what yeast should i use??

oliver

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I was playing with the recipe builder, originally trying to make some kind of dark lager, then it was going to be a scotch ale, and then the calculator spit out a bunch of things at the bottom that also sounded good. i'm very new to brewing, and haven't a clue about what yeast to use and how to age this thing. Here's my recipe

1.25qt/lbs of water
4 lbs of American 2-row
.5 lbs brown sugar ( and i still don't understand whether this goes in the mash or the boil)
.25 lbs American Munich 20
.25 lbs American Roasted Barley

i'm going to sparge another 7 quarts or so to get 3 gallons of wort, and boil it down for 90 minutes to just under 2 gallons.

.25 ounce Perle hops...60min

any and all help is greatly appreciated.
 
depends on the temperature your going to ferment at, cant go wrong with US05 and its cheap but need to be in the 65 degree or less range
 
thanks. what about using brown sugar?? most things i read talk about adding brown sugar in the boil, but should i just steep it with the rest of the grains?
 
no you don't steep or ad it to the mash or steeping grains, just add it any time during the boil, you could add it the last 15 minutes of the boil but unless your boiling rapidly for 90 minutes or more is not needed
 
Totaly OT but I am truly curious... Any particular reason for using Perle hops (and so little at that)?
 
sbaclimber said:
Totaly OT but I am truly curious... Any particular reason for using Perle hops (and so little at that)?

looking for something tasting more sweet and malty than hoppy.
 
The cool thing about this recipe maker is if you punch in your ingredients and look at the hit the more stats button you can see what styles your numbers represent. Yours returns a traditional bock, though the grain selection might not match. At a cursory glance in the interwebs we have a few yeast choices. They're all lager yeasts so a cooler fermentation temp is recommended, but you don't necessarily have to if you can't. That's the beauty of home brewing; you can do what you want because why not.

Wyeast #2124 Bohemian Lager
Wyeast #2206 Bavarian Lager
WLP 833 German Bock Lager

As others have said you could easily get away with any neutral ale yeast (e.g. US-05).
 
cearum said:
The cool thing about this recipe maker is if you punch in your ingredients and look at the hit the more stats button you can see what styles your numbers represent. Yours returns a traditional bock, though the grain selection might not match. At a cursory glance in the interwebs we have a few yeast choices. They're all lager yeasts so a cooler fermentation temp is recommended, but you don't necessarily have to if you can't. That's the beauty of home brewing; you can do what you want because why not.

Wyeast #2124 Bohemian Lager
Wyeast #2206 Bavarian Lager
WLP 833 German Bock Lager

As others have said you could easily get away with any neutral ale yeast (e.g. US-05).

yeah i was looking at the More stats below, unfortunately for me it was telling me doppelbock, scotch ale, baltic porter, belgian specialty dark. I changed the recipe around slightly...

4.00 lb United Kingdom - Pale 2-Row
0.25 lb American - Roasted Barley
0.25 lb American - Special Roast
0.25 lb United Kingdom - Munich
0.25 lb Brown Sugar (boiled at 15min)
90 minute boil, going from 3 gallons of wort to about 1.8 - 2.0 gallons.

and good ol Safale US-05, but i think i'd want to ferment this one colder than i usually do with ales, like around 60 maybe?
 
Not sure about the fermentation temp, but that revised grain bill looks tasty
 
went into my home-brew shop this morning, they sold me after i tasted a few grains, so here's the new recipe

4.00 lb German - Pale Ale
0.25 lb American - Roasted Barley
0.25 lb American - Munich - Light 10L
0.25 lb Belgian - Special B
0.25 lb American - Special Roast

currently steeping these as i type this.

going to pitch Wyeast 1007 German ale yeast with it.
 
thats going to be a very dark and flavorful beer, but it will be a good cool weather evening sipper
 
Ozarks Mountain Brew said:
thats going to be a very dark and flavorful beer, but it will be a good cool weather evening sipper

finished! it was quite dark indeed, very opaque. we'll see how that turns out.

Not quite sure what happened, but my hydrometer reading was at 1.069, much further down than anticipated.
 
oliver said:
4.00 lb German - Pale Ale
0.25 lb American - Roasted Barley
0.25 lb American - Munich - Light 10L
0.25 lb Belgian - Special B
0.25 lb American - Special Roast

Wyeast 1007 German Ale

forgot to post the results of this here... OG: 1.068, fermented at about 62º, FG: 1.018 three weeks later... Turned out pretty good. A pleasant surprise, came off tasting like a boozy CocaCola to me. Could definitely use more hops, could barely taste them if at all. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out next time with a little more bitterness.
 
It'll help to google a chart with the hop bitterness (IBUs) for different beer styles, and then when you plug your numbers into the Brew Calculator, it will give you an idea what kind of range you're in for a given style. It's nice to have the chart, because even if the calculator tells you you're at or near a certain style, you'll still have other styles that might be close and you make a judgement call from there.

So, if you're trying to get something like a bock but on the lighter end, you'll know that the IBU number that the calculator throws out would be (just as an example) say 3 IBUs, and the style calls for 23 to 35, you'd then know you were way off in your hops calculations. After no time at all, you'd know that (for instance) the 3 IBUs tasted "cola-like" and one you did around 22 IBUs was still a tad too "hoppy" for your tastes, you could shoot for around 15 or 18 next time. Those were just arbitrary numbers, but it gives you an idea of just how powerful the Brew Calculator is for tweaking recipes to your tastes. Keep good notes and you'll almost know exactly where to aim for that perfect brew. Hope that all makes sense.
 
yeah i've got the nice three color hop graph in my notes. I think the version i just drank clocked in around 20 IBUs, and didn't notice them at all.. I've since changed the recipe approximating 35ibus. So it'll be different next time around. As for the calculator telling me styles i'm close to, it keeps suggesting baltic porter, i guess based purely on color and gravity, but this beer doesn't have a porter feel. Not sure what to call it.
 
EbonHawk said:
It'll help to google a chart with the hop bitterness (IBUs) for different beer styles.

wait wait wait. i've been using this hop graph, but after reading your comment and doing some more research on it, it seems people are disputing the Aroma line?? They're saying that the Aroma line should peak 100% at 0 minutes instead of 10, which leads me to believe the flavor line is also off. Can anyone defend or refute this?

46323.jpg
 
The graph is simplistic but for what it's intended to portray, it's useful. Bittering curve looks good except the bitterness actually starts to decline around 120 minutes. Flavor is contributed nearly any time from 30 minutes through dry hopping but you have to be aware that cooked hops - hops that have been boiled - taste different from those that have not been boiled. Aroma is the same: I expect aroma from anything I put in at ten minutes or less but again, hops that have been cooked smell different than hops that have not. Dry hopping puts a different scent in the beer than hops added at whirlpool. And then, there's mash-hopping, first-wort hopping, hop rockets.... Bottom line, the hop issue is much too complex to be represented by a single graph but the graph you showed, with some weaknesses, isn't all that bad as a beginner's guide.
 

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