The First Recipe

BoulterBrewer

BoulterBrewer

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Hey Folks,

So, i've been brewing all-grain BIAB for about a year now. I've got a few successful batches under my belt so thought I'd start to try and build my own simple recipe.

I'm keen to get a base level recipe down that I can build on and tweak so I can understand the impact each change is having on the end brew. This is also my first time using any form of brewing software, so i'm a little bewildered!

My usual method is to mash in with about 25L. I lose some of the to grain absorption, so I normally sparge to bring the volume back up to 25L for a post boil volume of about 20L (all of these are estimates, i'm yet to properly measure everything on a brew day!)

I'm looking to build a simple English IPA.

Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated. Cheers folks!!

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/700322/zero-one-pale-ale
 
Welcome to BF
I am not the one to offer advice (just started brewing in February myself), but you have come to the right place, others will chime in
 
I agree with the above, others will have great advices for you.

My first impressions of the recipe is that's a good start and not way off. It's going to be more of a session IPA clearly and going by the numbers, a fairly bitter one. I would personally consider to cut back on the bittering hops some.

I don't know if that yeast is suitable for en English IPA or not, but you won't know until you've tried !

Hopefully you will get more precise answers from others here... Good luck !
 
Thanks! With regards to the IBU - BF is adding on 20 extra IBUs for the Whirlpool and Dry Hop additions. So I’ve got a feeling it won’t turn out as bitter as implied. But I’ll guess I’ll find out!
 
BoulterBrewer said:
Thanks! With regards to the IBU - BF is adding on 20 extra IBUs for the Whirlpool and Dry Hop additions. So I’ve got a feeling it won’t turn out as bitter as implied. But I’ll guess I’ll find out!
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Yeah stick with it i recon whats the AA % on your citra this is whats most likely throwing up your IBUs. The grist looks pretty straight forward yeast is a clean well attenuating fermentor . I recon youll like it.
 
BoulterBrewer said:
With regards to the IBU - BF is adding on 20 extra IBUs for the Whirlpool and Dry Hop additions. So I’ve got a feeling it won’t turn out as bitter as implied.
Click to expand...
That's sort of right but likely you'll find that it definitely adds up. I think I decided that 4% utilization setting on my whirlpool was about right for IBU calculation.
Personally I think your IBUs and OG should be a little closer in number for a better balance. And you're mashing fairly low which should give you a crisp finish so that's going to push the percieved bitterness a bit, too. To me, the lingering bitterness that Citra can impart is pretty harsh. My advice is to drop some of your first wort hop addition and get the IBUs closer to 60 and then boost the malt bill for a gravity closer to 1.060. Or if you really prefer to keep it in the Pale Ale range, drop your IBUs to 50 or so.
Malt bill looks quite fine.
 
Sound advice. I think dropping that FWH by a few grams will help.

On a side note, I picked Citra as a "well, i've got to start somewhere" hop. But, if you were to swap the Citra out of this but still keep it as a good "base recipe" - which hop would you go for?

Thanks for all the tips!
 
J A said:
That's sort of right but likely you'll find that it definitely adds up. I think I decided that 4% utilization setting on my whirlpool was about right for IBU calculation.
Personally I think your IBUs and OG should be a little closer in number for a better balance. And you're mashing fairly low which should give you a crisp finish so that's going to push the percieved bitterness a bit, too. To me, the lingering bitterness that Citra can impart is pretty harsh. My advice is to drop some of your first wort hop addition and get the IBUs closer to 60 and then boost the malt bill for a gravity closer to 1.060. Or if you really prefer to keep it in the Pale Ale range, drop your IBUs to 50 or so.
Malt bill looks quite fine.
Click to expand...
There's another dependency: Temperature at whirlpool. If you throw the hops in at flameout, you're putting them in water at or near boiling. If you wait until the temperature has dropped to 180° F, the utilization drops drastically, meaning less contributed bitterness.
 
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I whirlpool at 75C as I’ve heard that’s a good place for utilisation.
 
180°F is 82.22....°C. Close enough for jazz.
 
I was going off this from James Morton's BREW book

Alpha acid isomerisation occurs at 79°c (174°F) and over, the higher the temperature, the faster the reaction happens. Adding hops to slowly cooling wort adds bitterness in an uncontrolled fashion; you do not know how much unless you've conducted very expensive studies on your setup.
At home we can easily halt the isomerisation of alpha acids by cooling below 79°C before adding our aroma additions. This means we can leave these hops to steep for as long as we want without adding any more alpha acid bitterness.
​
Also, when I said "utilisation" earlier i was referring to aroma, not bitterness. Used totally the wrong word. Sorry! Still figuring this all out!
 
BoulterBrewer said:
Also, when I said "utilisation" earlier i was referring to aroma, not bitterness. Used totally the wrong word. Sorry! Still figuring this all out!
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Aroma will be there with whirlpool, no matter what. That's what's nice about it. Bitterness will be imparted depending on a few factors and it's hard to compute it exactly. You have to sort of estimate the utilization that goes toward IBU production. As I mentioned, I set mine on 4% based on a 20 minute whirlpool ( I start at 180 and the wort cools to around 170 during the process)
BoulterBrewer said:
But, if you were to swap the Citra out of this but still keep it as a good "base recipe" - which hop would you go for?
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Grist-wise, it looks fine. I usually use Wheat (malted) for extra body but nobody's going to be angry at a little oats for mouthfeel in a hoppy beer. My personal go-to hops are Centennial and Simcoe with Columbus, Mosaic and the occasional Citra rounding out complex hop schedules. For single-hopped beers with simpler flavor profiles, Cascade, Willamette, Sterling, Crystal are all hops I use. For an English IPA, I'd be tempted to pile on the Golding and Fuggle.
 
[QUOTE="J My personal go-to hops are Centennial and Simcoe with Columbus, Mosaic and the occasional Citra rounding out complex hop schedules. For single-hopped beers with simpler flavor profiles, Cascade, Willamette, Sterling, Crystal are all hops I use. For an English IPA, I'd be tempted to pile on the Golding and Fuggle.[/QUOTE]

Smashing. Thinking about it (and seeing as this is a "base" recipe to build on) Fuggle/Golding is a really good shout – basically English IPA is the beer that I used to drink the most, so I know it's flavor profile very well. Fuggle and golding always tended to be hanging around those beers, so I think that'll help me brew a good starting point.

Thanks for all the help and advice guys.
 
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Your first link still works but the subsequent one doesn't. You'll need to save the recipe after you change it or save it under a different name and make it sharable. Also, Trial membership only allows just a few recipes to be saved.
 
That should be updated now - I've also swapped out the Crystal 15L for some Vienna, as that's what I can get my hands on.

I plan on paying for membership soon. I'm waiting until I "need" to - which will probably be after pay day :)
 
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For a Pale, that'll do fine, though I usually prefer up to 10% Munich for a little more color and sweetness. Not enough difference to worry about in this case, I'd say.
 
Thanks for all this. Brew day is next Saturday (my fermentation fridge is occupied this weekend) so I’ll report back once it’s all brewed up!
 
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