After 'Have a go at a simple AG'

[TheOsprey]

Hi all,

I've sourced a pan (from the school kitchen) to cook up clibit's 'Simple AG' and I'm about to buy the ingredients to make the mash, but I feel spending over £6 to get under £6's worth of ingredients isn't too clever. So I figure it would be worth getting ingredients for the next couple of brews too. I feel too much of a beginner currently to just start inventing, so I guess my question is does anyone have a recipe *almost* as simple as the Simple AG recipe, but where I'll actually produce a different beer? I'd quite like to stick to the same kind of quantity (about 5l), and I've bought 96 (?) PET bottles to aid me in this. Definitely going to need another FV though!

TLDR: Please share some simple AG recipes, about 5l if possible.

Happy to buy a big ol' sack of Maris Otter (nearly wrote Maris Piper then... already got some Poitin in the cupboard!)

Cheers

 

[Surfingobo]

Bare in mind I’m only on my second AG brew but I’ve put these two together from other recipes online, scaled to a final volume in FV of 8L

I bought myself 5kg each of Maris, pilsner and Vienna, and a kilo of cara malt and cara wheat, and 6 different hop varieties. Plan is to play with the recipes I’ve got there to explore what each hop/malt brings to the beer without going straight into super complex recipes. I doubt it will make the “best” beer but it should certainly be interesting. Also planning to brew some of these again adding porridge oats to see if they add to the beer as much as some say.

 

[Surfingobo]

And I can recommend the service and prices from get er brewed

 

[Surfingobo]

Also should have said, batch number 1 pictured is “Mosaic SMaSH” and batch number 5 is a summer lightning clone

 

[NormanHurst]

A simple option would be to keep the grain bill straightforward but vary the hops. Perhaps a couple of SMaSH brews with something like Cascade or Citra. East Kent Goldings would give an English comparison to the more exuberant American hops. Keeping it simple will let you focus on the process whilst letting you really taste what's different in the beers.

 

[cushyno]

It's a good suggestion from @Surfingobo to buy a few smaller sacks for experimenting with. A 500g bag each of: crystal 60 or 80, chocolate malt, and Carapils gives you lots of scope.

What kind of beers are you into? What is the water like in your area?

I found when starting out that due to my hard water darker beers were easier to get right, brown ale (pale, crystal and chocolate malts with challenger hops) was easier to get right than the more subtle flavour of bitters. A wheat beer with just wheat malt, pilsner/lager malt and Saaz hops was easy too, though you do need some decent yeast.

Also successful was my American IPA made with Vienna, pale & Carapils, with Citra & cascade hops.

 

[Gerryjo]

I would certainly keep it simple taking notes as you go along. If on the stove top simply change out your base malts as there are loads out there all with different characters from clean to biscuit or nutty etc.Swapping out hops from British to American or tropical flavour aroma as well as changing your yeast as this can be a big influence on your beer.
Mashing at different temps will change things also so it's amazing how using the same grain, different hop timings, changing mash temps and changing yeast will take one and totally change it.
Worth a bit of delving on the forum or Web to get some background.

 

[TheOsprey]

Bare in mind I’m only on my second AG brew but I’ve put these two together from other recipes online, scaled to a final volume in FV of 8L

I bought myself 5kg each of Maris, pilsner and Vienna, and a kilo of cara malt and cara wheat, and 6 different hop varieties. Plan is to play with the recipes I’ve got there to explore what each hop/malt brings to the beer without going straight into super complex recipes. I doubt it will make the “best” beer but it should certainly be interesting. Also planning to brew some of these again adding porridge oats to see if they add to the beer as much as some say.

Thanks very much for these!

And I can recommend the service and prices from get er brewed

Yeah that's where I've been looking - I just baulked at the £6.75 (?) delivery. Happy to pay it, just not for a £5 order.

A simple option would be to keep the grain bill straightforward but vary the hops. <snip>

Mashing at different temps will change things also so it's amazing how using the same grain, different hop timings, changing mash temps and changing yeast will take one and totally change it. <snip>

This is certainly my aim going forward. I used to be a chef, for a while, and I enjoy experimenting in the kitchen. I'd like to get into developing my own recipes, just don't want to fluff something up straight off the bat and lose enthusiasm!

It's a good suggestion from @Surfingobo to buy a few smaller sacks for experimenting with. A 500g bag each of: crystal 60 or 80, chocolate malt, and Carapils gives you lots of scope.

What kind of beers are you into? What is the water like in your area?

I found when starting out that due to my hard water darker beers were easier to get right, brown ale (pale, crystal and chocolate malts with challenger hops) was easier to get right than the more subtle flavour of bitters. A wheat beer with just wheat malt, pilsner/lager malt and Saaz hops was easy too, though you do need some decent yeast.

