First All-Grain Batch, What do I do?

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McAvinbrew

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So the time has finally arrived and Im all set for my first day of All Grain brewing. The mash tun and an assortment of grain arrived so now Im looking at what I can make. Im hoping to make a relatively simple wheat beer something sessionable and a little zesty. As I said Im a rookie at this so any recipe tips are welcome. It was recommended I could go simple and just try a simple wheat grain recipe with just some citra hops at the end to make it a little citrus.

I was thinking of going 6lb of Heidelberg Wheat Malt, 2lb of 2 row, 2lb of Pilsner, 1/2lb of Carapils. Maybe 1/4oz citra for bittering and 1oz on 60mins. Any advice or suggested changes are appreciated.

Here is everything I have on hand for the weekend.

10lb of 2-Row Malt - OiO
6lb of Heidelberg Wheat Malt - BestMalz
6lb of Wheat Malt - OiO
2lb of Pilsner Malt - Weyermann
4lb of Vienna Malt - Weyermann
2lb of CaraAroma - Weyermann
1lb of Carapils - Briess

4oz of Citra Hops

4oz of Elderflowers

3.3lb of extra light LME
3lb of light DME

Nottingham Ale Yeast (Dry)
White Labs WLP001 California Ale Yeast
Wyeast 3068 - Weihenstephan Weizen

Thanks in advance.
 
Citra is great. To really get that citrus punch, keep most of the additions towards the end, say 30 mins and later. Maybe have .5 oz or so at 60, depending on how the IBUs look with that grain bill.
With all that wheat, I think the carapils is unnecessary. Maybe try some vienna to give it a little toasty flavor. I did a toasted wheat red ipa a bit ago, and that flavor was a nice touch.
Keep it clean with wlp001.

No idea what elderflowers would do, but maybe split the batch and dry hop one with them?
Good luck!
 
I'd go with 50/50 2 row and wheat. Cant get much simpler, and I don't think you need any of the carapils, you should have plenty of head retention anyway. Ifyou want it to be an american wheat, use the 001. German wheat beer, use the Weinsteffan. Get an orange or 2 and cut off the peel, and take as much of the white pith off as you can. add the peel to the boil, with 5-10 minutes left. Should be good, let us know what you decide and hopw it goes.
 
good point about the different yeasts, i had immediately thought american wheat when he said to keep it simple

for the orange, use a zester if you have one.

otherwise, chop up the peel a bit after doing what hogarthe said. you'll release more of the oils and create more surface area for the wort to come into contact with
 
So I reckon its going to be 5lb of wheat, 4lb of 2row and 1lb vienna. Add 0.5oz of citra at 45 and another 1oz at 15. And the consesus seems to be to go with the WLP001.

Thanks for the help.

Wish me luck!
 
My advice is a little different: Use the base grain and a single hop only and brew that same recipe repeatedly until it comes out the same every time. There's a lot going on in an all-grain batch that you haven't had to deal with using extract. By attempting to brew a complex beer, you'll never know what was the ingredients and what was your process. So I always recommend first-time all-grain brewers brew something very simple, so simple that nothing off can hide behind the hops or the malts, to evaluate how well their process is performing. The second brewing (and subsequent batches, assuming you didn't get everything right the first time) is to make sure the previous batch wasn't a fluke. Once a couple of batches taste the same, you can move on to more complicated brews with confidence. Then, when you start doing more complex grain bills, hops, spices and so forth, you can be sure your ingredients, not your process, are the cause of the change in your beer.

It would have saved me a lot of mediocre beers had someone given me this advice early on.
 
Nosybear said:
My advice is a little different: Use the base grain and a single hop only and brew that same recipe repeatedly until it comes out the same every time. There's a lot going on in an all-grain batch that you haven't had to deal with using extract. By attempting to brew a complex beer, you'll never know what was the ingredients and what was your process. So I always recommend first-time all-grain brewers brew something very simple, so simple that nothing off can hide behind the hops or the malts, to evaluate how well their process is performing. The second brewing (and subsequent batches, assuming you didn't get everything right the first time) is to make sure the previous batch wasn't a fluke. Once a couple of batches taste the same, you can move on to more complicated brews with confidence. Then, when you start doing more complex grain bills, hops, spices and so forth, you can be sure your ingredients, not your process, are the cause of the change in your beer.

It would have saved me a lot of mediocre beers had someone given me this advice early on.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a reasonable idea. I've already finished my first all-grain but from another post Im thinking of doing a SMaSH brew for my next. Maybe brewing it a few times over to get a feel for things is a good idea.

Thanks for the idea.
 
For the second post in a row here, I agree with Nosybear. I would advise keeping the recipe simple on your first few all-grain batches and I'd even do a SMASH (single malt and single hop) recipe over and over again so you can focus on the specifics of your mash and lautering process, which is largely determined by your setup.

Your first few batches you're likely to experience the pros and cons of your set-up. Every set-up has both... and you're very likely to make changes based on what you don't have a good feeling about. You can't do that kind of dialing in with a moving target of varying recipes.

Or, completely ignore this and you'll still be fine. Kind of how it goes. Happy brewing!
 
jmcnamara said:
Haha.

Ask 10 brewers and you'll get 12 answers
Click to expand...
Yeah, and 14 of those 12 answers will be from guys who don't know what they're talking about.
 
Moral of the story, don't trust anything you read on the internet....

Even this.
 
everyone is entitled to an opinion, but thats as far as it goes in most cases "just my opinion" :lol:
 
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