Brewer's Friend Home Brewing Software

10 Beginner-Friendly Beer Recipes

Friday, August 28th, 2020

By Troy Stouffer

When I tasted my first homebrewed beer, I was proud of my creation and it sparked a desire within me to brew more and to create my own recipe. I dove headfirst into websites, forums, and podcasts to learn as much as I possibly could so I could design my own unique beer. What I found was that there is so much information out there that I easily got overwhelmed and didn’t know where to start the process. My hope and my goal are to break down some of the confusion so we can all heed Charlie Papazian’s advice of, “Relax. Don’t worry. And have a homebrew.”

What Goes Into a Beer Recipe

Beer is essentially just water, barley, hops, and yeast.  Basically, malted barley is crushed and then soaked or mashed in 145F-158F(63C-70C) water for about an hour to extract the sugars out of the grain.  The sugar-rich liquid, or wort, is then drained off to boil for an hour. Hops are added during different parts of the boil to add bitterness, flavor, and aroma. After the boil, the wort is chilled down and transferred over to a fermenter where we add our yeast to begin the magical process of fermentation.

Just as many home brewers started, my journey started with a malt extract kit on the kitchen stove.  Extract brewing takes out much of the work of the brewing process by removing the mashing step.  Malt extract is exactly what it is called.  Maltsters take the sweet wort after the mash and condense it down to a syrup, in some case a powder, so we can just add it to the boiling water and pick up the process after that point. 

Following These Beginner Beer Recipes

Many beginner brewing kits use malt extract due to the ease of brewing and lack of extra equipment needed.  Essentially, you need a pot capable of holding at least 4 -5 gallons of liquid and a food-grade bucket in which to ferment.  There are many techniques and processes to brew beer, but I have included these extract recipes using as little extra equipment as absolutely necessary.  To keep it simple, just bring 3 gallons of water to boil in your pot, add your malt extract, add your hops at the designated times and boil for 60 minutes.  After 60 minutes, cool down your wort to yeast pitching temperature, an ice bath in the sink or tub works great. Now transfer your cooled wort to your fermenter and add some pre-boiled water to the fermenter to bring the volume up to 5.5 gallons.

For recipes with Steeping Grains, place the crushed grains in a muslin bag and raise the temperature of the water to between 150-160 degrees F. Add the grains and kill the heat. Let the grains steep for 20 minutes. Remove the grains then continue heating the wort to a boil. The hop additions listed in relation to how long they should be in your boiling wort (ie. 60 minute hops should be boiled for 60 minutes and 5 minute hops won’t be added until it’s been boiling for 55 of the 60 minutes).

Dry Malt Versus Liquid Malt Extracts

The extract recipes listed below use liquid malt extract. If you want yo use dry instead of liquid, the ratios aren’t pound for pound. Want to use dry malt extract instead? Use the calculator here on Brewer’s Friend

Easy Extract Blonde Ale

Fermentables
6.6 lbs Pilsen Liquid Malt Extract

Hops
1 oz Amarillo – 30 minute boil addition

Other Additions
1 Whirlfloc Tablet – 15 minute boil addition

Yeast
Safale S-04

Easy Extract Amber Ale

Fermentables
6.6 lbs – Amber Liquid Malt Extract
1 lb – Caramel Malt 40L (Steeping Grain)

Hops
1 oz – Williamette – 60-minute boil addition
1 oz – Williamette – whirlpool addition

Other Additions
1 Whirlfloc Tablet – 15 minute boil addition

Yeast
White Labs WLP060

Easy Extract IPA

Fermentables
6.6 lbs – Light Liquid Malt Extract
1 lb – Light Dry Malt Extract
1 lb – Caramel Malt 20L (Steeping Grain)

Hops
1oz – Citra – 60 minute boil addition
1oz – Amarillo – 10 minute boil addition
1oz – Cascade – whirlpool addition

Other Additions
1 Whirlfloc Tablet – 15 minute boil addition

Yeast
Safale US-05

Easy Extract Stout

Fermentables
6.6 lbs – Dark Liquid Malt Extract
0.5 lb – Roasted Barley Malt (Steepling Grain)
0.5 lb – Black Patent Malt (Steeping Grain)

Hops
1oz – East Kent Goldings – 60 minute boil addition
1oz – East Kent Goldings – 10 minute boil addition

Other Additions
1 Whirlfloc Tablet – 15 minute boil addition

Yeast
WYeast 1084

Easy Extract Irish Red Ale

Fermentables
6.6 lbs – Amber Liquid Malt Extract
0.25 lb – Roasted Barley Malt (Steepling Grain)
0.75 lb – Crytsal 40 Malt (Steeping Grain)

