Feedback on Recipe?

[milo_leon]

Hello all,

We are doing our maiden voyage on our new electric brewing system and would like some thoughts on our first recipe - my goal is to brew a hoppy pale ale. we have been doing all grain with propane for ~2-3 years so looking forward to brewing inside during the cold Rochester winters.

12G batch, split into two fermenters. One will be pitched with Cali yeast and the other with American yeast. Am curious to taste the differences.

23# 2-row (92%)
1# carapils (4%)
1# cara40 (4%)
1 oz Magnum FWH 60m
1 oz each Mosaic/El Dorado 5m
1 oz each Mosaic/El Dorado Whirlpool 20m @170 degrees
1 oz each Mosaic/El Dorado Dry hop 7 days

Est OG: 1.057
Est FG: 1.011
IBU: 43
Color: 7
ABV: 6%

Thoughts? Should I add more hops to the whirlpool? Any adjustment to grain bill?

 

[Staticsouls]

If you can whirlpool, then why not?

 

[ProblemChild]

when should I come over?

 

[thehaze]

For my taste, you are missing some hops. 2 oz for dry hopping is not enough for my taste and also, you mentioned " hoppy " and not a generic Pale ale. The extra " hoppy " will derive from using a bit more hops, at least this is what I feel. I think you would be safe by doubling the hops.

 

[brew703]

You should probably plan on 1 oz/gallon or 1.5 oz/gallon depending on what you are looking for.

 

[McUbermensch]

Agree with the above comments regarding more dry hops. I tend to use 1oz per gallon with very good results.

 

[milo_leon]

Thanks for your reply!

I am thinking of this for the hop schedule:

1 oz Horizon FWH 60m
1 oz each Mosaic/El Dorado 10m
2 oz each Mosaic/El Dorado Whirlpool 30m @120 degrees
3 oz each Mosaic/El Dorado Dry hop 5 days in each fermenter

I also did some reading on whirlpool temps and IBUs, seems from this thread: http://www.beersmith.com/forum/index.php?topic=16393.0 that adjusting the whirlpool utilization to 5% is a better reflection of IBUS extracted from whirlpooling under 170 degrees. Thoughts on this?

 

[thehaze]

The hopping schedule looks much better now.

Regarding the IBUs: I use Brewer'sFriend to build recipes and whirlpool hop utilization is set by default at 10%, which seems and is - at least for my equipment - a lot. Based on the last 15 batches, I adjusted it to 3% and I am happy with it.

I think the utilization depends a lot on how you do the whirlpool and how long. If you whirlpool using a pump, utilization might be greater. I have a Grainfather and simply stir with a paddle 3 times and each time, i leave it be for 5-10 minutes. This is why 3% works for me, as the final IBUs seem on par with the " perceived " bitterness.

 

[brew703]

Thanks for your reply!

I am thinking of this for the hop schedule:

1 oz Horizon FWH 60m
1 oz each Mosaic/El Dorado 10m
2 oz each Mosaic/El Dorado Whirlpool 30m @120 degrees
3 oz each Mosaic/El Dorado Dry hop 5 days

I also did some reading on whirlpool temps and IBUs, seems from this thread: http://www.beersmith.com/forum/index.php?topic=16393.0 that adjusting the whirlpool utilization to 5% is a better reflection of IBUS extracted from whirlpooling under 170 degrees. Thoughts on this?

I agree on the WP. I adjust down to 5% as for my system I believe it's more accurate.

 

[McUbermensch]

Looks great to me! I'll need a sample. . . . for science.

 

[ProblemChild]

Remember, 170°F is the level for isomerization of alpha acids. Below this, limited bittering (if at all). at 120°F, do not count on bittering.

My bet is that Mosaic will be slightly more powerful that ElDorado - so my own preference would be to go about 60:40 in favor of the ElDorado

 

[milo_leon]

I agree on the WP. I adjust down to 5% as for my system I believe it's more accurate.

Thank you! Beersmith whirlpool utl was set to 50% due to the assumption of steeping it at 190+ degrees (ie. flameout) and I was skeptical of that percentage being so high if the temp was lower.

I adjusted the ult% for whirlpool and my IBU is now ~40, which I think will be good for a hoppy pale ale.

 

[thehaze]

If you drop your whirlpool temp. under 170F you will most likely see lower utilization, as ProblemChild pointed out, the level of isomerization will drop, thus you will only - for the most part - extract aroma and flavour from hops. I usually whirlpool somewhere between 149 and 158F with good results. I recently made a simple Pale ale wtih Maris Otter and a bit of Crystal 60L with all Amarillo and NO dry hopping and it came out great with 3.5 oz hops in the whirlpool.

 

[milo_leon]

If you drop your whirlpool temp. under 170F you will most likely see lower utilization, as ProblemChild pointed out, the level of isomerization will drop, thus you will only - for the most part - extract aroma and flavour from hops. I usually whirlpool somewhere between 149 and 158F with good results. I recently made a simple Pale ale wtih Maris Otter and a bit of Crystal 60L with all Amarillo and NO dry hopping and it came out great with 3.5 oz hops in the whirlpool.

Now you got me thinking- I could dryhop one of the fermenter so we can compare both batches and see how much flavor/aroma dry hopping gives us. Both yeast should be fairly similar (american and cali) so should be an interesting experiment!

 

[thehaze]

Dry hopping gives a lot of aroma, but depends on recipe and amount of hops used.

I am positive that the Pale ale I mentioned above, would have been better with dry hopping, but it was an experiment, to check for myself, whether I can brew a hoppy beer without dry hopping. And it worked well. Now there were 7 oz hops in total: half for late additions ( last 20 minutes - NO bittering charge ) and half for whirlpool and I think I can do more next time.