First stab at all grain. Any must make beers?

[BarLee]

Hey guys. Just got into homebrewing. I am hooked. Picked up a Robobrew v3.1. Should arrive in a week. Wondering if there is a go to beer to make. I have made a simple table beer that turned out meh, a belgian blonde that needs a little more time to rest, and a hefeweizen thats fermenting all extract.
Looking to do something like a pale ale. Thoughts are sierra pale ale clone or zombie dust clone.
Something that will have a decent success/forgiveness rate.
Any tips on the robobrew or all grain?
Thanks ahead of time!

 

[WBB]

I would be more concerned with getting used to your new equipment.

Something basic. A SMASH recipe.

What kind of materials do you have? Grain, yeast, hops, etc..

 

[OleBrewing]

What I wished I would have done starting all grain is: choose 1 base malt; 1 crystal or special or adjunct; and 1 hop. Meaning keep it on the ones. I have made great beers with the simplest of recipes. You will get a better handle on what your ingredients are doing.

 

[McKnuckle]

To answer your question directly, why not try one of the über popular recipes on this site? Such as:

Centennial Blonde (More than 1.5 million views and counting)
EdWort's Bee Cave Brewery Pale Ale (not far behind)

 

[BongoYodeler]

To answer your question directly, why not try one of the über popular recipes on this site? Such as:

Centennial Blonde (More than 1.5 million views and counting)
EdWort's Bee Cave Brewery Pale Ale (not far behind)

Agreed on the Bee Cave Pale, it's simple, inexpensive to make and quite good. I haven't made the Centennial Blonde yet but probably will some day.

 

[mongoose33]

The only "must make" beer is something you're going to like.

I don't particularly care for stouts. I'll drink them here and there, but they are not on top of my list. Same with Belgians--not a fan. Saisons? I can take or leave 'em.

That's MY taste. There are people here for whom those are considered great beers....but not for me.

You can't produce any list of "must make" beers without taking into consideration your own tastes.

One of my favorite sayings is this: People like what they like. So brew what you like. If you like stouts, brew one. Belgians? Brew one. Ambers? Brew one.

You are not wrong to like what you like, so brew what you like.

 

[Velnerj]

To answer your question directly, why not try one of the über popular recipes on this site? Such as:

Centennial Blonde (More than 1.5 million views and counting)
EdWort's Bee Cave Brewery Pale Ale (not far behind)

The centennial blonde recipe is great, many consider it a must make beer. Also if you search for Yoopers hoppy pale ale apparently that's excellent too.

 

[jtratcliff]

Oh yeah, Centennial Blonde, Cream of 3 Crops, Yooper's Haus Ale, are all on my must brew list...

Got a variant of Yooper's Hause Ale in primary right now...

 

[El Nino]

Looking to do something like a pale ale. Thoughts are sierra pale ale clone or zombie dust clone.
Something that will have a decent success/forgiveness rate.

I'd say go with one of the clones. Pale Ales are pretty forgiving and hard to screw up. And if the recipe is something you already like, there's a high chance that the beer will be something you'll enjoy.

 

[MaaZeus]

I also say start with SMaSH recipes until you nail your process down, equipment becomes familiar and you can repeat the recipes without off flavors.

 

[Leezer]

+1 to Yoopers Haus Pale Ale. It was my first BIAB, a great beer that I continue to make on a regular basis.

 

[BarLee]

Thanks for all the replies, you guys are awesome! Ingredients I have are as follows:
Premium Pale 2 Row - 25 lbs
Melanoidin - 0.5 lbs
Carafoam - 0.5 lbs
Crystal 60L - 2 lbs
Light Munich - 1.5 lbs
Citra hops - 13 oz
Magnum hops - 4 oz
Perle hops - 3oz
Cascade hops - 7oz
Safale S04 and Safale S05 for yeasts.
I will check out the Yoopers Haul Pale Ale. Maybe I can make a decent SMaSH with the ingredients I have? Something a little hoppy but easy drinking? Love most beers, least favorite would be porters I guess..
Thanks again! Excited to hop on the all grain train.

 

[MaaZeus]

A Citra SMaSH is amazing. My crowd pleaser fruity Citra Smash recipe is following.

5 gallons / 19-20 liters of beer

4,53kg of Pale Ale malt, Maris Otter is recommended but any will do. That is the point of Smash, experiment with different malts and hops but stick to single one at the time. Mashed at 68C for 1 hour.
14g Citra @ 60 minutes boil
28g Citra @ 5 minutes boil
42g Citra dryhopped when fermentation has finished, roughly 3-5 days.
Safale S-04 or US05 yeast, depending on taste (I prefer S04, I have a thing for british ales)

Sorry for the metric system, I am from Finland and imperial goes way above my head.