Hops
1oz – East Kent Goldings – 60 minute boil addition

Other Additions
1 Whirlfloc Tablet – 15 minute boil addition

Yeast
Safale S-04

Moving To All Grain Brewing

As I stated earlier, All Grain brewing adds the step of mashing your grains to the brewing process. Many brewers convert an insulated beverage cooler to mash their grains. This process requires a false bottom and a valve to drain the wort into the boil kettle. To streamline the process and use just your boil kettle, I recommend getting a grain bag big enough to fit your boil kettle. There are several suppliers and some allow you to customize the size of the bag to fit your specific kettle. The mash temperature range is from 145F-158F(63C-70C). If you mash at the lower end of the range then you will extract more fermentable sugars and your finished beer will be drier. Conversely, if you mash at the upper end of the range, you will create a sweeter finished beer. The rest of the brewing steps are exactly the same as we discussed earlier.

Easy All Grain Blonde Ale

Fermentables
8 lbs – Pale Malt
1 lb – Crystal 20 Malt

Hops
1 oz Amarillo – 30 minute boil addition

Other Additions
1 Whirlfloc Tablet – 15 minute boil addition

Yeast
Safale S-04

Easy All Grain Amber Ale

Fermentables
8 lbs – Pale Malt
2 lbs – Munich malt
1 lb – Crystal 60 Malt

Hops
1 oz – Williamette – 60-minute boil addition
1 oz – Williamette – whirlpool addition

Other Additions
1 Whirlfloc Tablet – 15 minute boil addition

Yeast
White Labs WLP060

Easy All Grain IPA

Fermentables
8 lbs – Pale Malt
1 lb – Caramel Malt 20L

Hops
1oz – Citra – 60 minute boil addition
1oz – Amarillo – 10 minute boil addition
1oz – Cascade – whirlpool addition

Other Additions
1 Whirlfloc Tablet – 15 minute boil addition

Yeast
Safale US-05

Easy All Grain Stout

Fermentables
10 lbs – Maris Otter Malt
0.5 lb – Roasted Barley Malt (Steepling Grain)
0.5 lb – Black Patent Malt (Steeping Grain)

Hops
1oz – East Kent Goldings – 60 minute boil addition
1oz – East Kent Goldings – 10 minute boil addition

Other Additions
1 Whirlfloc Tablet – 15 minute boil addition

Yeast
WYeast 1084

Easy All Grain Irish Red Ale

Fermentables
8 lbs – Maris Otter Malt
0.25 lb – Roasted Barley Malt (Steepling Grain)
0.75 lb – Crytsal 40 Malt (Steeping Grain)

Hops
1oz – East Kent Goldings – 60 minute boil addition

Other Additions
1 Whirlfloc Tablet – 15 minute boil addition

Yeast
Safale S-04

These recipes are fairly simple and designed to be as easy as possible to make with the least amount of equipment. It is important to remember that this is a fun obsession and you can make it is easy or as complex as you desire, but the important thing to remember is that we get beer in the end.

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Migrating Your Recipes from Beersmith To Brewer’s Friend

Wednesday, December 19th, 2018

Exporting recipes from Beersmith and into Brewer’s Friend is simple and straightforward.   When you are in the Beersmith program, you will have two options for exporting your recipe files.    The “Export All” command exports all of the items in the current view or folder to a file which you can save to your computer or email to other brewers.

The “Export Selected Items” choice exports only the items you have selected in the current view.  You can select multiple items by holding the Ctrl key while you click on the items you are choosing.  The blue highlights in the view above show the chosen recipes.

Beersmith files have a *bsmx file extension which can be directly imported into Brewer’s Friend, or you can import those files as BeerXML files (with a .xml extension) as well.   Brewer’s Friend accepts either one of those file formats, so you can also import ANY .xml files into Brewer’s Friend from other software programs or from recipes on the internet that have an .xml file type.

After you choose the “export all” or “export selected”, the following screen will appear: 

 

Choose the file type that you would like to use for importing.   Either *.bsmx or *.xml will work in Brewer’s Friend.   Save to your computer or the cloud as in a dropbox if you have a very large number of recipes.  In this case, this file was saved to the desktop for ease in finding it again.

 

Open your internet browser, and go to Brewersfriend.com. 

Log into your account, and choose “Tools” in the orange tool bar.

Then choose “Import Recipes” in the dropdown.

 

 

A screen will appear, telling you to choose a file, or to drag it into the box.

You also have a choice about what to do with ingredients in the recipe that may not have an exact match in Brewer’s Friend.   When importing from Beersmith, the bottom box should be checked, as this will allow those unmatched items to be listed in your recipe:

 

When you have made your selection here, scroll back up a little and once you have chosen the file(s) to import, click “import”.

When the import is finished, the new recipes will be listed in your dashboard under “My Recipes”.

