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jhay

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I've put together this recipe using brewmate I think I'm in the right forum as I wish to do an extract with some grains I have.Any comments would be appreciated.
Pale Ale

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 23.0
Total Grain (kg): 3.500
Total Hops (g): 45.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.048 (°P): 11.9
Final Gravity (FG): 1.011 (°P): 2.8
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 4.85 %
Colour (SRM): 7.2 (EBC): 14.2
Bitterness (IBU): 31.5 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 70
Boil Time (Minutes): 60

Grain Bill
----------------
1.500 kg Liquid Malt Extract - Light (42.86%)
0.750 kg Dry Malt Extract - Light (21.43%)
0.250 kg Crystal 40 (7.14%)
0.250 kg Dextrose (7.14%)
0.250 kg Dry Malt Extract - Wheat (7.14%)
0.250 kg Pale Ale Malt (7.14%)
0.250 kg Wheat Malt (7.14%)

Hop Bill
----------------
15.0 g Pride of Ringwood Pellet (8.3% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (0.7 g/L)
15.0 g Pride of Ringwood Pellet (8.3% Alpha) @ 30 Minutes (Boil) (0.7 g/L)
15.0 g Pride of Ringwood Pellet (8.3% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (0.7 g/L)

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

Single steep Infusion at 66°C for 30 Minutes.
Fermented at 18°C with Safale US 05
Boil volume 11 litres


Recipe Generated with BrewMate

I saw a comment about DME that questioned boiling the DME. Seems to make sense so I was intending to put the DME at flame out with the LME and Dextrose.
 
I think your target specs are pretty well ok, but you may be better off with a less coarse/woody hop. Willamette is a great flavour/finishing hop, but you will really notice the 31IBU worth of PoR, particularly if you fall a bit short on your mash efficiency and don't quite hit 1048. Will be quite ok if you throw Willamette in IMO *mumbles* and maybe Northern Brewer instead *mumbles*

The pale ale and wheat malt won't really steep (they need to be mashed) and you will still need probably 45-60min or so - or an iodine test - to make sure the sugars are properly converted. Maybe even 90min. If you're going to go to an effort of a partial mash you may as well use more grain. Your temperature is the right idea though I think, i.e. 64-66°C.

Have you considered a 6-pack esky and stocking/bag?

As for malts, I would probably cut the wheat extract out OR the wheat malt. Either way, having a bit in is ok but you might want more pale ale malt. Consider some caramunich instead of the crystal (IMO), but don't go overboard, i.e. keep it to the specs you have at the start.

Def agree with adding the LME/DME at the end, e.g. the last 10min or so. Note that it will probably throw your rolling boil off a bit, so you want to get this back and keep it there for 2-3min and then cover and cool.

How big is your pot, 20L? Be careful about sticky LME on the bottom, and boilovers. You want probably 3" from the top if you are vigilant (it will foam up a bit) and you can get this extra volume from filling your 6-pack esky (or similar) as much as possible. 3L/kg would be a good guide to use, just make sure it's big enough.

Good luck, heaps of knowledge on the forum here!

Adrian
 
It was intended to mash the grain (other than crystal which would be steeped 30 min) for 60 min.
 
Boil the grain or the liquor resulting from mashing the grain?

I'd stick with PoR but use as a sinle bittering addition to get the IBU you want. You will still get PoR flavour and can then decide for next time if you'd like to push it to a late addition (some love, it some hate it).
 
Cool.

What size is your boiling pot and cooler?

Two things to consider:
- If you are adding LME/DME late in the boil, you will have quite a low gravity in the boil which will increase the hop utilisation, i.e. IBU's will go up a chunk. This basically leans towards deciding what size boil you want (so still 11L?) and maybe adding a bit of DME/LME to bring this closer to where it should be.
- If your cooler is about 10L and you have a grain bag, you should be able to basically throw about 2-2.5kg of grain in and basically fill it close to the top. Pull the bag out after 60min, drain this into your boiler (hang the bag above) then pour the contents of the cooler into your boiler. A 10L cooler will only really give you 7-8L of liquid though, which would need maybe 0.5kg of LME to make up to 10-12L and mean that your simulated IBU's are close to right.

If you have a bigger cooler than 10L, great.

I would suggest this for a grain bill:
2kg pale ale malt - mash at 65-66°C for 60min
0.5kg Caramunich - 'mash' at 65-66°C for 60min (doesn't need to mash, but will help drop the pH a bit of the mash which will improve speed and conversion)

Boil, top up water to 10-12L and add 0.5kg LME (keep the rest for the end of the boil).

Hop however you would like... if you like PoR that's fine, but it can be offensive as a flavour hop. Cluster, Fuggles, Willamette are other options if you want to explore...

Then throw:
1.5kg light LME (the remaining 1kg?)
1.0kg wheat LME

Cover, cool, pitch yeast, chill out.

Should get you to 1050 or so (keep in mind your efficiency will be in the 50-60% range). If it's a bit short, consider throwing in some dextrose or DME.

