First attempt at own recipe

[Rosvineer]

So I can't mash, I don't have the equipment yet. I decided to try my own recipe using LME and steeping some specialty.

4lbs light LME
4lbs wheat LME
1lb brumalt (honey malt)
1lb crystal 60

1oz cascade 60 mins
1 oz Golding 15 mins
1 oz Golding dry hop

What do you think?

 

[Pie_Man]

The recipe looks alright. I have a few questions.

• Have you calculated the OG and IBUs? If so, that would help to analyze the recipe
• What type of Golding hops are you using?
• Are you aiming for any particular style?

 

[Rosvineer]

No particular style, hoping for something light to medium bodied, slightly more sweet than bitter

OG 1.062
FG 1.016
IBU's 36

Not sure exactly which Goldings. Something around 6-7aa with nice citrus taste/smell

 

[WyomingBrewer]

1lb of crystal 60 will make it a nice amber color. Looks good to me.

 

[Pie_Man]

Cool, I say brew it and see what happens. I once did an American Wheat with crystal and honey malt and the beer was excellent, a big hit with everyone who tried it. While not quite the same as your beer, it's was a similar recipe. I used US-05 for that recipe. Good luck.

 

[Rosvineer]

Doh, forgot the yeast. I'll have to think in that one. Not sure if I want one that will add flavor or be pretty neutral

 

[stpug]

How much wort will be boiled? Will you start with 6+ gallons and boil down to 5 gallons? This is going to affect your IBUs considerably. If you only boil ~3 gallons your IBUs will fall closer to the ~20 IBU range.

I've never used brumalt, but if it's too much like Honey Malt then you might consider cutting that amount in half.

 

[Rosvineer]

Boil will start with 2.5 gallons, final volume in fermenter will be 5. The free ap I'm playing with until I'm ready to upgrade to something like beersmith shows 36ibu

Total newbie here though so what do I know?

 

[stpug]

Try using Hopville's Beer Calculus recipe creator found here:
http://beercalculus.hopville.com/

It feels a little bit clunky (to me) but it's calculated numbers are very good. You will want to adjust your 'Fermenter Top-up' water on the Brewing Process tab. I used a guess of 2.5 gallons top-up for your fermenter. The resulting IBUs with your current hop schedule show in the neighborhood of 18 IBUs.

The fermentables I chose were:
Briess Gold LME
Briess Wheat LME
Brumalt
Briess Caramel 60L