You’ll see that a notice will say:  “! Recipe just imported, Edit and Save to fill in stats.”

 

 

Click on the title of the first recipe you wish to save in Brewer’s Friend.   Then, click “edit” on the right side near the top of the screen.

 

That will bring up the full recipe and here you can save it.   You can also choose whether to make this recipe public (shared) or private by moving the slider (see below).

 

Once you click save, this recipe will be in “My Recipes” in Brewer’s Friend as one of your regular recipes.

 

That’s all there is to it!  It’s quick, easy, and enables you to keep your entire Beersmith recipe files on our cloud.  Cheers!

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Tailgating and Homebrew: Two Essential Recipes

Sunday, October 1st, 2017

Nothing goes with tailgating like great beer. If you need a great beer quick, you can have these beers ready to serve in 10-14 days if you keg and about 21 days if you bottle. All grain recipes are formulated for 70% efficiency.

Dark Mild Recipe

A dark mild is a low-gravity, malt-focused British session ale. It’s refreshing and quaffable and will please both craft beer drinkers and those who think “dark beer” is a craft beer. Full with flavor, it’s approachable and with a low ABV so you can enjoy more than one. This recipe easily goes from grain to glass in 10 days. It’s delightful with a lower carb level, so once you keg it’s easy to quick carb it and serve.

 

Dark Mild Partial Mash

Grains	Hop Schedule	Yeast
1 lbs English pale malt (like maris otter) 8.0 oz Medium English crystal malt 8.0 oz Golden Naked Oats 6.0 oz Chocolate Malt 4.0 oz Dark English Crystal malt 2 lbs Maris Otter Extract (pale LME may be substituted 1 lbs 4.8 oz Maris Otter Extract (add at flame out) (pale LME may be substituted)	0.75 oz Kent Goldings [6.2%] @ 60min 0.5 oz Kent Goldings [6.2%] @ 60min	WLP002 English ale yeast OR Wyeast 1318 London ale III OR S04 SafAle English Ale
By the Numbers:	IBU	SRM
OG:1.037 | FG:1.009 | ABV:3.6%	23.6	16.3

Notes:

Mash the grains in at 152 in one gallon for 60 minutes, then sparge (rinse) the grains up to your boil volume. Add the first addition of extract, and bring to a boil. Add the first hops addition, and begin timing for 60 minutes. At the second addition of hops with 10 minutes left in the boil, and add the final addition of extract when you turn off the flame.

 

Dark Mild All Grain

Grains	Hop Schedule	Yeast
5 lbs 8.0 oz English pale malt (like maris otter) 8.0 oz Medium English crystal malt 8.0 oz Golden Naked Oats 6.0 oz Chocolate Malt 4.0 oz Dark English Crystal malt 2 lbs Maris Otter Extract (pale LME may be substituted	0.75 oz Kent Goldings [6.2%] @ 60min 0.5 oz Kent Goldings [6.2%] @ 60min	WLP002 English ale yeast OR Wyeast 1318 London ale III OR S04 SafAle English Ale
By the Numbers:	IBU	SRM
OG:1.037 | FG:1.009 | ABV:3.6%	23.6	16.3

Notes:

Mash at 152 for 60 minutes. Use Irish moss or whirlfloc with 15 minutes left in the boil, if desired. Ferment at 65-68 degrees for approximately one week or until clear and at FG for at least 3 days.

Fizzy Yellow Beer

The “fizzy yellow beer” is an ale version of a crowd favorite. It’s approachable by light beer drinkers, but still with enough flavor to satisfy the beer snob in your midst.

This beer is simple, but simple can be wonderful. It’s a clean tasting beer like a macrobrew, but with a bit more flavor. Still low in alcohol for those “have more than one or two” days, it can be enjoyed during tailgating and throughout the fall.

You can substitute other noble hops for the tettnanger and perle with good results. Magnum is a good bittering hop, just make sure to calculate for the high alpha acids in a different hop variety. Hallertauer would be great, and saaz would also make a fine finishing hop.

 

Fizzy Yellow Beer Extract

If you can’t find Vienna LME, you can substitute pale LME but the Vienna flavor brings so much to this beer that it should be sought out and used if at all possible.

Grains	Hop Schedule	Yeast
3 lbs Extra light dry extract 3 lbs 4.8 oz Vienna LME (add at flameout with the last hops addition)	0.5 oz Perle [8.4%] @ 60min 0.5 oz Tettnang [4.2%] @ 45min 0.5 oz Tettnang [4.2%] @ 0min	Wyeast 1318 London Ale III OR S05 Safale (dry yeast)
By the Numbers:	IBU	SRM
OG:1.045 | FG:1.010-1.011 | ABV:4.4-4.5%	26	5

Notes:

London ale yeast is used for this recipe because it is fairly “clean” at low ale temperatures and leaves a clear beer behind quickly. You can substitute another yeast strain if you have a favorite. Using whirlfloc or Irish moss in the boil will help with having a clear beer quickly. Ferment at 65-68 degrees for about a week, or until the beer is clearing and is at FG for at least 3 days.