This is very easy recipe and results in a tasty, clear fruit bomb tasting ale. There are a lot of other Citra Smash recipes out there, some more IPA like (more bittering hops) and others something in between. I am not a bitter IPA guy so when I am using a lot of hops they are all at the end of the boil or dryhopped, like the recipe above.

 

[BarLee]

That Citra SMaSH sounds tasty and looks easy. Not too complex so easier to not screw up. Plus it will give me a better idea of what malts taste like paired with certain Hops. I am from Canada so the metric is not an issue, although I use lbs/oz when I brew for convenience sake.What percent would this be? I am guessing 5-6%?

 

[MaaZeus]

Yes, a little bit over 5%. I do not remember the actual ABV because I simply always forget to write down the OG and FG. To me that is not really important, the taste is what matters.

 

[BarLee]

Taste is important for sure! Just wanted to make sure I would not get too SMaSHed too soon.

 

[WBB]

You could do a SNPA with what you have. 10lb 2oz of the 2 row. 11oz of the C60. 5oz perle, 1oz cascade, 1.5oz cascade. US05.

Mash at 155. Sparge at 170. Collect 6.5 gallons of wort. Boil 90 minutes. .5 oz perle at 90 min, 1oz cascade at 45 min, 1.5oz cascade at 0 min. Pitch and ferment at 68 until FG is reached, around 1.011. Abv should be around 5.4%.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Thanks for all the replies, you guys are awesome! Ingredients I have are as follows:
Premium Pale 2 Row - 25 lbs
Melanoidin - 0.5 lbs
Carafoam - 0.5 lbs
Crystal 60L - 2 lbs
Light Munich - 1.5 lbs
Citra hops - 13 oz
Magnum hops - 4 oz
Perle hops - 3oz
Cascade hops - 7oz
Safale S04 and Safale S05 for yeasts.
I will check out the Yoopers Haul Pale Ale. Maybe I can make a decent SMaSH with the ingredients

Don't sweat the SMaSH thing too much. My advice would be to brew the same grist at least 3 times, so that you can concentrate on getting used to all-grain and having the same ingredients means you can hopefully see the numbers improving as you get the hang of it.

But it's kinda boring brewing exactly the same beer, so you want to come up with a grist that can be the same in the copper but is flexible enough to work with different hops and yeast. Also be warned that the brewhouse efficiency on your first all-grain may well be terrible - don't freak out if it's down in the 50-55% range - so aim for a reasonable strength and perhaps have some malt extract/golden syrup or even table sugar on hand to bump up the sugars in the fermenter if your OG ends up on the low side.

Fermentation gets more complicated above 1.060 but somewhere in the 1.050s is a good target, that way it's not completely undrinkable if you lose 20 points on your efficiency. Whilst there's no need to go for a SMaSH (although there's no reason not to) you still want to keep it fairly simple to show up differences in the yeast and hops. So I'd go for the pale malt with 6oz Munich and/or 8oz crystal - that way you can do three batches the same without more shopping for speciality malts.

There's no point using expensive hops like Citra for bittering - use Magnum, that's what it's there for. You probably want a final bitterness around 40 IBU, so let's say 35IBU of Magnum at 60 minutes.

I'd be tempted to do a pure yeast trial - so have two batches with eg some Cascade at 10 minutes and Citra in the whirlpool and as a dry hop, but have one with US-05 and the other with S-04 (do the S-04 second, as its lower attenuation won't matter so much once you're getting the hang of your brewhouse efficiency). And do something completely different for the third batch, maybe Perle with a saison yeast (Be-134 if Fermentis is what's easiest for you).

 

[histo320]

Use this chance to really explore the different flavors and methods and perfect your brewing process.

Start with some kits. Deadringer by Northern Brewer is solid. They also have a Zombiedust clone that is spot on.

Use SMaSH recipes to explore hops and malts.

Mess with the water to find how different minerals/salts affect different types of beers.

 

[BarLee]

Well guys, I ended up going with a Sierra Clone. Brewed it yesterday. Followed the recipe on here and using some calculations for the robobrew. My thoughts were try something that has been done and explore from there. My final volume was spot on, hydrometer reading was spot on, and 5 hour start to finish time was spot on. Everything went "as planned". Thanks for all the great ideas. Think I will try something simpler next time like a SMaSH to start finding flavors to craft a beer that will be exactly what I like. But all grain was all and all not too hard. Smelled amazing and the process just seems more controllable with more options. Also happy with the Robobrew. Smaller footprint makes storage manageable. Thanks again everyone. All your help and suggestions really guided me in the right direction. But curse you, cause now I am hooked.