Help with my first Grainfather recipe!

[DominicRL]

Hello folks!

I’m new to the community and doing my first brew day on a G30 this weekend.

I’ve been working up the recipe in the Grainfather community app, based on a community recipe I bought from the malt miller, but upon looking at the values my EBC and IBU are way off. I’ve copied across as faithfully as I can, so not sure where this has gone wrong, looking for a seasoned brewmaster to advise!

I’m currently getting an EBC of 7.3, IBU of 19.9 and ABV of 5. Link to my recipe as follows: Grainfather Community ToolsGamma Ray Clone

Recipe (direct from malt killer) below:

Ingredients Included​

Crisp Extra Pale Maris Otter (4000 grams)
Crisp Caramalt (210 grams)
Crisp CaraGold Malt (120 grams)
Columbus Pellets (15 grams)
Mosaic Pellets (8 grams)
Bravo T90 Pellet (8 grams)
Amarillo Pellets (50 grams)
Citra Pellets (52 grams)
Calypso 100g T90 Hop Pellet (16 grams)
SafAle US-05 11.5g (1 packs)

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Method​

Beer Style (main): American Ales
Beer Style (sub): American-Style Pale Ale
Batch Size: 20L
Original Gravity: 1051
Final Gravity: 1010
ABV %: 5.4%
IBU: 45

THE MASH
Temperature °C: 66
Length (mins): 70

THE BOIL
Boil time (mins): 60

Additions and timing:

7 g (39 IBU) — Columbus 15.8% — Boil — 60 min
8 g (1 IBU) — Amarillo 8.4% — Aroma — 10 min hopstand @ 80 °C
8 g (2 IBU) — Bravo 13.2% — Aroma — 10 min hopstand @ 80 °C
8 g (2 IBU) — Mosaic 11.8% — Aroma — 10 min hopstand @ 80 °C
8 g (2 IBU) — Columbus 15.8% — Aroma — 10 min hopstand @ 80 °C

Secondary additions and timing:

52 g — Citra 13.5% — Dry Hop
42 g — Amarillo 8.4% — Dry Hop
16 g — Calypso 6.2% — Dry Hop

Yeast: US-05 Safale American
Fermentation temperature/steps: 19 – 21 degC

Any thoughts greatly appreciated on where I’m going wrong!

Dominic

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[DominicRL]

Apologies link didn’t work so sharing a screenshot!

 

[Stu's Brews]

Welcome to the forum!

It looks like the recipe on the Malt Miller is a bit optimistic in terms of both IBUs and OG.

I plugged the recipe into the Grainfather app (which I've probably used for about 25-30 brews) to sanity check everything and I only get an OG of 1.044 (using 75% mash efficiency) and a IBUs of 21, so fairly similar numbers to you.

7g of Columbus at 60mins only gives 13.4 IBUs so no idea how they've managed to get to 39 IBUs. Perhaps it should have been 17g?

To get an OG of 1.051 I need to whack the mash efficiency up above 90% which is not realistic.

Attached is a recipe I've just brewed to give you a rough idea of the numbers I typically get out of the app.

 

[DominicRL]

Hi Stu - that’s incredibly helpful thank you (and reassuring to know it isn’t me), playing around with the app I also found that moving the Amarillo from the dry hop stage to the hop stand moved the IBU to 24 so that could be the answer here, I’d rather not touch the citra and I’m quite happy with a very light colour.

Also tempted just to see how it goes in line with their recipe, the reviews are extremely positive so I may take a chance!

Dominic

 

[DominicRL]

Actually after another play around - moving the Columbus from the hop stand stage to the same time as the boil, so 15g in the boil, instead of 7 - gives an IBU of 33.4.

Not all the way there but I think I’ve found my answer!

Dominic

 

[Stu's Brews]

Moving all the Columbus is a sensible way to go if you've got no other hops at hand that you can use.

Regarding the colour, I've found that the Grainfather app has a tendency to under-predict the EBC value by around 10%. I've done some calcs in the past and compared to other apps like Brewfather and found the calcs match the other apps but not the Grainfather app.

Also, note that in Grainfather you've selected Muntons versions of the malts rather than Crisp so the EBC value of the malts themselves might be slightly different.

 

[DominicRL]

Thanks Stu,

That’s really helpful thank you - I’ll do that. Interesting re the app differences. On the brands, I did try to match what I found on the website by editing manually but absolutely that could also have featured.

A beginner question now, once I’ve brewed and fermented for a week (with dry hops at the halfway point), one carbonation drop per bottle will do the job right as I bottle, it’s noticeably absent from the recipe - apologies, very rookie question there!

Dominic

 

[Stu's Brews]

A beginner question now, once I’ve brewed and fermented for a week (with dry hops at the halfway point), one carbonation drop per bottle will do the job right as I bottle, it’s noticeably absent from the recipe - apologies, very rookie question there!

Yeah that will work fine (one carbonation drop per bottle).

You will probably want to leave it in the fermenter for two weeks before bottling though. That should give the yeast ample time to complete fermentation, clean up everything afterwards and drop out so you have clear beer.

A general rule of thumb for new brewers is to follow the 2 + 2 + 2 process; 2 weeks in the fermenter, 2 weeks in the bottle in a warm (~20degC) environment to carbonate and a final 2 weeks somewhere cool to condition.

 

[DominicRL]

Yeah that will work fine (one carbonation drop per bottle).

You will probably want to leave it in the fermenter for two weeks before bottling though. That should give the yeast ample time to complete fermentation, clean up everything afterwards and drop out so you have clear beer.

A general rule of thumb for new brewers is to follow the 2 + 2 + 2 process; 2 weeks in the fermenter, 2 weeks in the bottle in a warm (~20degC) environment to carbonate and a final 2 weeks somewhere cool to condition.

That’s brilliant thank you very much, I will do that - you’ve saved me there! Now I just need to find somewhere in the house to ferment safe from the heat - I’ve only got plastic fermenters for the time being until a conical is in budget!