Recipe Critique

[PoN]

First ill start off by saying, I am not quite sure what kind of beer this recipe actually is. I am just trying to use up a heap of hops that I have sitting in my freezer so this is a bit of an experiment.

I use a robobrew.

60min mash @65 deg 15 min mash out @75

2kg Pale Malt
2.5kg Vienna Malt
.5kg Wheat
.5kg Carapils

Hops

25g Halletau @ 60min
15g Hallertau @ 15min
15g Saaz @ 15min
10g Hallertau @ 5min
10g Saaz @ 5min

IBU 27.3
EBC 10.3
Est ABV 5.4%

I will be adding 2g of Gypsum and 3mil of lactic acid to bring my mash ph down to around 5.45. This will make my mash water profile around 50ppm Calcium, 13ppm magnesium, 40ppm sodium, 91ppm sulphate, 61ppm chloride and -7ppm bicarbonates.

I will add around .5g of gypsum and .5mil of lactic acid to my sparge wate

I am still not too sure if I want to use a lager yeast or ale yeast or just meet in the middle somewhere and ferment at around 15 degrees with US05.

So critique away, is my hop schedule good? Malt profile ok? What yeast do you reckon I go with?

 

[timmi9191]

Look fine imo. Yeast- depends on your temp control. Go with 05 call it a blonde ale. Go with lager yeast and call it a pilsner

 

[manticle]

Fine but too much cara.

Otherwise good. I used to make a vaguely similar golden ale with tettnanger and 05. Style be damned. She be beer yum made.

 

[drsmurto]

How do you have a negative concentration of bicarbonates?

 

[Danscraftbeer]

That should make good beer. So tell. What did you do for yeast then?

 

[manticle]

How do you have a negative concentration of bicarbonates?

I'm guessing ~7 rather than -7.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

I will be adding 2g of Gypsum and 3mil of lactic acid to bring my mash ph down to around 5.45. This will make my mash water profile around 50ppm Calcium, 13ppm magnesium, 40ppm sodium, 91ppm sulphate, 61ppm chloride and -7ppm bicarbonates.

I will add around .5g of gypsum and .5mil of lactic acid to my sparge wate

I am still not too sure if I want to use a lager yeast or ale yeast or just meet in the middle somewhere and ferment at around 15 degrees with US05.

So critique away, is my hop schedule good? Malt profile ok? What yeast do you reckon I go with?


Drop everything before the bold text

You basically have a German-ish ale

Just run with the water you have. dont make the water hard

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

I am still not too sure if I want to use a lager yeast or ale yeast or just meet in the middle somewhere and ferment at around 15 degrees with US05.

Do you want to brew a Lager or an Ale....

How are you going to meet in the middle.. ?....Ferm a Lager at 15*c or ferment an Ale at 15* ..? ...both will give you different beers and different flavours.

If you want to see how, split the batch and ferm 1 with Lager and 1 with Ale at the same temp

Then you will be able to answer you question

 

[timmi9191]

. dont make the water hard

Is that done by talky dirty and playing red tube clips to it??

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Is that done by talky dirty and playing red tube clips to it??

Both

 

[PoN]

How do you have a negative concentration of bicarbonates?

It probably should be 0. -7 is just what the Bru n Water spreadsheet says. I am still self learning about water chemistry.

That should make good beer. So tell. What did you do for yeast then?

Havent made it yet lol.

I will be adding 2g of Gypsum and 3mil of lactic acid to bring my mash ph down to around 5.45. This will make my mash water profile around 50ppm Calcium, 13ppm magnesium, 40ppm sodium, 91ppm sulphate, 61ppm chloride and -7ppm bicarbonates.

I will add around .5g of gypsum and .5mil of lactic acid to my sparge wate

I am still not too sure if I want to use a lager yeast or ale yeast or just meet in the middle somewhere and ferment at around 15 degrees with US05.

So critique away, is my hop schedule good? Malt profile ok? What yeast do you reckon I go with?


Drop everything before the bold text

You basically have a German-ish ale

Just run with the water you have. dont make the water hard

This is my first experiment with water chemistry, I am getting fairly poor efficiency with all my brews. Efficiency picks up if I do darker beers. This lead me to believe that my water profile isnt suited to lower EBC beers as the lighter malts arent making the mash PH acidic enough. When i punch it into Bru n Water without any additions my mash ph comes in at around 5.8. I use a robobrew and have tried a lot of things to pick up my mash efficiency but not much seems to work.

