First AG Brew - Brewfist Caterpillar

[ClarenceBoddicker]

Morning all, this weekend I will break out the GF connect for the first time for my first foray into AG. My hops and grains are on the way and I chose this recipe from the book Craft Brew because it 'seems' fairly simple and I happen to have 100g of Motueka hops in the fridge.

The recipe is as follows but there is no boil time...

3.96kg pale ale malt
500g rye malt
300g caramalt
100g crystal malt
100g wheat malt

Hops motueka 30g 10 mins, 30g whirlpool, 30g dry hop
Columbus 8g 10 mins, 8g whirlpool, 15g dry hop

Yeast is Danstar Nottingham Ale

Mash 66c 45 mins 78c 5 mins and ferment @ 20c

I suppose my question is how long to boil at what temp, and I guess the first hop additions are 10 mins into boil rather than boil for 10 mins. Any other advice of course is welcome!

OG 1.055 FG 1.011 5.8% 20L

Cheers!

 

[foxy]

I boil for 90 minutes, temperature is boiling, the hop additions do not seem to add up, my bittering hops go in at 60 mins, what is the IBU you end up with?

 

[Sadfield]

Boil for 60 minutes, add the first hop addition at the last ten minutes of that boil.

 

[ClarenceBoddicker]

I might have found some clone threads on other forums and websites so there is experience out there. Ranges from 39 to 40 IBU.

 

[Rodcx500z]

Hi I would say you won't get anywere near 39-40 ibu's with a 10 min boil which the recipe suggests

 

[Rodcx500z]

Just put this recipe in beer mate I had to use magnum hops the ibu came in at 22.1 ibu's with a 10 minute boil

 

[foxy]

I have seen old recipes written what seems to be **** about face, but knowing the length of the boil is important. Some of those boils were 2 hrs first charge could be 10 mins in to a 2 hour boil.
Could you not write out the recipe as is.

 

[ClarenceBoddicker]

I have seen old recipes written what seems to be a**e about face, but knowing the length of the boil is important. Some of those boils were 2 hrs first charge could be 10 mins in to a 2 hour boil.
Could you not write out the recipe as is.

That's just it, the recipe lists the hops like this: 30g/1.06oz Motueka, 10 mins
8g/0.28oz Columbus, 10 mins
So not very helpful, it's more of a list of ingredients than an actual recipe.

 

[Sadfield]

Just put this recipe in beer mate I had to use magnum hops the ibu came in at 22.1 ibu's with a 10 minute boil

Have you also accounted for the IBUs from the 38g at whirlpool? If not that would push the IBUs up past 35-40 with a 20+ minute whirlpool.

They're using a technique often described as hop bursting, where little to no bittering addition is being used, gaining all the IBUs from late additions.

As an aside, a more specific recipe wouldn't be much use as every brewing system is different.

 

[ClarenceBoddicker]

This is all very interesting and good to see different ideas. It sounds like a beer that I'd like ao will do some similar recipe research to decide when to add the first hops and see what happens. Maybe the 10 minutes means as 10 minutes into a 60 min boil as Foxy alluded to.

 

[Rodcx500z]

Have you also accounted for the IBUs from the 38g at whirlpool? If not that would push the IBUs up past 35-40 with a 20+ minute whirlpool.

They're using a technique often described as hop bursting, where little to no bittering addition is being used, gaining all the IBUs from late additions.

As an aside, a more specific recipe wouldn't be much use as every brewing system is different.

Cheers Sadfield I have just learned summat new great hobby this brewing

 

[foxy]

Sadfield is right, don't know why I never thought of it before,especially as I have a Summer Rye cold crashing at the moment. The hops I used were Motueka, only one charge and that was at flame out, I think the recipe called for 60 gram and I used 80 gram let it sit for 20 to 30 minutes then rapidly cool.
Gordon Strong guesses the IBU at 25 for the 60 gram.
So boil at whatever length, as I said I prefer 90 min boils, a lot of people will go for 60 and put the hops in as per recipe.

