gloden brew

[bakerman]

I am new to all grain brewing and I am looking for a recipe for a Golden Ale. I have Challenger,Saaz, East Kent Goldings, Goldings and brewers Gold Hops
Some light Crystal Malt and Golden Promise Malt. Can anybody suggest a recipe?

[scuppeteer]

For a golden ale you would want about 5% light crystal, cara would be better though for colour and flavour. You're looking for around 14-16EBC. Bitter to 25IBU with the challenger, then maybe a second addition of challenger at 15mins or so. Finally flame out with 60-80g EKG and dry hop with the same amount after primary. Loads of flavour and aroma. Based on a 5gallon brew. ;o)

[Hanglow]

Or you can leave out the crystal entirely if you want. I've not used golden promise on its own but it's supposed to finish slightly sweeter than other malts

All those hops are tasty

[bakerman]

Hi guys
Thanks for the info. Going to brew on Saturday, but struggling to work out the bittering. Can you suggest roughly how much in grams 25 IBU would need with the challenger ?
cheers

[scuppeteer]

Based on an 8%AA about 20g for a 60 minute boil. If you haven't found it yet download the beer engine software below. Its a great simple recipe calculator which will prove invaluable as you get more confidence.

http://www.practicalbrewing.co.uk/main/ ... eerengine/

[Barley Water]

Before you can even think about figuring out the bitterness you need to have some idea what your O.G. is going to be. The reason for this is because the amount of bittering I target will be quite different for two beers with exactly the same grist except one is say scaled to a 1.040 beer while the other is for a 1.055 beer. Clearly, the latter will come off as much more malt forward than the former give exactly the same hopping schedule. Think of bitterness as the ratio of IBU's to O.G., it's easiler to design recipies with that in mind (and it will also tell you if you are way out in left field when trying to come up with an idea). Secondly, you need to consider how much hop flavor and aroma you want in the beer; that will influence how early or late in the the boil the hops are added. As previously posted, the calculator will make life easy once you know how many IBU's you are going for, just input all the other parameters then screw around with the hop schedule until you hit the numbers you want. By the way, if your brewing water is hard the hops are going to come off much more bitter than what you might get using soft water.

Just a couple of other things to ponder. Generally when making a low gravity beer I try to make it drink bigger than it is. You can do that by increasing the crystal malt in the grist (which will tend to increase the terminal gravity) as well as selecting a less attenuative strain of yeast. On the other hand, if you want really dry do exactly the opposite and maybe even think about adding adjuncts like sugar or flaked corn (in moderation of course). I rarely worry about color all that much, for some reason it just tends to take care of itself although if you want really blond you need to stay away from dark crystal malts. Finally, if you want really light some adjunct like corn will lighten the color, that's how us Yanks make that mass market swill we call beer over here.