Do you want to brew a Lager or an Ale....

How are you going to meet in the middle.. ?....Ferm a Lager at 15*c or ferment an Ale at 15* ..? ...both will give you different beers and different flavours.

If you want to see how, split the batch and ferm 1 with Lager and 1 with Ale at the same temp

Then you will be able to answer you question

I was perhaps thinking about doing US05 at around 15 degrees, Have heard it has good results at lower temps. Was just a thought.

Fine but too much cara.

Otherwise good. I used to make a vaguely similar golden ale with tettnanger and 05. Style be damned. She be beer yum made.

Do you reckon just drop the cara? Wheat will give it enough as far as head retention goes anyway.

Look fine imo. Yeast- depends on your temp control. Go with 05 call it a blonde ale. Go with lager yeast and call it a pilsner

My temp control is good for both. I feel like a woman going shoe shopping trying to pick between 2 different shoes. I am thinking of just going with US05. I did ruin a blonde ale last year so this would be another good attempt at it. I also have a lager lagering at the moment. so probably dont need another batch.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Poor efficiency has nothing to do with water

You need to be looking elsewhere rather that trying something that wont work

 

[PoN]

Poor efficiency has nothing to do with water

You need to be looking elsewhere rather that trying something that wont work

A lot of articles I have read say that a high mash PH effects efficiency. I have tried everything and the only thing that has improved efficiency is darker more acidic malt profiles.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

What eff % are you getting

 

[gaijin]

If you're in Ipswich, you're in the Brisbane catchment, so you should have water perfect for red/brown ales. I've brewed plenty of Lagers/Pilsners with great success IMO on Brissy water, so it shouldn't be the issue for your efficiency. The PH won't be out of the range for mashing light base malts.

 

[drsmurto]

Poor efficiency has nothing to do with water

You need to be looking elsewhere rather that trying something that wont work

Particularly given mash pH is predicted, not measured.

If you think mash pH may be the problem the simplest thing to do is to measure it.

I'm still astounded by how many people take these predictors as gospel rather than actually measuring pH themselves.

Edit - if a piece of software predicts a negative concentration for a chemical it is either a poorly written piece of software or the authors don't understand basic science.

 

[PoN]

I use a robobrew

So any lighter coloured beers I struggle to hit 50% total efficiency(mash efficiency around 60%) Darker beers I hit 60% total efficiency (mash efficiency 70%)

So far I have tried:

Different sources for grain and finer milled grain
Recirculating every 10-15 minutes
Longer mash time
Stirring the mash every 10-15 minutes
Using more water in my mash
Using less water in my mash
Different mash temperatures
Larger grain bills
Smaller grain bills

My brew process is exactly the same as other people with a robobrew that I have discussed this with.

This is why I was of the opinion that my water, being high in bicarbonates could be why I get poor efficiency for lighter beers. The water profiles I have seen for Ipswich are different to the Brisbane ones I have seen. I also have some ph strips to get a ballpark figure for when I brew this.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

You are needing to raise eff by a fair bit if your only getiing 50-60 %

I doubt mash Ph will adjust it as far as you need to

I would be looking at your sparging fairly closely

 

[Lethaldog]

^^ I agree !
How quickly do you get through a sparge?
Are you controlling the speed of the flow? I found this very important when I first started!
Do you measure the end of your sparge as in discontinue when it gets down to 1.010 or do you just run through till you satisfied with volume?
What sort of volumes are you running through how much grain?

Lots of factors there?
As far as mash ph goes I am deffinately no scientist and I don't yet know how to play around with my water profile toooo much but I do use 5.2 since I was recommended it years ago and found that my efficiency did get better but not by the sort of numbers your talking there, I used to be around the 75% now would be consistently about 82% going by Beersmith and hitting all targets correctly!

 

[paulyman]

I'd be looking at:

1) Temperature - Have you got a trusted thermometer to check that the robobrew is actually hitting the temps it says it is?

2) Volumes - How are you measuring volumes? The original robobrew didn't have volume markings.

If there are any local all grainers near by maybe they can swing by on brew day with a set of grain scales and help you adjust the volumes in the robobrew accurately. You just pop it on the scales, it's small enough to fit. Tare it and add water in 5L increments and use a permanent marker to add your volume marks.

I think these two factors are the most likely to be the cause of your efficiency issues. Followed by sparge issues as above.