Critique/Check my converted recipe

Hello all. Up to now I have been extract brewing and I have built a couple of recipes that have killed so far. I was going to make my first foray into AG brewing be that "Fizzy Yellow Beer" recipe. Honestly though, I only wanted to brew that one for my parents to try to get them to drink the beer I brew and enjoy it and to thank them for letting me use their commercial gas stove in their kitchen which got me off of my "bayou classic" burner in my garage.

That being said, my dad drinks the "Silver Bullet" and Mom foregoes Corona for...yup, no joke...Corona Light...lets be honest with ourselves. They are NEVER going to "like" beer I brew, it is what it is...

So I decided to make my first AG batch one that I will love so I converted my current favorite recipe. I'll post pics (screenshots of iBrewmaster recipe pages) of both, tell me what you think and whether my conversion works. The SRM's are a bit lighter on the AG version which I am ok with. The IBU's are roughly the same and the ABV is dead on. I'm going to be brewing this as a BIAB batch. Here goes:

Going to all grain is an interesting adventure in itself with many more ways to screw up the beer and make it different than you intended. Don't make it any harder by trying to make a beer that your parents will like at the same time. Errors you make will be much more evident with that recipe than one that incorporates some darker malts. Get a few more batches behind you before you try this one. Unless your parents are on their death beds you will have time to practice first.

Edited: Duh, I should read your text better before I comment. I'd still start with a different recipe instead of an imperial anything.

Thanks for the post!

I guess I was hoping for a critique (or Kudos) on the recipe itself or maybe some advice one way or the other on the conversion I did but I'll take what I can get for now. Help me understand why this beer isn't one I should brew now? I get that the fizzy yellow beer is too light to cover some of the noob mistakes that are commonly done but my recipe has a nice amount of malt, sweetness and IBU's so thats not going to be an issue.

Help me understand the possible mishaps you see with this recipe? (aside from the fact that I only have a 7.5gal kettle currently and I will need AT LEAST a 10gal and preferably a 14-20 for a 20lb grain bill)

thanks in advance for the knowledge

You'll be having 20 pounds of grain to mash. That's a considerable amount to get stirred into the mash tun without getting "dough balls". If you have any trouble when you are draining the tun, that's a lot of grain to stir or remove to clear the blockage. Many brewers have trouble getting the efficiency with the first few brews. Being a big beer compounds this. It would be a shame to have that much grain and such poor efficiency that you made a "lite beer". Those minor details are why I would suggest you start your all grain with a smaller beer and one that isn't a light color beer.

There are a couple of things I see. One is with the crystal malt and the carapils, you're at 12% crystal malt. That is a lot for any recipe, but for an IIPA with such a high OG, that could really be an issue, causing attenuation problems.

I'd also suggest mashing at 147-149, to make sure you get full attenuation. A big beer like that can finish too high, even with that much honey.

I'm no expert on bigger beers, though, so I'll have to defer to someone with more experience with mashing super high OG beers.

I'm also not very familiar with BIAB and large grainbills, but I'd assume the efficiency would be in the 60-65% range or so at first. Usually, larger grainbills have lower efficiency due to using a lower volume of liquid per pound of grain, otherwise you'd be boiling for hours and hours and hours.

I was going to say that's a lot of honey but if you've brewed it before and like it then I won't argue. The conversion looks okay except I think that's a lot of carapils. I don't typically use it when there's already crystal in the recipe, but if you want it I would go a lb or less. Keep in mind that I have not brewed anything with that much simple sugar other than Belgians so maybe you need it for body.


edit: oops, Yooper beat me to it

This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. I knew that golden light is basically two row and carapils, I just fudged the ratios until the abv worked out the same. But I did worry the whole time that it may be too much or too little one way or the other. The extract recipe is exactly how I do it with extract. My "grain bill" with that beer is 13.2lbs of golden light and 1lb of crystal 40 steeped at 155 for 30 mins. The 5 lbs of honey I add to the primary 4-5 days into the fermentation.

This will likely be brewed in either a 20 or 25 gallon kettle (I've been looking around for some deals and SAMs club has a nice ss kettle set with a ss strainer included) with all the water for the 6.87 gal boil and whatever would need to be added to account for what the grain absorbs.

So what would you do to adjust the ratio of carapils and 2-row to replace the golden light extract?

DerCribben said:

This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. I knew that golden light is basically two row and carapils, I just fudged the ratios until the abv worked out the same. But I did worry the whole time that it may be too much or too little one way or the other. The extract recipe is exactly how I do it with extract. My "grain bill" with that beer is 13.2lbs of golden light and 1lb of crystal 40 steeped at 155 for 30 mins. The 5 lbs of honey I add to the primary 4-5 days into the fermentation.

This will likely be brewed in either a 20 or 25 gallon kettle (I've been looking around for some deals and SAMs club has a nice ss kettle set with a ss strainer included) with all the water for the 6.87 gal boil and whatever would need to be added to account for what the grain absorbs.

So what would you do to adjust the ratio of carapils and 2-row to replace the golden light extract?

Click to expand...

I'd leave out the carapils, as you have crystal in the grainbill so it's redundant, and just use the two-row.

Ok, I'll modify the recipe to leave out the carapils. That is going to make this beer a lot different than the extract recipe though right? Or would you tend to leave out more of the crystal in the extract version of this also?

DerCribben said:

Ok, I'll modify the recipe to leave out the carapils. That is going to make this beer a lot different than the extract recipe though right? Or would you tend to leave out more of the crystal in the extract version of this also?

Click to expand...

I wouldn't think it would make it different than the extract recipe, as the best sub for light extract would be US two-row.

One thing I thought was a little strange were the 3 hop additions at 60, 55 and 50 minutes. Not that there's anything wrong with it but it seems like extra work over just adding it all at 60 minutes. The ibus would be nearly identical and I can't image the flavor being affected that late in the boil.

Yooper said:

I wouldn't think it would make it different than the extract recipe, as the best sub for light extract would be US two-row.

Click to expand...

I thought Briess golden light was a mix of 2-row and carapils which is why I originally converted it like that. If 2-row only will do the job then I'm game

Tombstone0 said:

One thing I thought was a little strange were the 3 hop additions at 60, 55 and 50 minutes. Not that there's anything wrong with it but it seems like extra work over just adding it all at 60 minutes. The ibus would be nearly identical and I can't image the flavor being affected that late in the boil.

Click to expand...

Good point, do you think a 60-50-40 addition would make a difference or is 60 still where it's at? I'm definitely game to "experiment" (hence the "experimental" IIPA)

DerCribben said:

Good point, do you think a 60-50-40 addition would make a difference or is 60 still where it's at? I'm definitely game to "experiment" (hence the "experimental" IIPA)

Click to expand...

Really, once you go over about 20-30 minutes you're not going to get much flavor.