Spur of the moment rye beer

[biggtime]

Afternoon all. Decided to make a rye beer for the first time today. Why not? Any comments on the recipe:
Aiming for 25 litres at 4.5%
Pale 4Kg
Pale Rye Malt 500g
Crystal Rye Malt 230g
Caramalt 200g
Crystal malt 150 EBC 100g
Torrefied wheat 100g
Chocolate malt 10g

60min fairly wet mash at 67 degrees C.

Hops:
FW Admiral 14g
20mins Northdown 12g
5 mins Bramling X 20g
Flame out Boadicea 40g

60 min boil.
Nottingham yeast.

Intrigued to see what colour it comes out. And tried to pick a hop schedule that wouldn't be too bitter, and with hints of spice, to complement the rye...

 

[biggtime]

Quick update on this - the Nottingham took off like a house on fire. Got down to 1.011 and transferred to secondary with a big Archer and Boadicea dry hop.

Lots of banana/bubblegum esters at that point - which surprised me as that isn't supposed to be a characteristic of Nottingham as far as I can tell (but I'd not used it before). Some of it came from the rye and crystal rye of course.

Bottled it yesterday and gave it a taste. 100gm dry hop actually didn't seem to have done much to the aroma, which surprised me. It probably needs to be more bitter and still had quite a lot of sweetness despite the pretty full attenuation. Not much 'pepperiness' from the rye, but certainly some liquorice from the crystal rye in there.

Next time, I think it'll need more bittering hops, and a less complicated grain bill (drop the chocolate and crystal malt), maybe less crystal rye too. Would be nice to work out how to get it a redder colour too (if doing the above doesn't help with that). Any tips on that?

 

[clibit]

I've never had bubblegum from Nottingham. What temp was the fermentation?

For redness it's generally crystal and often a touch of roast barley. Different reds from different crystal malts, and there are German versions, one of which is carared, which I've not used.

I like crystal rye, around 5% of total grist seems about right.

 

[biggtime]

It probably started a little warm as another beer was slow to finish in my brew fridge, so this one sat out for the first 12 hours or so. The bubblegum element has all gone now but was a surprise as Nottingham is supposed to be very clean. Possibly it was partly the rye too as it's the first time I've used it so didn't know what to expect.

 

[clibit]

It's not the rye. Possibly diacetyl? Butterscotch?

 

[cheshirehomebrew]

have never used that combination of grains as I go for a less malty more hoppy taste in my beers, which reminds me I must stock up on some more grains fbefore my next brew

 

[biggtime]

It's not the rye. Possibly diacetyl? Butterscotch?

No, definitely not diacetyl. Proper banana/bubblegum esters. They've died away now, as far as I can tell. If not the rye then definitely the yeast.

 

[chrisgg]

I assume you have a bigger than normal fermenting bin at 25 litrs. However, seems like a lot of malt for 4.5%. What were the starting and finishing gravities out of interest?

 

[clibit]

Not experienced that with Nottingham. Interesting.