Also successful was my American IPA made with Vienna, pale & Carapils, with Citra & cascade hops.

Water is very hard here too. Fortunately, I'm all about the dark beers. I think I'll use bottled water for the 'Simple AG' recipe, just to get a clear idea of what it should be.

Ordering those malts now, thanks.

 

[TheOsprey]

Well that escalated quickly. £14 on ingredients, and spent £60...

That'll please my wife.

 

[Surfingobo]

Good going!
Once you’ve got over 10kg in the basket the delivery seems more reasonable!

 

[TheOsprey]

And forgot the hops!

I've emailed to see if I can add on, but not sure I'll get a reply before it ships. That's what I get for ordering at 1am.

Get Er Brewed only do pellets in the recipe creator, and I wanted fresh, so left it until after. Oops.

 

[Gingerbrews]

At beginning of the lockdown, I did a series of experiments of 5l brews after finding some demijohns in the shed. It's a great way to find out what you can do. I'd recommend getting a couple of books and scaling down the recipes, as ever Greg Hughes is a great starting point

 

[Gerryjo]

And forgot the hops!

I've emailed to see if I can add on, but not sure I'll get a reply before it ships. That's what I get for ordering at 1am.

Get Er Brewed only do pellets in the recipe creator, and I wanted fresh, so left it until after. Oops.

Crossmyloof are excellent for hops, yeast and free postage.

 

[matt76]

TLDR: Please share some simple AG recipes, about 5l if possible.

Bit late if you've already placed your order, but...

TLDR: More notes below but here's a few recipes. These are for 10L-ish so roughly halve them for 5L and use a calculator to fine tune. Let me know if you want more specific suggestions on hop amounts/timings etc. From what I've found, if you want to make something stronger you basically keep the specialty malts the same but increase the amount of base malt.

(as noted above Crossmyloof are really good for hops, and also their yeast seems pretty good too)

Standard "Light" Grist - works well for 4.5%-ish Munich Helles, Pilsner and Session IPA:
2250g Lager or Pilsner Malt
200g Vienna Malt
50g Victory Malt
TOTAL 2.5kg
Play around with hop types and timings, and yeast, depending on style - let me know if you want more specific guidance.
About 20 IBUs for Helles, 30-40 for Pilsner and and 40-60 for IPA.

Porter (about 4.5%)
1750g Golden Promise or Maris Otter
250g Brown Malt
250g Dark Crystal Malt
250g Chocolate Malt or Chocolate Rye Malt (I prefer the latter)
TOTAL 2.5kg
About 30 IBUs in total, I like Northdown, something like EKG would also work

IPA (5.5-6% ish)
3000g Golden Promise or Maris Otter
500g Munich Malt
TOTAL 3.5kg
Something like 60-70 IBU's

Black IPA (5.5% ish) - this recipe is really good, for 10L I'd do something like this:
2500g Golden Promise or Maris Otter
250g Munich Malt
250g Carared Malt (or similar Crystal Malt)
250g Carafa 2 or 3, or Chocolate Malt, or Chocolate Rye Malt
TOTAL 3.25kg

More notes:
I started with that same Have a go at Simple All Grain guide and after 50 brews and nearly 2 years, although my brewing has evolved I really don't feel like I do it much different today, though I've generally done 10L-ish batches.

One reason I like smaller batches is you can brew more frequently and have more opportunities to try things out. It's also a lot easier to heat up/cool down smaller volumes!

A few extra thoughts/tips:

1. A recipe calculator is essential to help scale and tweak recipes from the standard 20L-ish/5USGal down to 5 or 10L.
2. I've done both 5 and 10L batches. Consider 10L if you can - twice the beer for not much extra effort (though I genuinely believe it is not the same when you go from 10 to 20L!)
3. Get a grain bag - so much easier to remove the grains!
4. Consider doing full-volume / no-sparge - quicker, less faff and you don't lose much at this small scale.
5. If you want you can also do a 30min boil to save even more time. I don't notice any difference in the finished beer, you just need to add a bit more bittering hops to compensate (use a recipe calculator).
6. Try to work in sensible multiples of grain and hops to avoid odd amounts left over. I generally go in 5g steps for hops and 125g steps for grain (less for dark or specialty grains though - and maybe use smaller grain multiples for 5L batches).
7. Have a look on beerandbrewing.com - Josh Weikert's series of "Make your best..." are usually a really good starting point if you're stuck (his Helles recipe is my light grist above!)

 

[TheOsprey]

At beginning of the lockdown, I did a series of experiments of 5l brews after finding some demijohns in the shed. It's a great way to find out what you can do. I'd recommend getting a couple of books and scaling down the recipes, as ever Greg Hughes is a great starting point

I'd like to start experimenting once I've got a few down. I've got Home Brew Beer by Greg Hughes, but the recipes look more complex than I'm ready for.

