Making a recipe

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yegnal

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Went into the Brew Shop to get some grain and the guy told me that my recipe wasn't gonna work.

3 gallon all grain batch calling for 5 lbs crystal 40, 1 lb pale malt 6 row, and 8 oz Brown sugar.
Beersmith didn't alter me to any issues when building this concoction, question is, why not ? and / or does anyone see an issue trying to brew up a batch composed primarily of crystal malt ?
 
that is going to be waayyy too sweet with all the crystal. also, i don't think 1 lb of 6 row is going to be able to convert 5x as much 0 DP malt
 
they were right you need 5 or 6 pounds of base and 1 or less pounds of crystal
 
So now I know. Beersmith had my recipe starting at 1.057, finishing at 1.012 so I didn't think anything of it, I thought crystal WAS base malt... oh well, live and learn.

Shouldn't beer making apps alert users to such things ?

What would have been the outcome of trying such a recipe ?
 
It would be sweet as hell. I'm half curious to make one to see but I can feel my teeth rot thinking about it.

Generally you want somewhere around 80% of your grain me base malt, IE: 2-row, marris otter, 6 row, pilsner.

That's a pretty broad rule but until you get a feel for what everything does it's safer.
 
yegnal said:
Went into the Brew Shop to get some grain and the guy told me that my recipe wasn't gonna work.

3 gallon all grain batch calling for 5 lbs crystal 40, 1 lb pale malt 6 row, and 8 oz Brown sugar.
Beersmith didn't alter me to any issues when building this concoction, question is, why not ? and / or does anyone see an issue trying to brew up a batch composed primarily of crystal malt ?
Click to expand...


If your goal was to get away from overly bitter beers, and aiming for something on smooth sweet side, (my reason for home brewing) maybe you should try a hefe with a 50% /50 split of wheat and 2 row and a low acid Hallertau mittlefruh for hops.
 
The first recipe I wrote a bit more than 2 years ago I chose 10 lbs of Crystal 20. I thought the same as you. I brought it home, but a brew friend of mine asked to see the recipe just before I started brew day. That’s when I learned the basic base malts. I don’t know why some sources list Crystal anything as a base malt.
 
Recipe calculators aren't going to do all the work for you... you have to do a little research and figure out some basics. Just making up recipes out of thin air isn't a good way to get started. :)
 
J A said:
Recipe calculators aren't going to do all the work for you... you have to do a little research and figure out some basics. Just making up recipes out of thin air isn't a good way to get started. :)
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more, and this guy explains recipe building from start to finish good as anyone, get the note book out and there are some great tips in this vid.
Homebrew Recipe Development from Start-to-Finish - YouTube
 
BeerSmith and most other software states max percentages that should be used. Look at the ingredient notes/description.
 
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