Sanity Checking - First beer recipe

[richaworth]

I spent a period of time down the homebrew rabbit hole on Serious Eats, and decided on a recipe to make. Though due to a few little issues (mostly, I missed that the recipe I bought ingredients for requires a mash tun, and I don't have one; and I'm too impatient to build/buy one right now), and some minor ingredient inavailability, I kinda have to wing a few things and replace the malt with dried malt extract (Spraymalt from Wilko. I could only get my hands on 2.5kg, in a mix of medium and light). So if I could get a practiced eye on my planned recipe, and just set my mind at rest that I'm not going to end up with a terrible drinking experience, I'd really appreciate it.

(Plus, posting here so I've got a record).

1 kg of Maris Otter malt (milled)
1.5 kg Medium Spraymalt
1 kg Light Spraymalt
180g Mosaic hops
US-05 yeast
1 tablet Whirlfloc
1/2 teaspoon yeast nutrient
125g sugar (for conditioning)

1. Tie Maris Otter malt in mesh bag, steep in 4.5l hot water (60 minutes at 68*C - wrap in blanket to insulate)
2. Steep grain bag in 9l clean 68*C water for 15 minutes to rinse more sugar from the grain.
3. Add water from 1 and 2 to same pan with grain bag. Heat to 77*C.
4. Boil, adding in all spraymalt and stir until dissolved.
5. Once boiling, add in 30g Mosaic hops (in bag).
6. At 45 minutes, add another 45g Mosaic hops (in bag) and Whirlfloc.
7. At 50 minutes, add in yeast nutrient.
8. Stop boiling, add in a final 45g Mosaic hops (in bag).
9. Cool to below 30*C in ice bath.
10. Move to fermenter, top up to 23l. Add in dried yeast, stir, leave to ferment.
11. Once gravity reaches ~1.014 or so, transfer to secondary fermenter, add in 60g Mosaic hops (in bag) for 5-6 days.
12. Batch condition before bottling - 125g sugar dissolved in small amount of hot water, added to the 23l brew. Bottle.

Edit - Adjusted from H0PM0NSTER's suggestions (for my own notes).

 

[H0PM0NSTER]

Looks pretty good. Should be nice and hoppy! Just a couple of suggestions:
Your mash temps are quite high - most recipes you want to mash 65-68c (the higher you mash the more unfermentable sugars you'll get, but too high and you risk getting tannins from the malt). I would steep for longer - 60mins is a standard mash time. To keep the temp during the mash you can either keep it heating but be careful not to burn the grain bag on the bottom of the pan. Or safer to remove from the heat and wrap your pan in blanket or sleeping bag - that's what I used to do when I did BIAB (brew in a bag) and would only lose a couple of degrees over the hour.
I would also batch sparge your grain using some of the extra 9ltrs of water you're planning to add to the boil. Steeping the grain bag for 15mins at the same temp used for the mash will help rinse out more of the sugars.

Good luck!

 

[richaworth]

Looks pretty good. Should be nice and hoppy! Just a couple of suggestions:
Your mash temps are quite high - most recipes you want to mash 65-68c (the higher you mash the more unfermentable sugars you'll get, but too high and you risk getting tannins from the malt). I would steep for longer - 60mins is a standard mash time. To keep the temp during the mash you can either keep it heating but be careful not to burn the grain bag on the bottom of the pan. Or safer to remove from the heat and wrap your pan in blanket or sleeping bag - that's what I used to do when I did BIAB (brew in a bag) and would only lose a couple of degrees over the hour.
I would also batch sparge your grain using some of the extra 9ltrs of water you're planning to add to the boil. Steeping the grain bag for 15mins at the same temp used for the mash will help rinse out more of the sugars.

Good luck!

Thanks buddy. I'll definitely take all this on board - glad I posted

 

[richaworth]

Follow up on this recipe - it was bloody delicious. Need to make more