Hops and grain

stu brew · Dec 31, 2011

Hi all well after seven good brews using kits I am going to start a full mash test brewery to make two good ales the first I'm hoping to make a 4-5 % light and sweet all and the second a dark strong ale with a good hop smell .
So iv got all the parts on there way to mash up but could do with so help choosing the hops and grain to start from can anyone help ?

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RobWalker · Dec 31, 2011

Choose a few recipes from the database, you'll end up with something slightly weird if you build it from scratch first time :p

Beers are generally 80%+ base/pale malt, with your crystal/aromatic/colour malts and adjuncts/sugars making up the rest. A beer calc will help you plan your recipe. Choose a style, work from that.

Hops are seperated into bittering and aroma catagories. You can aim anywhere from 10 to 150 bitterness units, lagers being 10 and big hop bomb ipas leaning towards the top. A good beer will generally have a combination of both, but one or the other arnt required in some styles...there's a lot of steps to recipe planning so maybe get to grips with someone else's first!

Vossy1 · Dec 31, 2011

It's well worth a look at our sponsor Robs site at Malt Miller Here you can buy all the ingredients for the kits in question and at a very reasonable price.
Previous forum sponsor Barley Bottom also sell them.

That should get you started :thumb:

stu brew · Dec 31, 2011

Thanks I have looked at a few recipes so il start with a iPa and a stoat still could do with a good light aroma hop for the ipa though any ideas

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Runwell-Steve · Jan 1, 2012

In the IPA you will want hop aroma, but choosing the hops is up to you really, look at the the recipes for IPA's and decide on what you want to aim for. It maybe worth doing some single hop brews first so you can understand what different hops bring to a beer.

It's not normal to put hop aroma in a stout, so I'm not really sure what you are looking for there. Flavour is hard to describe in words verbally, and even harder to describe on a forum.