 

Fizzy Yellow Beer All grain

Grains	Hop Schedule	Yeast
6 lbs Vienna Malt 3 lbs Pilsner malt	0.5 oz Perle [8.4%] @ 60min 0.5 oz Tettnang [4.2%] @ 45min 0.5 oz Tettnang [4.2%] @ 0min	Wyeast 1318 London Ale III OR S05 Safale (dry yeast)
By the Numbers:	IBU	SRM
OG:1.045 | FG:1.010-1.011 | ABV:4.4-4.5%	26	5

Notes:

London ale yeast is used for this recipe because it is fairly “clean” at low ale temperatures and leaves a clear beer behind quickly. You can substitute another yeast strain if you have a favorite. Using whirlfloc or Irish moss in the boil will help with having a clear beer quickly. Ferment at 65-68 degrees for about a week, or until the beer is clearing and is at FG for at least 3 days.

 

^Sources:

^{Tailgaiting image by Kipp Jones}

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Uinta Wyld Clone – An Excellent Pale Ale With Simcoe and Amarillo

Friday, December 28th, 2012

When I first started brewing, I was NOT a fan of hoppy beers. The first year or so I brewed mainly English Southern Browns, Porters, Black Ales, some Belgians, and malty Amber Ales.

Like many homebrewers, my tastes in beer began to broaden. Looking at the BJCP styles inspired me to try as many styles as I could…even an occasional hoppy beer when we ate out (I didn’t want a whole six pack of hoppy beers in my home fridge…no way).

Then I got a job that required a lot of travel to Salt Lake City. During my first year with the company I was there at least every other week. One of the pleasant surprises in getting to know Salt Lake City – and there are a lot of wonderful things about SLC – was the vibrancy of the craft beer scene. They have four – FOUR! – craft breweries in the metro area: Epic, Squatters, Wasatch, and Uinta. There are others that are in other areas of Utah as well. For a city of their size, that’s impressive. What’s more impressive is the quality of the beers produced. Delicious. So, as a responsible homebrewer, I naturally started tasting all the SLC beers I could. Many were pleasing, but one captured my imagination: Uinta Brewing’s Wyld Extra Pale Ale.

Here’s what it looks like:

Here’s the brewery’s website:
https://www.uintabrewing.com/

Utah has some interesting beer and liquor laws:

• One is that beer served on tap cannot be over 4% alcohol. Bottled beer can, but not draft. Go figure.
• There are also limits on the ABV of beer that can be sold in a grocery store, etc. –  those have to be on the low side, too. Higher ABV beers are purchased at the State Liquor Stores.

It is common for limitations to spur creativity. The draft ABV limit sure did in Salt Lake City. It has a diverse selection of delicious lower alcohol beers, session strength beers. Wyld was hoppier than I preferred, but the aroma. The AROMA! It filled my senses. Even though Wyld was hoppier than I typically liked, I remained entranced. I kept coming back to it. Little by little, I learned to like hoppy beers – all because of Wyld.

Unfortunately Uinta doesn’t distribute where I live. I wanted Wyld when I was home! So, I devoted myself to clone this beer. There weren’t recipes online. I went to the local homebrew supply stores in Salt Lake City, and got some good guidance. The recipe features Simcoe as the primary hop. The grain bill is relatively simple – 2 Row with some Carapils and something else for the color.

I won’t bore you with all my iterations – there were 5. I was about 80% there when… Jamil featured this beer on “Can You Brew It.”  I was thrilled!

Here’s a link to the CYBI recipe in Brewer’s Friend.

I had been using Simcoe 100%, Simcoe with Cascade, Simcoe with Centennial. After listening to the episode, I found out that Uinta uses mostly Simcoe, but the bittering charge is Amarillo. When I first brewed the CYBI recipe, the Amarillo made so much difference!

There are other distinctive characteristics: organic grains (specifically Great Western Organic 2 Row), and their proprietary yeast. They said they got their yeast in Europe back in 1991. Their head brewer suggested WLP029 German Kolsch as a good substitute. On the show, McDole was the one who brewed the clone. He said he was pretty sure he used WLP001.

Uinta Wyld Clone Results:

This beer clone stays on tap in my keezer most of the time. Oddly, I haven’t brewed it with 001 or 029 since getting the clone recipe from CYBI. Every time the keg is getting low, I’ve never had those on hand. Most of my batches, including the iterations before CYBI, were made with Pacman. This picture is a batch brewed with WLP002/Wyeast 1968 – I had brewed an English Bitter and had that ready to repitch.

