First AG recipe advice

[Frasermitch]

Hi,

Just made the leap to all grain after purchasing a brew monk all in one. Could do with a bit of advice on what to start out brewing, my original idea was to just do a simple SMaSH with the MO and a hop. Maybe could squeeze three 15l batches out of this? I have brewing software with the brewmonk profile built in.

Any advice would be appreciated, i am open to any styles. Below is my available ingredients.

GRAIN
10kg Maris otter
3kg light crystal
1kg medium crystal
1kg crisp wheat malt

HOPS
100g EKG
100g Cascade
100g Fuggles
100g Challenger

YEAST
Nottingham
S-04
US-04

Thanks

 

[Obadiah Boondoggle]

What style of beer do you like?

 

[Frasermitch]

Ales, IPA, bitter or pale ales, i am easy. Nothing lagerish as i cant cool ferment

Drinking a woodfordes wherry kit at the moment.

 

[Obadiah Boondoggle]

Ales, IPA, bitter or pale ales, i am easy. Nothing lagerish as i cant cool ferment

Drinking a woodfordes wherry kit at the moment.

Same preferences as me

Here are a couple of recipes I love - for pale substitute MO. Based on Graham Wheeler's book

MO will create a better flavour

I do a 90 min mash followed by a 90 min boil

Wort cooler if you can but I don't believe it's crucial

 

[Zephyr259]

Could make a nice bitter with that, 85% Maris Otter, 9% malted wheat, 6% medium crystal, Aim for an OG of 1.040 - 1.045, 15g hop at 10 mins, 20g at end of boil and enough at 60 min to hit 30 IBUs. Any combination of the English hops would work, or go single hop. S-04 or Nottingham.

Alternatively, you could go more IPA style, swap the crystal from medium to light and the late hops become 1g/l at 15 min, 1.4g/l at 10 min and 2g/l at end of boil (works out to an even 100g in a 23L batch). This one can be bittered up to 45 IBU I've found. This is more or less my recipe for Orkney Corncrake, that's bittered with columbus and the late hops are Styrian Goldings. You could go all cascade late in the boil for more american style or stick english. US-05 may work best here.

 

[Frasermitch]

Thanks,

If i was to go for the single hop smash, which hop would be more suited? I have seen a few cascade recipes for smash.

Options are EKG, Cascade, Fuggles or Challenger

 

[Rodcx500z]

AIPA Cascade English IPA i would use fuggles for bittering and challenger for aroma

 

[Frasermitch]

I have programmed in the suggested recipe above for the bitter. Does this look OK?

Bitter
Best Bitter
4.3% / 11 °P
All Grain
Hopcat / Brew Monk 30L
71.9% efficiency
Batch Volume: 15 L
Boil Time: 60 min
Mash Water: 14.14 L
Sparge Water: 9.49 L @ 78 °C
Total Water: 23.63 L
Boil Volume: 21.67 L
Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.034
Vitals
Original Gravity: 1.044
Final Gravity: 1.011
IBU (Tinseth): 32
Color: 19.7 EBC


Mash

Temperature — 65 °C — 60 min
Malts (2.94 kg)
2.5 kg (85%) — Crisp Maris Otter — Grain — 6 EBC
265 g (9%) — Weyermann Wheat Malt Pale — Grain — 3.5 EBC
175 g (6%) — Bairds Caramel/Crystal Malt — Grain — 255 EBC
Hops (55 g)
20 g (27 IBU) — Challenger 7.3% — Boil — 60 min
15 g (6 IBU) — East Kent Goldings (EKG) 5.5% — Boil — 10 min
20 g — Fuggle 4.5% — Boil — 0 min
Yeast
1 pkg — Lallemand (LalBrew) Nottingham Yeast 75%

 

[Slid]

Looks fine to me, suggest you give it a whirl.

 

[Frasermitch]

I have never brewed to 15l in the fermenter, its just the regular 23l fermentor bucket, will this be too much head space?

 

[Zephyr259]

Looks good to me too, since it's my recipe, my secret is that you're actually brewing something very close to Greg Hughes' Yorkshire Bitter but subbing out the First Gold for what you have. He even uses challenger for bittering.

If it was me, I'd replace the fuggles with EKG at the end of the boil, or maybe switch them round but what you have will work fine, that's just my preference for EKG over Fuggles.

15L will be fine in a fullsize fermenter. I mostly brew 15L batches and ferment them in a 33L conical. Maybe they'd be better with less headspace but I've not a way to compare and they seem fine to me.

 

[trueblue]

Challenger and EK are probably my favorite hop combination. I would also put the SO-4 in the bin.

 

[Frasermitch]

Going to have a go at this tonight, just found out the wort cooler connections are broken. Will the plastic fermenter be good to hold the wort at 90+ degrees? Untill i can chill in a good old fashioned ice bath? Only going to be around 15 litres