 

[ClarenceBoddicker]

Picked this up from Brewers Friend:
Hops
Amount Variety AA Use Time
30 g Motueka 7 Boil 60 min
8 g Columbus 15 Boil 10 min
30 g Motueka 7 Boil 0 min
8 g Columbus 15 Boil 0 min
30 g Motueka 7 Dry Hop 5 days
15 g Columbus 15 Dry Hop 5 days

 

[ClarenceBoddicker]

Well I've done it as above with a bit of a thick mash and an issue with my wort chiller not connecting properly to any outlet in the house. Lessons learned after a very late Friday night but it is on the go in the sS fermenter and bubbling away steadily @ 20 degrees with a nice hop aroma burning out. Dry hop on Wednesday and keep an eye on it. O.G. for 20l was 1.060 so could be in for over 6% abv. Hopeful for a successful first AG brew.

 

[Keruso]

Well I've done it as above with a bit of a thick mash and an issue with my wort chiller not connecting properly to any outlet in the house. Lessons learned after a very late Friday night but it is on the go in the sS fermenter and bubbling away steadily @ 20 degrees with a nice hop aroma burning out. Dry hop on Wednesday and keep an eye on it. O.G. for 20l was 1.060 so could be in for over 6% abv. Hopeful for a successful first AG brew.

My first few grainfather brews were done manually, but when you load your recipe into the online recipe builder it calculates your OG and FG, your ABV, your IBU etc. based on your grain, yeast and hop selections. You can fiddle about with the ingredients to see effect on likely end result. You can send the recipe to your controller and it runs your brew day via smartphone app. I’ve never gone back to manual since using the app.

 

[Keruso]

Well I've done it as above with a bit of a thick mash and an issue with my wort chiller not connecting properly to any outlet in the house. Lessons learned after a very late Friday night but it is on the go in the sS fermenter and bubbling away steadily @ 20 degrees with a nice hop aroma burning out. Dry hop on Wednesday and keep an eye on it. O.G. for 20l was 1.060 so could be in for over 6% abv. Hopeful for a successful first AG brew.

I love your picture by the way, de dolle have been my favorite brewery for years and oerbier my favorite beer by a long shot, used to do Belgium beer runs and purchase 10 crates at a time

 

[ClarenceBoddicker]

My first few grainfather brews were done manually, but when you load your recipe into the online recipe builder it calculates your OG and FG, your ABV, your IBU etc. based on your grain, yeast and hop selections. You can fiddle about with the ingredients to see effect on likely end result. You can send the recipe to your controller and it runs your brew day via smartphone app. I’ve never gone back to manual since using the app.

I think I was just getting ro grips with that first one but will use the app next time around. I'm struggling to keep the fv warm now so ordering an inkbird and heater to get my free fridge sorted to control temp. Hopefully not too much effect but ranges from 16 to 10 degrees. Dry hop is a couple of days if gravity is going ok. Used to love an Oerbier too and miss Belgian beer since we moved back to UK. The range of craft beer in UK is bewildering now but great breweries in my area.

 

[ClarenceBoddicker]

Going to dry hop tonight so took a reading and surprised it's dropped to 1.012 after 5/6 days at these temperatures. Murky but smells and tastes good, malty and bitter with a nice bit of tropical hop taste. Better than any kit I have brewed. I reckon bottle on Sunday if it stays the same gravity. Don't really want to rack to secondary if I can avoid as my plastic buckets are all a bit old and scratched so don't want to risk infection at this point. Might cold crash and introduce something to clear it. Really pleased so far though.

 

[ClarenceBoddicker]

Decided to rack this and put some finings in today. It's still 1.012 and there hadn't been much action in the airlock. There was a whole load of trub and the hops had made it all very murky. I think it will be fine but not a whole lot of aroma. I think because I put hops in a glass then a muslin bag they maybe didn't contact the beer enough. Decided to chuck my final few motueka pellets in a boiled muslin bag with about the same amount of columbus. I'll crash cool for a couple of days tomorrow and bottle. Didn't taste as good as first taste but it was the dregs off the trub so not reading too much into that. Still pretty bitter so those IBUs are very much there!