My First Attempt At A Receipe

[kbe]

Do people think that this may work? Any thoughts? I do want to have it taste a bit more caramel flavored than bitter, to see what it would be like. To try to make it easier to see I have just done a capture.

TIA,
Ken..

 

[bum]

What's your boil time going to be for the hops?

 

[kbe]

I was figuring on doing a mini mash and soaking the hops (or getting some in a bag) and then adding. I choose the hops that are in the recipe as they sound like ones that I could get in a tea bag.

 

[bum]

I have no idea what that means.

 

[citizensnips]

haha bum...nice. he means like 60 minutes, 30 minutes, 15 etc.....

 

[bum]

I have no idea what that means either.

 

[bum]

I was figuring on doing a mini mash and soaking the hops (or getting some in a bag) and then adding. I choose the hops that are in the recipe as they sound like ones that I could get in a tea bag.

At the risk of adding some remotely helpful advice, tea bags are just about the worst way you can buy hops (I can think of one other way, GLS) - pellets are a huge step up in quality and in the volumes you're talking about the loose pellets getting into primary won't be detrimental to your brew. Also choosing hops because you assume they "sound" like anything at all is another bad way to select hops. This board is full of knowledgeable blokes with broad experience of many varieties of hops and they are usually pretty forthcoming with info about them. You can find enough info to remove a large portion of the mentioned guesswork.

Apologies if the above seems at all harsh but I want your beer to be tops.

Back to my original question. How long do you intend to boil the hops for? This may will effect the bitterness and higher bitterness will work towards masking the caramel you're hoping to have prominent in your beer.

 

[dth]

From the looks of your recipe it should be a tasty, malt driven brew. IBU of 17.9 is probably a bit high for a mild, but with all the malt additions it should balance out nicely. I can't say I've used the Morgan's Caramalt blend before, but that weight sounds pretty good along with the LDM and crystal.

Carafa II is an excellent grain in my opinion, it helps give a great colour without imparting too much additional flavour. I prefer darker milds myself, and probably would include some chocolate malt for some extra flavour, but as your looking for a more caramel brew it you probably wouldn't need it.

As to the hops, I don't know how Cluster would fit. I probably wouldn't use it, but if its what your used to/what you have available it would probably go alright. As milds are a fairly malt oriented beer the choice of hop doesn't really matter too much anyway, as long as you don't go over the top for flavour and/or aroma. I would probably use a more tradition English myself though, some East Kent Goldings or Fuggles would go nicely.

One thing I do question though is the choice of yeast. Because milds are fairly low in flavour from hops etc. I myself would try and use something with a bit more character than US-05. Any half decent English yeast would do a lot better, giving a bit more estery flavour to your brew with soem nice fruity notes. Of course if it's the only one you have available it should still make a fine brew, albeit somewhat muted in character.

Of course you don't have to make it completely true to style though, thats one of the great joys of brewing. As long as it's something you like who cares what everyone else thinks, but it is nice to be able to brew a drop that others appreciate.


Overall though, it looks like it should be a tasty drop, I can't wait to hear how it turns out for you.

Dan

 

[whitegoose]

bum - lighten up!

I think the OP is saying he's using a tea bag for flameout/dry hopping. Sure there are better ways to use hops but this is the blokes first recipe, and the recipe looks sound.

I reckon go for it dude, it;s w wicked starting point.

 

[kbe]

Thanks for the advice people. :beer:

As people may see, I used the kit & beer extract designer to come up with this. I used the Craftbrewer site to get information about the different ingredients.

As for the hops, I was going to steep them with the grain, not boil them. They were being used more for aroma than anything. If that is the wrong way to do it, then I am sure that I will find out about it, but I know that beer recipes are all about trial and error, and I can live with that. It is one of the things that I thought the spread sheet was for, and what I am aiming for is something with caramel like flavouring.

dth, I might get some Windsor yeast, it seems that it may be a good one for this. I can save the US05 for later. I also steered away from chocolate malt grain because I am not that keen on coffee flavours anymore. I used too like it, but not any more, even to the point where Tooheys Old is no longer a favourite.

 

[Yowster]

+1 on using the spreadsheet to design your recipie. Looks like a tasty little drop let us know how it turns out

Go for it. As Bum said using pellets is a better way of buying and using hops, however, I started out using the teabags and it's an ok way to dabble with how it can add elements to your kit

 

[Barley Belly]

My LHBS puts pellets in teabags for you.

Best of both worlds

 

[Dazza_devil]

Thanks for the advice people. :beer:

As people may see, I used the kit & beer extract designer to come up with this. I used the Craftbrewer site to get information about the different ingredients.

As for the hops, I was going to steep them with the grain, not boil them. They were being used more for aroma than anything. If that is the wrong way to do it, then I am sure that I will find out about it, but I know that beer recipes are all about trial and error, and I can live with that. It is one of the things that I thought the spread sheet was for, and what I am aiming for is something with caramel like flavouring.

dth, I might get some Windsor yeast, it seems that it may be a good one for this. I can save the US05 for later. I also steered away from chocolate malt grain because I am not that keen on coffee flavours anymore. I used too like it, but not any more, even to the point where Tooheys Old is no longer a favourite.

kbe, can you detail your intended method in step form.
It may save you from disaster.

 

[bum]

As for the hops, I was going to steep them with the grain, not boil them. They were being used more for aroma than anything. If that is the wrong way to do it, then I am sure that I will find out about it

Yes, you will. But not from that harsh teacher, experience, but from your old mate, Bum. Doing it like this is a waste of time (worse, a waste of hops!) - you need to boil the liquor that results from the grain steep - if you boil this after you've steeped your hops in it you'll drive off the flavour and aroma compounds. You'd be much better off chucking the tea bag in this boil for 5 minutes or less and leaving it in while it cools. Not the perfect method, of course but will work much better than the method you propose and will require no more effort.

 

[kbe]

kbe, can you detail your intended method in step form.
It may save you from disaster.

I intend to do it the same way as I made a recipe from the Beer & Brewer magazine for Autumn 2010, page 77. For those that do not have it I will put the grain part here.

Crack the grains, steep them in hot water for 20-30 minutes, strain and then bring to boil the resulted liquid (to reduce the risk of infection).

Bring 1 litre of water in a pan up to 70C. Add the grain and turn off the heat and put on the lid. Leave for 20 minutes then strain through a sieve in to the fermenter. Rinse the spent grains with a litre of cold water and discard. This was when I was going to add the hops. Sorry, I said steep before when I should have said mash.

For the rest I was going to follow the standard kit and kilo type method.

 

[Dazza_devil]

I intend to do it the same way as I made a recipe from the Beer & Brewer magazine for Autumn 2010, page 77. For those that do not have it I will put the grain part here.

Crack the grains, steep them in hot water for 20-30 minutes, strain and then bring to boil the resulted liquid (to reduce the risk of infection).

Bring 1 litre of water in a pan up to 70C. Add the grain and turn off the heat and put on the lid. Leave for 20 minutes then strain through a sieve in to the fermenter. Rinse the spent grains with a litre of cold water and discard. This was when I was going to add the hops. Sorry, I said steep before when I should have said mash.

For the rest I was going to follow the standard kit and kilo type method.

Sorry mate, I can't follow that at all.
You will have to boil any liquid from any grains to prevent infection.
I think you have mash confused.
It might pay for you to do a little more reading.