Wyld is on the left, mine on the right. As you can see, my beer is not filtered, theirs is. Head retention is very similar.

My thoughts on these yeast substitutions: Pacman is very good, even close, but attenuates a higher than I’d like for this beer. WLP002/Wyeast 1968 was not at all similar and although I fermented cool (64-66) there was still the expected English yeast fruitiness (though muted by low ferment temps). It’s just not at all Wyld-like. There was also less hop presence than I’d like with the 002 batch. It’s kinda like an English Bitter with an American attitude. Good, but not what the source material dictates. I’d avoid English strains because it took it too far away from the clean American profile this beer displays.

Color is close, and as my beer warms up it is very very close considering mine isn’t filtered. I’ve been battling chill haze on this recipe due to the dry hopping. I’ve got to work on that!  Update – a week later it dropped clear!

After my Wyld quest, here’s some thoughts on my efforts. First, none of the iterations I’ve done (including CYBI clone batches) have ever approached the lovely malty backbone Wyld has. That delicate but firm malt shines through. When the beer is very fresh, you get a blast of hop aroma that is fragrant and pleasing. When a bit older, the hop nose fades, but the malt and balanced bitterness is still present.

On my next try, I’m going to try 001/1056 – I finally have some around now! Following that, I will try 029, the Kolsch yeast.

If you can get your hands on some Uinta Wyld, do it! The beer will show you how satisfying and full flavored a session strength beer can be. If you can’t, and you want a lower alcohol APA with a lot of hop nose, give this recipe a try. It’s been close to two years since I started trying to clone Wyld. I’m still on the journey. Thanks to CYBI I’ve made some close clones and I will persist until I nail it!

Post by Brewer kcpup

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Brewing Wildflower Wheat – A Honey Chamomile Wheat Beer from Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione

Sunday, July 1st, 2012

We were running dangerously low on Witbier, our standard summer quaffer. Hoping for an interesting alternative to try, I was “shopping” for inspiration in the wheat beer recipes on Home Brew Talk (or Homebrew Talk, HBT, depending how you spell it). I ran across one posted by Passed Pawn – a Honey Chamomile Wheat. He adapted the “Wildflower Wheat” recipe from Sam Calagione’s book Extreme Brewing. Sam is the founder of Dogfish Head (DFH) Brewery in Delaware. He is known as a creative brewer. I haven’t read the book, but after smelling the wort on brewday I’ll be purchasing it soon!

First, here’s the recipe from the book, per Passed Pawn. The book lists an extract recipe:

• 6.6# wheat extract
• 1# honey
• 1 oz Vangaurd hops (60 minute)
• 2 oz chamomile flowers
• White Labs WLP320 or Wyeast 1010
• OG: 1.057
• FG 1.008
• IBUs: 15

Here is Passed Pawn’s adaption, which includes conversion to All Grain – you’ll notice differences in yeast, hops, honey addition, and IBU’s:

Yeast: Fermentis S-04 Dry Yeast
Yeast Starter: No
Batch Size (Gallons): 10
Original Gravity: 1.061
Final Gravity: 1.017
IBU: 24, Cascade
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 4
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 21 @ 65° F
10 gallon batch
————
Amount Item Type % or IBU
10.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 47.62 %
8.00 lb Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 38.10 %
2.50 oz Cascade [5.40 %] (60 min) Hops 23.7 IBU
2.00 tsp Flour (wheat) (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
4.00 oz Chamomile (Boil 60.0 min) Misc
3.00 lb Honey (1.0 SRM) Sugar 14.29 %
2 Pkgs Safale English Ale (Fermentis #S-04) Yeast-Ale
Mash Schedule: Single Infusion Mash, 154°F. Leaving some body in this seemed to increase the perception of honey.
Honey was cheap clover honey from Walmart.
————

 

I’m much more of a hophead than most of our friends, so I used caution on the IBU’s. I didn’t have Vanguard on hand, but a recommended alternative is Hersbrucker, which I did have. I stuck close to the original IBU number (around 15) and honey addition proportion.

The only major deviation would be the yeast. My only on-hand wheat beer yeasts were too flavorful – Wit and Hefe yeasts. My English yeast (1968/002, the Fuller’s strain) was busy working on my Special Bitter. I had some Pacman rinsed from a recent APA batch and decided to use it for the yeast.

