Ingredients for recipe question

[idahobrew]

Here's what I have as far as ingredients, I want to make a 6 gallon batch BIAB.

10 lbs. American 2 row pale Great Western
3 lbs. Amber LME
1 lb. Clover honey
.5 lb. Quaker oats (toasted)
1 oz. Cascade pellets
1 oz. Willamette pellets
1 pkg. Nottingham yeast

Any comments, suggestions, advice would be greatly appreciated. This will be my
4th batch and second all grain BIAB.

 

[marqoid]

This looks good to me, it will be a very hefty honey Amber. In fact you may want to hold back on some of the grain as 2 oz of fairly low AA hops may not be enough to balance, not sure what the IBUs would be. Otherwise I would add the honey and LME in the last 5' to maximize the hops, Cascade @60' and Willamette @10'.

 

[idahobrew]

Thank you, I was thinking along the same lines. Although I was going to add the LME at the start of the boil, and honey after the boil, may have to rethink this. Hops dead on at 60min cascade and 10min Willamette. Could get some more hops before I brew, what would you suggest?

 

[marqoid]

Without calculating it out I'm not sure of IBUs, but I am a fan of Willamette hops, I would maybe add 1oz @45'.
There is no harm in holding off to add LME until near end of boil and it will give you better hop utilization. Those two changes should get better balance, but I would expect this to still be on the sweet side.

 

[idahobrew]

Without calculating it out I'm not sure of IBUs, but I am a fan of Willamette hops, I would maybe add 1oz @45'.
There is no harm in holding off to add LME until near end of boil and it will give you better hop utilization. Those two changes should get better balance, but I would expect this to still be on the sweet side.

Thanks, IBU's would be in the mid to high 20's if I remember right, where do you want your IBU's to be in an average brew? I have 2 ounces of Chinook whole and 6 ounces of Liberty pellets on the way, so any advice would be appreciated. Looks like brewing is part art and part science (best way I could put it). I have a similar beer already fermenting using the same 1oz. Cascade 60 min and 1oz. Willamette 10 min, so I hope it will come out ok, not too sweet, my IBU was 28.1 on this one. Oh well, live and learn to brew.

 

[marqoid]

If you do:
1oz Cascade @60'
1oz Willamette @45'
1oz Willamette @10'
and
add LME and honey at the end of boil
and
boil your full volume
then
you will get ~46 IBU
which will be appropriate for this beer since you will OG 1.083 and 8.3% Abv., but it will be a fairly simple beer.

Other suggestions:
You could reduce the 2 row to 5# and eliminate the 45' hop addition and that would give a balanced lighter beer.
or
You could boil for 120' and add LME/honey early to get more caramelization/complexity and change the 60' hop addition to 120'. This would give a more complex big beer.
If making the BIG beer, make a big starter with the yeast.

 

[idahobrew]

Hmm, very interesting, may go for the Big beer. How much extra water for the longer boil, 1 gallon? Thanks again marqoid you've been a big help.

 

[marqoid]

This is a good calculator to factor these things. Boil off is usually calculated at 10%/hour and grain absorption is 0.13 gallons/# grain.
No matter, if you collect ~6 gallons and boil down to <5 gallons there is no harm in adding cool bottled spring water to top off when it's done. In fact some say that there is a benefit to doing this.

The long boiling beer that I suggested will end up more appropriate to the old ale style.