Ale Recipe Help

[liam_skeggs]

Hi guys,
I'm contemplating my first all grain brew, will be BIAB to save costs.
I have done some reserach and come up with this recipe. I would appericate any advice/comments to help me out

Malts (25L for Mash) 60C
Pale: 1.5kg
Caraaroma: 200g
Maris: 150g
Wheat: 250g
Spruge with 5L @70C
Fill back up to 23L
Hops (at Boiling)
Chinook:25gs @ 60mins
Amarillo: 15 @ 20mins
Citra: 25g @ Dry Hop 5 days​

Thanks
Liam

 

[mongoose33]

What are you trying to brew? For 25 liters of mash volume and 5 liters of sparge water, there sure isn't a lot of grain there.

You have 2.1 kg of grain--or about 4.5 pounds of grain if my math is correct. I typically have 10-13 pounds of grain in my mashes.

So what is your goal here?

 

[Kerrbrewer]

Here's some round figures of what you may come up with. With 30 L of water you will likely have 27 L after mash. That wort assuming 68% efficency, and 20% boil off will be around 1.020. Your hop bill will give you about 51 IBU'S.
Final stats: A 1.005 beer, probably astringent, dry, medium highly bittered with an ABV of 1.9%
If that is what you are looking for brew on.
If I was brewing it my first time, I would increase the pale and marris, do a full volume mash of 30 L and squeeze the bag.
Whatever you do, good luck with the AG brew!

 

[liam_skeggs]

I'm aiming for a smooth Australian/American Pale Ale.

So I need to double the amount of grains for the mash. starting with a increase in pale and marris.
What about the hops?
I'm really knew to all grain how do you work out the OG and all that?
Thanks for the advice guys!!!

 

[chickypad]

I'm aiming for a smooth Australian/American Pale Ale.

So I need to double the amount of grains for the mash. starting with a increase in pale and marris.
What about the hops?
I'm really knew to all grain how do you work out the OG and all that?
Thanks for the advice guys!!!

Most folks use software or an online calculator to help with this. I use Beersmith but there are online free ones like Brewer's Friend. You'll have to guess at your efficiency at first until you brew some batches and track your numbers, you can probably just use 70% or so to start. I'm not so great with metric but your hops look closer than your grainbill for a 5 gal pale ale. You may want to move a little of the 60 min bittering to late, but plug it in and see.

Edit: One other thing, the caraaroma is a pretty dark caramel - so some roast, toffee, raisiny flavors probably. I personally would go with a lighter crystal/caramel malt for a pale ale, especially at 10% of the grainbill.

 

[mongoose33]

I'm aiming for a smooth Australian/American Pale Ale.

So I need to double the amount of grains for the mash. starting with a increase in pale and marris.
What about the hops?
I'm really knew to all grain how do you work out the OG and all that?
Thanks for the advice guys!!!

Since you're a member of this site now, I am wondering why you wouldn't look at existing recipes for a pale ale and then try to build something off that.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=62

That's a forum dedicated to ale recipes. If you search "pale" on that first page, you'll find a bunch. It's not that you will or won't want to brew them, it's that you should be able to compare what you're proposing to what others do.

One of the beers, Mosaic Smash, is rather similar to a SMASH I do--it uses Maris Otter malt, with a single hop. Mine is Styrian Celeia, his is Mosaic--doesn't matter, what matters is what you're trying to feature.

You'll note that he's got 10 pounds of Maris Otter. You're at half that. I also don't know why you're adding the specialty malts you are--what are you trying to do with them in there? You may have a reason, but it doesn't look to me like it makes a lot of sense. I could be wrong, it has happened before.

BTW, in mine, I use 11 pounds of Maris Otter, and three ounces of Styrian Celeia, one ounce at 60, one at 10, one at 0 minutes.

I personally like Maris Otter a lot, you may or may not. Brulosopher did an exbeeriment at one point comparing 2-row to Maris Otter, and the respondents split exactly 50-50 as to which they liked better.

But this general recipe is a hit among people here who have tried it.

 

[meatcleaver]

I agree. k.i.s.s.
5 kg Maris otter
250-500g any crystal
any clean bittering hop (I like nugget in Anglo ales) @ 60 minutes for 30-40 ibu + 1 oz of your showcase hop @ 10 minutes& knockout.
& + 1 for brewersfriend...it's easy & free. I'd target 60% efficiency the first time since a standard crush isn't great for biab.

 

[liam_skeggs]

Thanks for all the help guys
I've decided to use a recipe from the forums to get my first all grain out of the way and maybe experiment later with a different one.
I'm doing Yooper's House Pale Ale. Hopefully it'll turn out as good as everyone says it is
Thanks Again for all the help

 

[jtratcliff]

Yooper's Haus Ale is great... I keep it in my standard rotation... The cool thing is that it makes a great base recipe to try variations... I've swapped out the hops, varied the ratio of Munich/Vienna, replaced the Marris Otter w/ 2-row + biscuit, used different yeasts, etc.

Can't go wrong.

 

[applescrap]

I'm aiming for a smooth Australian/American Pale Ale.

So I need to double the amount of grains for the mash. starting with a increase in pale and marris.
What about the hops?
I'm really knew to all grain how do you work out the OG and all that?
Thanks for the advice guys!!!

So glad you are going for it. I normally only use the best recipes I can find. Start by brewing some solid recipes then change as you learn more imo. Northern brewer just did all grain kits at 19.99 sale. Those would be a great place to start or end. I would have loaded up but I just bought a ton of grain.

 

[applescrap]

Heres a recipe for sierra nevada pale ale from the byo staff. Maybe start with this, best of luck.

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[Kerrbrewer]

Liam,
All the math I used in my post are from Daniels Designing Great Beers and Millers Homebrewing Handbook. Dave Millers book was the first book l bought and it is a really good book for getting started. My first beer was Biermunchers Centennial Blonde, not a true pale ale but it sure is good. I still make it regularly.

 

[jtratcliff]

Biermunchers Centennial Blonde, not a true pale ale but it sure is good..

Yup... This!

Yooper's Haus Ale, BierMuncher's Centennial Blonde, and BierMuncher's Cream of Three crops all get brewed regularly in my kitchen!

Each are awesome in their own way... Easy to brew... Relatively quick from grain to glass, and they satisfy different flavor preferences. Centennial Blonde and Cream of 3 crops are especially good for wooing bud/miller/coors (BMC) drinkers...

Yoopers is a nice balanced, hoppy APA for those folks who don't quite like IPAs

 

[Gnomebrewer]

I'm aiming for a smooth Australian/American Pale Ale.

They are two completely different beers. Australian pale ale is closer to Australian lager than it is to American pale ale. If you want an Aussie pale ale, try (for 23L)
4kg Ale malt
400g Wheat malt
(mash for 1hr 30mins at 64C)
200g of sugar (add after the boil - you want a thin body)
30g of Pride of Ringwood hops boiled for 60mins
Harvest yeast from a bottle(s) of coopers pale ale or sparkling ale.
Ferment at 18C for 10 days.