Here’s a link to my recipe, right here on Brewer’s Friend!
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/10990/wildflower-wheat-honey-chamomile-wheat

Let me confess that I am a sucker for chamomile in brewing. It adds a lovely nose to Witbiers. The prominence of this herb was the major attraction to this recipe. And the quantity is EXTREME – 2 ounces! When I use chamomile in Wits, it’s at flameout and typically 2 grams. Take a look at this pic – a mountain of chamomile:

I’m in a transition phase of moving to milling grain at home. This brewday was the first test drive of the mill. The pic below shows the handle, but I didn’t use that…my ½ inch corded drill made short work of the white wheat malt (my 2 row was already milled).

I do a modified BIAB with a sparge and mash in a 10 gallon Igloo tun. I used to mash on the stovetop in a stockpot. I’d wrap the pot in blankets during the mash to keep the temp up. I was losing too much heat in the winter, so when I saw this mash tun for sale on Craigslist, I didn’t hesitate. The tun’s first life was as a jobsite handwashing station. Luckily it only ever had water in it. Man is it ugly on the outside! The man I bought it from added a nice stainless steel braid insert and the valve as well. Works great!

I put my bag into the tun to make cleanup easier. While it is something else that needs to be cleaned and preheating takes extra time, I love the temperature stability and find the tradeoff in time and cleanup worth it. Here’s a pic of the bag on the mash tun:

The mash was uneventful. With the help of Brewer’s Friend ‘brew’ feature I hit my temperatures and collected the wort quantity I needed. I’ve been experimenting with one or two water additions for my batch sparge. This time I did two additions…I got 76% efficiency. Fortunately the mash calculations in Brewer’s Friend make this pretty painless to coordinate and measure. On to the boil – man is that a lot of chamomile!

I was wondering why the chamomile addition at the beginning of the boil and not the end like many Wit recipes call for. I’m guessing Sam of Dogfish Head may explain it in the book. As I smelled the chamomile throughout the downstairs during the boil I reasoned that the 60 minute addition is like making a whole bunch of tea and leaving the tea leaves or herbs in the water for a long time. It’s an alternate way to get that flowery, fruity fragrance in the beer. I’m looking forward to the end product to see if I should apply this addition timing to Witbiers. I wouldn’t use the huge quantity, but the process of adding at the beginning of the boil might be useful for other beers.

As you can probably see, I boil on our stovetop. We have one of those high power burners and it is a gas range. It works adequately. I don’t want to move my brewing out of the kitchen. It is much easier for me to get stuff done during the “in between” times on a brew day when I’m inside in the kitchen.

I love the way wheat beers smell when they’re boiling. This was no exception – it smelled wonderful! The honey is added at flameout – it too smelled great…Passed Pawn said much of the honey character remains in the finished product. I sure hope so!

So, now I just need to wait and see how this ferments out. I can hardly wait!

Post by Brewer kcpup

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Large Batch of American Beer

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

Brewed an 11 gallon batch of my Blitz Weinhard Clone. This is close to what Blitz probably tasted like originally (not the watered down stuff they produce today). Doing an 11 gallon batch is great. It generates twice as much beer in the same amount of time! It also gives the opportunity to try two different types of yeast on the same exact wort. Contrasting the differences in the finished product will be fun and educational.

The recipe is loaded into the Brewer’s Friend Recipe Builder:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/637

This batch pushed capacity limits of my 15 gallon kettle and 48 quart mash lauter tun. I am not convinced my 15 gallon kettle actually holds 15 gallons. It is more like 14, sort of like how a 2×4 is not really two inches by four inches… At least this kettle is enough for an 11 gallon batch.

In the picture there is a little over 13 gallons in the kettle which still leaves room for the boil. The actual batch volume is 11 gallons. That way there is room for trub losses. The plan is to keg this directly from the primary fermentor after the yeast completely fall out.

When draining to the fermentors, I took a staggered approach. 2.5 gallons into the first one, then 2.5 into the next, and so on until both were full. That way, if there was any stratification going on in the kettle it was mitigated. In one fermentor Safale-05 American Ale is being used. In the other it is Wyeast 1272 American Ale II.

The plan is to do a blind taste test and see if we can tell them apart. Liquid yeast is more expensive than the dry yeast (yet ironically the dry yeast has more cells). For this sort of run of the mill beer, if the liquid yeast doesn’t wow me, I’ll stick with the dry yeast for future batches. Nottingham is another yeast I have used here with success, and it imparted a nice bready flavor.

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Recipe – Golden NW Extra Special Bitter

Sunday, April 24th, 2011

This a wonderful tasting British ale that uses Zeus bittering hops. More of a NW + British hybrid really. This Golden NW ESB has a nice balanced malt to hop ratio. A bread like biscuit flavor rolls into medium bitterness over the tongue. It finishes smooth and has drinkability – in that you will want to take another sip of this brew right away. Extra Special Bitter is traditionally served in British pubs, and would cost extra compared to the house ale.