Crossmyloof are excellent for hops, yeast and free postage.

Nice! Thanks very much. Geterbrewed got back to me and are going to lump the two orders together, but definitely using this in the future.

 

[cushyno]

I'd like to start experimenting once I've got a few down. I've got Home Brew Beer by Greg Hughes, but the recipes look more complex than I'm ready for.

You have nothing to fear, the GH recipes are fairly good in the main. Check out the recent thread on favourite GH brews. It's a good place to start from.

 

[TheOsprey]

Cheers

 

[TheOsprey]

My only real fear is wasting money. The batch I've got on at the moment I still can't work out if it's spoiled or not. 2 weeks is up on Thursday, and then 2 weeks chilled (I'm not sure why), but so far it's slightly sour. To be honest, that one didn't really cost me anything except the sugar, but I don't want to make undrinkable beer twice in a row.

 

[TheOsprey]

Bit late if you've already placed your order, but...

TLDR: More notes below but here's a few recipes. These are for 10L-ish so roughly halve them for 5L and use a calculator to fine tune. Let me know if you want more specific suggestions on hop amounts/timings etc. From what I've found, if you want to make something stronger you basically keep the specialty malts the same but increase the amount of base malt.

(as noted above Crossmyloof are really good for hops, and also their yeast seems pretty good too)

Standard "Light" Grist - works well for 4.5%-ish Munich Helles, Pilsner and Session IPA:
2250g Lager or Pilsner Malt
200g Vienna Malt
50g Victory Malt
TOTAL 2.5kg
Play around with hop types and timings, and yeast, depending on style - let me know if you want more specific guidance.
About 20 IBUs for Helles, 30-40 for Pilsner and and 40-60 for IPA.

Porter (about 4.5%)
1750g Golden Promise or Maris Otter
250g Brown Malt
250g Dark Crystal Malt
250g Chocolate Malt or Chocolate Rye Malt (I prefer the latter)
TOTAL 2.5kg
About 30 IBUs in total, I like Northdown, something like EKG would also work

IPA (5.5-6% ish)
3000g Golden Promise or Maris Otter
500g Munich Malt
TOTAL 3.5kg
Something like 60-70 IBU's

Black IPA (5.5% ish) - this recipe is really good, for 10L I'd do something like this:
2500g Golden Promise or Maris Otter
250g Munich Malt
250g Carared Malt (or similar Crystal Malt)
250g Carafa 2 or 3, or Chocolate Malt, or Chocolate Rye Malt
TOTAL 3.25kg

More notes:
I started with that same Have a go at Simple All Grain guide and after 50 brews and nearly 2 years, although my brewing has evolved I really don't feel like I do it much different today, though I've generally done 10L-ish batches.

One reason I like smaller batches is you can brew more frequently and have more opportunities to try things out. It's also a lot easier to heat up/cool down smaller volumes!

A few extra thoughts/tips:

1. A recipe calculator is essential to help scale and tweak recipes from the standard 20L-ish/5USGal down to 5 or 10L.
2. I've done both 5 and 10L batches. Consider 10L if you can - twice the beer for not much extra effort (though I genuinely believe it is not the same when you go from 10 to 20L!)
3. Get a grain bag - so much easier to remove the grains!
4. Consider doing full-volume / no-sparge - quicker, less faff and you don't lose much at this small scale.
5. If you want you can also do a 30min boil to save even more time. I don't notice any difference in the finished beer, you just need to add a bit more bittering hops to compensate (use a recipe calculator).
6. Try to work in sensible multiples of grain and hops to avoid odd amounts left over. I generally go in 5g steps for hops and 125g steps for grain (less for dark or specialty grains though - and maybe use smaller grain multiples for 5L batches).
7. Have a look on beerandbrewing.com - Josh Weikert's series of "Make your best..." are usually a really good starting point if you're stuck (his Helles recipe is my light grist above!)

Sorry I completely lost this message the last time I looked through to reply.

Thanks hugely for this - happy to make additional orders! I'm compiling a notebook at the moment, so this will all go in there.

Thanks for taking the time to share all of that. Much appreciated.

 

[TheOsprey]

So... I've ballsed up!

I used the Get Er Brewed 'build your own recipe' to order my malts... assuming that each would come in a separate bag.

I ordered 5kg of maris otter pale, then 500g each of crisp chocolate, carapils, dark crystal and light crystal... Then could only find one bag in my order - so I weighed it, and sure enough it's 7kg!

So.

Uh.

I guess my next question is, what kind of beer is this likely to make?! If it's a car-crash, I guess I'm OK just putting it down to a mistake, it's only about £8 worth of malt after all. But I'd rather use it. I know the obvious answer is 'just brew it and find out', but I guess I'm hoping that someone will say "This will make this specific thing".

I'll try to refrain from making that mistake again.