, after that it doesn't matter so much if the temp drops a little low.

 

[Nick JD]

So I'd set the strike temp at around the 74-75ish, and mash at 71.

Does it need to stay at that temp for the entire 90 minutes? I read somewhere that the first 20-30 minutes or so of the mash are the most important, after that it doesn't matter so much if the temp drops a little low.

At 71C your mash would be done in 30 minutes.

 

[lagers44]

Try this , CraftBrewer recipe it's off CraftBrewer website. I haven't tried it yet but am planning to give it a go very soon.

 

[wbosher]

Try this , CraftBrewer recipe it's off CraftBrewer website. I haven't tried it yet but am planning to give it a go very soon.

Wow, that's one hell of a lot of ingredients! I've only done one AG brew so trying to keep it pretty simple at this stage, but does look like it would be worth a go when I've got a few more brews under my belt.

 

[drsmurto]

Unashamed plug for one of my house beers - Light Amber Ale

I have a 10L batch of this ccing at the moment with ~130g of homegrown cascade flowers added late.

Plenty of malt and hop character.

I've brewed this with a range of malt, hops and yeast. Current favourite is munich, rye, carabohemian and choc rye with whatever punchy hops i have on hand. Windsor or Ringwood are key - you want the FG to finish above 1.010, preferably closer to 1.020.

 

[stakka82]

I just finished a keg of what you could call a 'mini ipa' - it went down really well.

Pilsner 85%
Wheat 5%
Dark Crystal 5%

Mashed at 68-69c

OG around 1038-40 from memory
FG around 1012

Columbus at 30 and 10 mins to 40 IBU

Dry hop with 1g/l columbus.

Nice fuller body, the dark crystal gives it a bit of depth of malt flavour, just enough to balance the bitterness/hop flavour in such a small beer.

I used US-05. Alc/vol was around 3.7-3.8%.

 

[NewtownClown]

I just finished a keg of what you could call a 'mini ipa' - it went down really well.

Pilsner 85%
Wheat 5%
Dark Crystal 5%

...

Missing 5% fermentables...

 

[seamad]

Explains why it is a mini ipa

 

[Bribie G]

At 71C your mash would be done in 30 minutes.

I learned my "mild" skills from Butters the clit man and he mashed high until an iodine test showed no starches left, which was usually a lot less than an hour.

 

[bum]

Wow, that's one hell of a lot of ingredients! I've only done one AG brew so trying to keep it pretty simple at this stage, but does look like it would be worth a go when I've got a few more brews under my belt.

I haven't brewed it (nor am I about to) so I'm not going to recommend that you do but have a look at the recipe again. All the grains go in at once so it is no more complex than pretty much any other recipe in respect to process. There's only 2 kettle hop additions (15 min and 5) which is much less complicated than many recipes. The only thing that might throw you would be the hop steep but that isn't hard and there's only a single addition for that too (20 min) - it's just like making a cup of tea. The process for that recipe is not complicated.

 

[Markbeer]

Hi

I have always wondered does a shorter mash affect attenuation as well?

Or is everything just converted and that is it???

Also I have found a thinner mash leads to greater attenuation in my beers, mashing at 71* thin still yields good attenuation.

Mark

I learned my "mild" skills from Butters the clit man and he mashed high until an iodine test showed no starches left, which was usually a lot less than an hour.

 

[wbosher]

I haven't brewed it (nor am I about to) so I'm not going to recommend that you do but have a look at the recipe again. All the grains go in at once so it is no more complex than pretty much any other recipe in respect to process. There's only 2 kettle hop additions (15 min and 5) which is much less complicated than many recipes. The only thing that might throw you would be the hop steep but that isn't hard and there's only a single addition for that too (20 min) - it's just like making a cup of tea. The process for that recipe is not complicated.

You're right, there isn't much to do here really. But the sheer number of ingredients threw me a little, especially the different types of hops. I've been mainly looking at recipes with one or two types.

I've just done this:

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 20.0
Total Grain (kg): 4.850
Total Hops (g): 60.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.053 (P): 13.1
Final Gravity (FG): 1.013 (P): 3.3
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 5.21 %
Colour (SRM): 10.3 (EBC): 20.3
Bitterness (IBU): 38.9 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 70
Boil Time (Minutes): 60

Grain Bill
----------------
4.600 kg Pale Ale Malt (94.85%)
0.250 kg Crystal 105 (5.15%)

Hop Bill
----------------
15.0 g Cascade Pellet (7.8% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (0.8 g/L)
15.0 g Cascade Pellet (7.8% Alpha) @ 30 Minutes (Boil) (0.8 g/L)
30.0 g Cascade Pellet (7.8% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (1.5 g/L)

Misc Bill
----------------

Single step Infusion at 66C for 90 Minutes.
Fermented at 18C with Safale US-05



While it didn't go exactly to plan, I think it'll be ok. I might try doing the same one again with a few small tweaks in my methods, and also mash at the higher temperature. Then I can compare the two.

What ya reckon?

 

[bum]

Sounds like a good way to dial your system in and get a handle on process.

 

[jbirbeck]

Unashamed plug for one of my house beers - Light Amber Ale

I have a 10L batch of this ccing at the moment with ~130g of homegrown cascade flowers added late.

Plenty of malt and hop character.

I've brewed this with a range of malt, hops and yeast. Current favourite is munich, rye, carabohemian and choc rye with whatever punchy hops i have on hand. Windsor or Ringwood are key - you want the FG to finish above 1.010, preferably closer to 1.020.

FG finishing abov 1010 is key IMHO as Smurto has said. there are few ways to achieve that. Use of the right spec malts to get the mouthfeel right and the right malt, Smurto's recipe using Munich as the base is a good one too. The big failing of smaller beers is they taste 'thin'.

I've used aMunich base and a good dose of spec with a high mash temp to go 1037ish to 1016ish an support a good dose of late hops without the late hop astringency.

 

[stakka82]

Missing 5% fermentables...

sorry, that should be 90% pils

 

[timmi9191]

Try doc yard glass session light in the recipe database. http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...&recipe=507
I did this extract style as follows:Amber lme 1.5kgLdme .25kgDry wheat me .25kgDextrose .25 kgMaltodex .1kg 10 g magnum and cascade "@ 15mins 15g magnum and cascade @ 5mins Love it. Wouldn't know it's a mid strength!!

 

[Impy]

Wow, that's one hell of a lot of ingredients! I've only done one AG brew so trying to keep it pretty simple at this stage, but does look like it would be worth a go when I've got a few more brews under my belt.

Yeah I think that recipe is taking the piss a bit. Keep it simple I say.

I did a bit of research on low ABV beers and came up with the below recipe.

I 've yet to taste the results, although into the fermenter it smelled amazing. It's mainly Cascade and Chinook.. the Galaxy is just because I had some dregs in the freezer I wanted to use.

1kg Light DME
300g Crystal Malt
300g Cara Pills

12g Chinook @ 60
10g Galaxy @ 20
20g Cascade @ 20
10G Chinook @ 5
20g Cascade @ 5

Est IBU: 37
Est ABV: 2.7%