Target Volume: 5 gallons

Grains:
5.25 lb Pale 2-Row
4 lb ESB Malt
0.5 lb Mild Ale Malt
(at 75% efficiency)

Extract brewers:
Steep 1 lb ESB Malt, 0.25 lb Mild Ale Malt
Use 5.75 Light Dry Malt Extract, or 7 lb Light Liquid Extract

Hops:
0.75 oz Zeus, 60 min
0.75 oz Goldings, 20 min
0.75 oz Goldings, 10 min

(Extract brewers may want to use 1 oz Zeus to get correct IBU level.)

Yeast:
Wyeast 1098 British Ale Yeast (aka White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale Yeast)

Water Chemistry:
Calcium 116
Sodium 89
Sulfates 214
Carbonates (HCO3) 226
Chloride 46
(all numbers in ppm)

My tap water is practically mineral free. I added approximately 1 tsp CaCl, 3 tsp Gypsum, and 2.5 tsp Baking Soda to get these concentrations.

Procedure:
Mashed at 158F for 60 minutes, standard batch sparge. Fermented for 10 days between 62F-68F, racked and let sit for 12 days. Bottled and primed with 3.5oz dextrose.

Batch Stats:
OG: 1.051
FG: 1.011
IBU: 60
ABV: 5.35%

(Freshly filled and capped batch of ESB).

(Nice foamy head on this ESB).

Posted in Recipes | 5 Comments »

German Lager Recipe All Grain

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

This has to be one of my favorite beers for all time. I have brewed it about 5 times, and it’s just awesome. Talk about a ‘session beer’, that is something most people can drink all evening without a problem. My uncle, who is a German Protestant Minister, smelled the beer, took one sip, smiled, and told me in his thick German accent that it reminded him of beer at home. “Now… that is a good beer!” he said. He proceeded to drink the beer over the course of dinner, and then and ask for seconds. I was completely honored. Being a German, and in the US for the first time, he was honest about his opinion of things, some not so favorable. For example, he said the beer at Rogue was ‘very British’, and he did not order seconds there. My uncle is no stranger to beer. He explained during an annual festival, the Minsters ride tandem bikes through town and people hand them beer. Must be pretty cool.

This German lager, technically a Munich Helles (translates to Munich Light), leaves no heavy flavors on the tongue, but I argue it is robust and complex. The aftertaste has an elusive bread like, smoky quality I love in German beers. I believe this attribute is imparted by the yeast and the lagering process. The aroma and initial flavor has many light, sweet, fruity qualities, which come from the Hallertau hops. The finish is clean and crisp, as it should be in a larger.

All the ingredients in this beer are German (yeast, hops, grain), and they are easy to get at your local home brew store. My Hallertau hops were grown in Oregon, but it was close enough for my uncle, definitely close enough for me.

The style is BJCP 1D – Munich Helles:

Grains:

8 lb German Pilsner
1 lb Vienna
0.5 lb CaraPils
(@ 75% brewhouse efficiency)

You can substitute towards Vienna malt to give it more honey sweetness and malt character.

Hops:

Hallertau, 2 ounces, 60 minutes

I have tried substituting to Mt. Hood instead of Hallertau – it was still a good beer, more spicy, less aromatic, I would say a lot more boring (more like Coors). Tettnanger is another option, or a mix, but I usually put Tettnanger in my Oktoberfest because it is more spicy and less fruity than Hallertau. Saaz is another popular choice but I have not tried it.

First wort hopping may be of interest.

Yeast:

German Lager Yeast
I have used only White Labs WLP830, with great success, but I want to try some of the following:

White Labs:
WLP820 Oktoberfest Lager Yeast
WLP830 German Lager Yeast
WLP833 German Bock Yeast
WLP838 Southern German Lager Yeast

Wyeast:
2007 Pilsen Lager Yeast
2124 Bohemian Lager Yeast
2206 Bavarian Lager Yeast
2308 Munich Lager Yeast

Make sure to do a yeast starter for a lager!

Style 1D stats:

OG: 1.045 – 1.051
IBUs: 16 – 22
FG: 1.008 – 1.012
SRM: 3 – 5
ABV: 4.7 – 5.4%

This Recipe:

OG: 1.050
IBUs: 24 (this is just above the guidelines, but meh..)
FG: 1.010
SRM: 3.6
ABV: 5.1%

Procedure

Mash at 150F (65.5C) for 60 minutes, then 158F (70C) for 30 minutes.

90 minute boil.

Ferment for 3 weeks in the primary, before racking, pull it out of the fridge and let it warm to room temperature for 2 days (dialectal rest). Rack it, and leave it around 36F for 4-6 weeks.

