Putting together first recipes...

[Loetz]

So I'm putting together my first recipes for my first brews, and I'm wondering if I can get some feedback on them...

#1 is an EdWort Apfelwein. My false bottom wont ship until the start of April, so I'm going to bottle an apfelwein while I kill time. I don't know where I'd find dextrose, so I'm thinking about substituting in cane sugar. Does anyone have any experience with this? I also have champers and steinburg yeasts and I'm not sure which one to go with.

#2 is an oatmeal stout. I want it to be super high gravity...

Vienna (12 pounds)
Flaked Oats (2.5 pounds)
Carmel Dark (esb?) (2 pounds)
Chocolate 800 (1 pounds)
Roasted Barley (1 pound)
Target (bittering)
Willamette (aroma)
23 grams US-05 dry yeast

Any thoughts on the grain bill? I want it to be mild to slightly sweet with a lot of malty roastiness. What mash schedule should I use?
What do you guys think about the hops? What sort of a shedule should I use with them?

#3 I will post later because the wife just came home. It's a Mikkeler Nelson Sauvin clone basically.

 

[graysalchemy]

If I was you I would go with Alemans Effin Oatmeal stout, instead of trying to put a recipie together your self. If you use that as a base you can increase the pale malt to get the OG you want. Also you will need to increase the bitterness to compensate for the higher gravity.

 

[Loetz]

You make a really good point. Even so, I'd really like to use the Vienna malts. I'd like the beer to be really malty, and I think it would just be kind of neat to use Vienna malts with Vienna water in Vienna. :P Also, I don't have the hops that he uses.

So, as you say, I need to use a lot of hops to counter the malts. How would you do it if you were using those two hops?

 

[Loetz]

Ok for the Nelson Sauvin, I'm not really sure. I probably won't use my HERMS set up for this. I'll just do rests in my thermopot.

I found this recipe online, but I don't know the IBU.


11.50 lb Pilsner (2 Row) UK (1.0 SRM) Grain 68.05 %
1.80 lb Cara-Munich Malt II (45.0 SRM) Grain 10.65 %
1.80 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 10.65 %
1.80 lb Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 10.65 %
2.00 oz Nelson Sauvin [11.00 %] (Dry Hop 3 days) Hops -
1.50 oz Nelson Sauvin [11.00 %] (60 min) Hops 44.5 IBU
2.00 oz Nelson Sauvin [11.00 %] (20 min) Hops 36.0 IBU

This would be a beer that I would share with people that don't normally drink craft brew, so it shouldn't be too bitter. The wife and I were at the Mikkeler Bar in Coppenhagen last fall and she enjoyed theirs (of which this recipe is a clone) but she got sick of the bitterness in the hops as it began to warm up.

 

[Loetz]

OH! and I should add that these are 6,6 gal batches.

 

[graysalchemy]

In understanding bittering you need to be aware of the bittering unit : gravity unit ration. It is simply bittering units divided by original gravity units. So if you have a beer with 20 ibu (this is usually calcuated for you in brewing software) and an OG of 1.040 or 40 points you would have an BU:GU of 20/40 or 0.5. Now if you increased your OG to 1.060 , 60 points to maintain the leval of bitterness at a BU:GU of 0.5 you would have to increase the IBU value of your recipe to 30.

The reason for this is that a higher gravity beer uses more malt and will have more break material. Some of the proteins in the break material bond with the bittering compounds and sbsequently get removed, so the more malt the more the bitterness is reduced thus it needs to be increased to compensate.

Ray Daniels book designing great beer is a worth while read.

Hope that helps.

Alistair

 

[pittsy]

just a quick point ive used Vienna malts and there really nice and also crisp, used em in a wheat beer

 

[Loetz]

I started the Apfelwein, but I changed it a bit.

I went with:

• -12L Apple Juice
  -500g Brown Natural Cane Sugar
  -5g Steinberg Yeast

I did all of my cleaning and sanitizing with Chempro Oxi. I've heard that this isn't ideal, but that's all I have. I should have some Star San in a couple weeks.

This is it after 24 hours:

It isn't putting out any bad smells or anything... yet.

Any tips on my Nelson Sauvin brew? I'll probably do that over Easter.

 

[Good Ed]

Any tips on my Nelson Sauvin brew? I'll probably do that over Easter.

From the recipe you posted above, here are a couple of recent posts on Nelson Sauvin hop recipes

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=23200

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=23084

The recipe you posted added up to 80.5 IBU's, so I would adjust this to more like 45-50IBU's for a SG 1050 beer, with a bittering addition at the start of the boil and the rest at 15, 10, 5 and 0 mins.

Grain seems ok, however I would cut the flaked oats back to 5% if you want to use them at all, at around 10% addition you would be advised to do a cereal mash, they can also produce hase problems. They increase the beers mouthfeel and smoothness and are usually used in darker beers such as oatmeal stout.

