Critique a Newbie's First Recipe?

[danath34]

Hi all. I'm pretty new to this, but I've picked up a lot from lurking here and from Charlie Papazian's book. I have an idea for a recipe (extract) that I was hoping you guys could take a look at.

Essentially what I'm trying to do is make an imperial cream ale. I hope to be able to get the OG to 1.090 or so. I also want to keep the IBU's low, and keep the brew as close to the drinkability of a standard cream ale as is feasible. I will be doing a 5 gal batch.

this is what I've come up with:

one can of NB cream ale extract: - 20 mins steep on the specialty grains before boil, late addition @ 15 mins for the LME
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/cream-ale-extract-kit.html

3lbs Munton's extra light DME - 15 mins

3lbs Honey, 15 mins

1 oz Cluster, 60 mins
1.5 oz Cluster, 15 mins
1tbsp Irish moss, 15 mins

WLP080 yeast starter

I'll primary for probably 2-3 weeks at 65F, secondary for a couple weeks @ same, then crash cool for a week or so, bottle, and condition for probably a month.

what do you guys think? how's the hop level? I'm pretty sure the NB can is hopped and like I said I'm trying to keep hops low on this one. also, should I add the honey (and maybe more yeast) to secondary instead to avoid a stuck primary?

thanks in advance, and I hope this is the right section.

 

[BrewCrewKevin]

That should work. I checked out WLP080 because I'd be concerned about alcohol tolerance, but that one looks like it should stand up to it.

My only concern is that it'll be super sweet. That's a lot of very light extracts. I would reccomend some sort of specialty grains or something for head retention and complexity. I see the kit comes with Gambrinus Honey and Belgian Biscuit- you should steep at 166 for 20 mins or so before you boil.

The honey/sugar will actually give it a fairly strong "dryness" to it, not sweetness like you'd expect. So it'll sort of finish clean. Sounds like that's sort of what you're going for.

Otherwise it'll work! People will tell you it's weird to have a high ABV cream stout, but that sort of experimentation is why homebrewing is great!

Good luck! Let us know how it turns out!

Edit: Forgot to say welcome to the forums!

 

[danath34]

awesome. thanks for the advice. I'll steep at 166 instead of the 170 the kit says.

And thanks for the feedback on the recipe. It's nice to know at least one person with more brewing experience than I thinks this could work. Gives me more confidence in the recipe.

*edit*
actually I'll probably reduce the DME by 3lbs because I guess I hadn't looked closely at the NB kit and figured it was 3lb malt extract, whereas its actually 6! This will make me overshoot the 1.090 OG by quite a bit... though that may turn out interesting.... hmmm