I then keg it, force carbonate, and after about 3 months it is ready to drink. The beer tastes strange when it is green. It really needs the extra time to settle down. Be patient with it!

Posted in Recipes | 13 Comments »

Deschutes Red Chair NWPA clone home brew recipe

Saturday, July 17th, 2010

Deschutes made a great beer this year, Red Chair NWPA (North West Pale Ale). Besides Ninkasi, this is really the only beer I would buy from the store again. Naturally, I wanted to make a clone recipe. I think this came pretty close for my first attempt, very drinkable beer.

1/30/2011 Update: Based on my experiments I have updated the recipe on this page.

Grains (all grain):
6.5 lb 2-row Pale
1.0 lb Crystal 20L
0.5 lb Carastan (30L)
1.0 lb Munich
1.0 lb Pilsner
0.5 lb CaraPils

(@ 75% brewhouse efficiency, 5.25 gallon batch)

Grains (extract):
Steep the following for 30 minutes at 150F
0.5 lb Crystal 20L
0.25 lb Carastan 30L
0.5 lb Munich Light
0.5 lb Pilsner

6.5 lb of Light dry malt extract
or
8 lb of Light liquid malt extract

Hops:
Zeus, 1 ounce, 60 minutes
Cascade, 0.5 ounce, 15 minutes
Cascade, 0.5 ounce, 5 minutes
Cascade, 1 ounce, 1 minute (flame out)
Cascade, 1 ounce, dry hop

Yeast:
Wyeast 1098 British Ale Yeast

Style 14B (American IPA) stats:

The beer does not qualify as a Pale Ale according to BJCP standards. The IBU’s are up around 60, clearly putting it into the league of IPAs. The gravity is just barely outside what qualifies as an American IPA.

OG: 1.056 – 1.075
IBUs: 40 – 70
FG: 1.010 – 1.018
SRM: 6 – 15
ABV: 5.5 – 7.5%

This Recipe:
OG: 1.055
IBUs: 66
FG: 1.015
SRM: 7.7
ABV: 5.6%

Fermented in the primary for 19 days at 64-68F, then bottled.

Notes:
I updated this 1/30/2011 based on my second try. The beer is much better than the first attempt.

I would highly recommend dry hopping with cascade, and maybe swapping out some of the Zues bittering hops for Cascade, keeping IBU’s the same.

The color, maltniness, and body are spot on, good head retention, and a beautiful golden amber color.

Do not use Centennial hops in Red Chair! That threw me off. Also in the last batch I had one pound of Carastan malt which added a roasted toffee flavor bite. Cutting back the Carastan helped a lot. I also switched to Wyeast 1098 British Ale Yeast (same as White Labs WLP007 English Dry). It is my new favorite yeast. I have never seen a more compacted yeast cake. The beer was drinkable in 3 weeks!

Thanks to the folks at homebrewtalk for input and disccusion on this recipe:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/deschutes-red-chair-nwpa-knockoff-recipe-construction-160178/

More information about Red Chair NWPA:
https://www.deschutesbrewery.com/brews/seasonal-ales/red-chair-nwpa/default.aspx

Posted in Recipes | 30 Comments »

Blonde Ale Summer Brew

Saturday, June 19th, 2010

This Blonde Ale is a home brew thirst quencher perfect for summer time. I plan to serve it ice cold on tap for days when it gets above 80F. I named the brew after my wife as she has the most beautiful blonde hair. The Cascade and Mt Hood are a nice light combination, with the Mt. Hood imparting a light spicyness. The Vienna malt gives a sublte honey sweetness. If you want to make it even lighter, use less hops.

The style is BJCP 6B – Blond Ale:

I bought a busshel of Pilsner malt (55 lb) about a year and a half ago. I have been using it for Lagers. I want to use up the Pilsner malt before it spoils so I made an ale.

Grains:

8 lb Pilsner
1 lb Vienna
1 lb CaraPils
(@ 75% brewhouse efficiency)

Hops:

Mt Hood, ½ ounce, 60 minutes
Cascade, ½ ounce, 30 minutes
Cascade, ½ ounce, 5 minutes
Mt Hood, ½ ounce, 5 minutes

Yeast:

American or British Ale Yeast – Kolsch would work well.

I used British II Wyeast 1335 because I had it on hand and was pitching it forward (for free). I think this yeast is better for darker beers now that I am tasting the first few samples, but time will tell.

Style 6B stats:

OG: 1.038 – 1.054
IBUs: 15 – 28
FG: 1.008 – 1.013
SRM: 3 – 6
ABV: 3.8 – 5.5%

This Recipe:

OG: 1.044
IBUs: 24
FG: 1.008
SRM: 3.2
ABV: 4.5%

Fermented in the primary for 35 days at 64-68F, then kegged.

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