 

[Loetz]

The recipe you posted added up to 80.5 IBU's, so I would adjust this to more like 45-50IBU's for a SG 1050 beer, with a bittering addition at the start of the boil and the rest at 15, 10, 5 and 0 mins.

Grain seems ok, however I would cut the flaked oats back to 5% if you want to use them at all.

Yea, I saw the IBU after I posted it. I was talking to the wife while I posted it and not paying attention.

I think it would be a lot nicer for her if it was between 45 and 50. How many grams would you throw in at each of these stages that you mentioned?

Ill take your advice about the oats. I think Ill keep the oats because I like the consistancy, but I might cut them in the end.

If anyone has any other ideas for recipes, Im open to checking them out.

 

[Loetz]

Ok, so it's getting close to the day when I will make my Nelson Sauvin IPA. I was planning to follow that recipe that I posted a while back, but the local shop is a bit limited on supplies.

For the base malt I'll be using Pils. I also have two caramel malts, but I'm not really sure which ones they are. The guy at the shop didn't know, so he made a few calls and came back and told me that the one has an SRM of 10 and the other an SRM of 150. Beyond that, he couldn't really tell me anything. This wasn't confidence inspiring, so I think I'll probably do all of my shopping online in the future. Their bag of hops were just sitting out on a shelf! I'm happy that I ordered all of my hops online

I'd like to use oats in this like Mikkeller did because I liked what it did for the mouthfeel.

I also have a bag of carabelge, but I'm not sure if I should use it in this batch.

In the end, I'll use only nelson sauvin hops and US-05.

So for a 6.6 gal batch, what would do?

 

[Loetz]

Well, this is what I've come up with...

Pils - 11.11 pounds
CaraHell - 1.6 pounds
CaraBelge - 1.6 pounds
Oats - 1.6 pounds

.5oz Nelson Sauvin 60 min.
.7oz Nelson Sauvin 20 min.
.7oz Nelson Sauvin 10 min.
.7oz Nelson Sauvin 5 min.

Any thoughts on this?
What should my starting temp be for the mash if I'm going to be using the thermopot without HERMS set up?
I'd like the final product to be 6.6 gallons and I'd like to batch sparge. How much water should I start with? How much should I sparge with?
Should I do a 90 min mash since I'm using pils?
I'm going to buy the oats from the grocery store. I need to boil those before I put them in the mash, right?

In understanding bittering you need to be aware of the bittering unit : gravity unit ration.

According to what you've said, this would give me a ratio of 43/63 using the numbers that BeerSmith gives me. Does this sound ok? Is this a good ratio? I don't want it to be too bitter, but I would like it to at least have some kick to it.

 

[orlando]

Comes out at .6825 so it should be fine (43/63 = .6825). You mentioned you use BeerSmith, in BS2 it gives you the bitterness ratio on the design page of the recipe on the right hand column.

 

[Loetz]

Ok, I'd really like some input on the mash schedule.

From what I've gathered with Beersmith, I should start with 18.75 L at 69C and then add 16.5 L of sparge water at 75C. Does this sound right? I'd like it to be full bodied. Beersmith says that the 69C should only be held for 45min, but that seems a little short for pils. 69C seems a little high too. It also seems like a lot of water if I want to have around 27 L for the boil and 25 in the FV.


What do you guys think?

 

[pittsy]

amounts seem about right i need 31l for the boil for a 23l batch having to mash around 38l to get 31l for boil and maybe mash at 66c but 75c seems right to , i'd prob mash for 90 mins though

 

[Loetz]

Ill probably lose some heat since Im just using the thermopot without the HERMS this time. Do you think I should start at 66?

 

[pittsy]

well you can mash as low as 62c and up to 72c so 66c is a temp i read in lots of recipes

 

[graysalchemy]

66 is the norm for most brewing.

 

[Loetz]

OK yea 66 is a good temp, but what I'm getting at is should I start with 66 considering that it might lose a couple of degrees as the mash progresses. Should I start with something like 67 and assume it will drop to 65 giving it an average of 66?

And when you suggest a 90 min. mash, does that include sparging time or is that 90 mins at the first step and then sparging afterwards.

If I'm not doing recirculation, should I stir the mash and disturb the grain bed at any point?

 

[Easy Peasie]

1.As long as you pre-heat your mash tun you should lose very little temp so I would aim for 66 degrees. I leave my measured grain in the house overnight to warm up a bit and my strike temp is 9 degrees higher so 75 degrees for 66 degree mash, although this works for me it may not for you - it's trial and error.
2. Mash for 90 mins and then sparge which should be nice and slow - about an hour.
3. You don,t need to stir once you have doughed in and ensured the temp is even and there are no dough balls(dry bits).
4. I would try 2.5l /k to start off with.

Hope this helps

Andy