Brewing something Saturday....trying to figure out what. I know I'm gonna do a Single Malt Single Hop brew. I know I want to use Munich Malt. I was gonna go a logical route with with Magnum but Brew and Grow has some Pacific Jade hops, they sound interesting...maybe Thames valley ale yeast, ESB, or Munich Lager or Octoberfest lager yeast. I don't know...any ideas? All opinions welcome. Is there room in the lager fridges? Can I do a lager without a starter?
Mon, Sep 23, 2013 - 10:10pm
#1
Recipe opinions please
Hi Joe,
Couple thoughts. You can try an all munich beer, it will work, but it will be a very very strong, rich malt flavor. Perhaps overwhelming. But if you want to try it, I say go for it.
Those are my thoughts.
James
Thanks James, I really appreciate it. I get ambitious and since I don't have the experience many around these parts do I can conceptualize how some of these things might play out on paper, but not in practice, your advice is very helpful. I'm thinking I'll go with an ale yeast, just to make the process easier for the moment. Probably the Thames or the ESB....or perhaps the California Lager Yeast, which I could do at the Ferm Room Temp. It would be extremely helpful but totally impossible for more than several reasons to have a library of SMaSH beers so newer brewers like myself could better contemplate the effects of different hops. I know Mikkeler did a series like that that Binny's had in stock for a while.
The 5 liter flask and both james and my stir plate is at the brew house.
Just stopped by the brewhouse and Brew and Grow. I am in possesion of the stirplate made from a fan not sure who's that is, the flask, and the airlock. Also, I bought a foam stopper for it, I heard Chuck was saying those work real well. I'm brewing saturday and will return them all cleaned then, by all means if you need it back just give me a holler. I'm brand new to lagering and making starters. So, a few things about the recipe.
I'm using 9.5 lbs. of Munich from Germany, I'll mash it good and long per James recommendation.
I'm using 5 oz. of Vanguard hops, in mostly late additions. I saw an interersting article on Mr. Malty about the benefits of larger quantities of late additions achieving a very smooth bittering effect. trying to balance all that maltiness a bit and vanguard seem interesting...
Will a better bottle fit in the lager fridge? how about a carboy?
So you are going to do a lager?
A carboy with an orage cap and blowoff will fit, not sure about the better bottle.
That is my stir plate and flask. Yellow 2" stir bar?
I assume the article you are refering to is this:
http://www.mrmalty.com/late_hopping.php
The point of the article is the HUGE HOP FLAVOR AND AROMA, the smooth bittering more of a side effect.
What you seem to be suggesting is making Bock IPA, a huge rich malty flavor, and a huge floral hop punch. I am not sure this is going to work. The best IPAs work becuse they are usually quite dry and have a restrained malt sweetness. The malt sweetness is just enough to balancing the bitterness. The dryness is from using highly fermentable malt as well as simple sugar. The dryness helps to wash away the bitterness leaving you with a crisp and refereshing experience. If there is more sweetness than required the effect does not work.
Munich is a malt that leaves a fair ammount of residual sweetness and a rich flavor. Even mashing low, like 148, will not make it very fermentable.
My opinion is that you are creating beer that has huge malt flavor and sweetness as well as huge hop flavor and sweetness. I dont think that will work. But I could be very wrong, I dont know. I would definitly stick with lager yeast if you stick with the hoppy route, keep the gravity at or below 1.045, and mash at 148. You could even pull out a bit after 45min of mashing, heat it up to 160, put it back in and keep doing that ntil you get up to 155. This should give you a very fermentable wort. Also make sure to us the paint stir stick for a few minuites before pitching the yeast to whip as much oxygen into the wort as possible.
For the hops I would not go much more than a planned .75 OG/IBU ratio. So try to keep it under 35ibus for the OG of 1.045.
I hope this helps and that your beer comes out great. I am very interested to see what a beer like that come out like.
James, thanks for the help working this out. I'm a big fan of your beers and I thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience. Also, I do have the stir bar as well. I'm not really going for a particular style, I just wanted to make a SMaSH beer, something that tastes good and and due to it's simple nature will help me learn about the effects of ingredients on the final product. I went with vanguard because brew and grow had some, it comes from noble hop parentage and since im using octoberfest yeast and munich malt that made sense, the flavor and aroma profile being described as a bit woody and spicy sounds like it will play well with the extreme maltiness and not clash too much like a more citrusy/floral hop might (I think). My hop schedule as of right now is
.5 oz 60 Min
2.5 oz. 20 min
2.0 oz. 10min
according to beersmith that should result in 27.2 IBU's which is still within the style range for an Octoberfest, although on the high side. Hopefully it turns out OK, as you mentioned it sounds a bit risky but I'm betting on the character of this hop to pull this experiment off...I'm drinking it either way, I suppose if it doesn't turn out well I'll just have to drink it by myself and really fast to avoid the flavor, I'm sure someone has a beer bong right? hahaha.
Sounds like a good plan. Also, in the settings of beersmith change the hop caculation for rager to tinseth. Its more accurate and most reciepies are caculated using it.