Hops-wise, aim for IBU in the 30-35 range. That could be 45g PoR@60min, and 15g Willamette@20min, for e.g. :) Or it could be whatever you want. :)
 
Adr_0 said:
Cool.

What size is your boiling pot and cooler?

Two things to consider:
- If you are adding LME/DME late in the boil, you will have quite a low gravity in the boil which will increase the hop utilisation, i.e. IBU's will go up a chunk. This basically leans towards deciding what size boil you want (so still 11L?) and maybe adding a bit of DME/LME to bring this closer to where it should be.
- If your cooler is about 10L and you have a grain bag, you should be able to basically throw about 2-2.5kg of grain in and basically fill it close to the top. Pull the bag out after 60min, drain this into your boiler (hang the bag above) then pour the contents of the cooler into your boiler. A 10L cooler will only really give you 7-8L of liquid though, which would need maybe 0.5kg of LME to make up to 10-12L and mean that your simulated IBU's are close to right.

If you have a bigger cooler than 10L, great.

I would suggest this for a grain bill:
2kg pale ale malt - mash at 65-66°C for 60min
0.5kg Caramunich - 'mash' at 65-66°C for 60min (doesn't need to mash, but will help drop the pH a bit of the mash which will improve speed and conversion)

Boil, top up water to 10-12L and add 0.5kg LME (keep the rest for the end of the boil).

Hop however you would like... if you like PoR that's fine, but it can be offensive as a flavour hop. Cluster, Fuggles, Willamette are other options if you want to explore...

Then throw:
1.5kg light LME (the remaining 1kg?)
1.0kg wheat LME

Cover, cool, pitch yeast, chill out.

Should get you to 1050 or so (keep in mind your efficiency will be in the 50-60% range). If it's a bit short, consider throwing in some dextrose or DME.

Hops-wise, aim for IBU in the 30-35 range. That could be 45g PoR@60min, and 15g Willamette@20min, for e.g. :) Or it could be whatever you want. :)
I've just purchased 20 litre pot from Woolies.Thanks for the advice.
 
jhay said:
I've just purchased 20 litre pot from Woolies.Thanks for the advice.
Cool, use that for your mash. :) Aim for anywhere from 3-5L water per kg malt, heap of info about BIAB or similar out there, and just be careful about your boil gravity being too low pushing those IBU's up too high.

Let us know how the brew goes. :)
 
just put down this recipe as stated except I've changed the hops. Final hops were:

5.0 g Magnum Pellet (12.5% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (1.1 g/L)
20.0 g Cascade Pellet (7.8% Alpha) @ 30 Minutes (Boil) (0.9 g/L)
25.0 g Cascade Pellet (7.8% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (1.1 g/L)

One question came out of this recipe was whether steeping the crystal could also be done at the same time within the mash. As I also have a 10 litre pot I did the steeping separate .
 
hope you like Cascade.

Crystal definitely goes in the mash with everything else. It doesn't NEED to, but it can marginally drop the pH of the mash and help the base malts convert. absolutely no benefit in doing a separate steep AND mash; just throw everything into the mash.

if you don't have any base malts in your recipe, the 10L pot and separate 20-30min steep for the crystal is fine.

just quietly, hope every drop of the LME went in at the start of the boil too because your IBU may be a touch on the high side if your boil gravity was anything less than 'very high'. could be the difference between 35 cascadey IBU's and 60 piney, puckering IBU's.
 
The LME went in at 10 mins from the end. Have to see how it tastes in a couple of weeks. Still learning about hops and maybe and grains and maybe learnt a lesson.
 
Adr_0 said:
hope you like Cascade.

Crystal definitely goes in the mash with everything else. It doesn't NEED to, but it can marginally drop the pH of the mash and help the base malts convert. absolutely no benefit in doing a separate steep AND mash; just throw everything into the mash.

if you don't have any base malts in your recipe, the 10L pot and separate 20-30min steep for the crystal is fine.

just quietly, hope every drop of the LME went in at the start of the boil too because your IBU may be a touch on the high side if your boil gravity was anything less than 'very high'. could be the difference between 35 cascadey IBU's and 60 piney, puckering IBU's.
LME went in 10 min from flame out. Still leaning about grains hops etc. maybe just learnt a lesson. Have to see what it tastes like in a couple of weeks.
 
jhay said:
LME went in 10 min from flame out. Still leaning about grains hops etc. maybe just learnt a lesson. Have to see what it tastes like in a couple of weeks.
Sorry - you'll be right, should be good actually. I didn't save your recipe the other day and forgot to manually put a boil volume in keeping your total the same when i redid it just then. RDWHAH and sorry for the false alarm. :)
 
Well the brew has been in the fermenter for 10 days and took a SG this morning which was 1.010 and will check again tomorrow. However ,the first pour into the specimen tube was full of what appeared to be yellow crap .Second pull was better but still had small amounts of the same crap. I didn't dry hop nor did any of the hop bags spill as far as I know. I added Irish Moss 10 minutes from flame out and that was the only additive the may leave a residue.
Any ideas and is the brew OK?
 
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