My first brew.

[quixoticgeek]

With construction work on my brewery progressing nicely, I am ready for the trip to my local home brew shop to pick up the grain for my first brew.

Being my first brew I was thinking of trying something really simple and basic, with a single Malt, and a single Hope variety. My thoughts were something like 95% Maris otter, 5% torrified yeast, and then 100gm of East Kent Goldings hops, spread over the boil, with some at the start for bitterness and some at the end for aroma, aiming for something with an ABV of about 4%, (but I generally don't like measuring the alcohol content of homebrew...)

Yeast wise I have an out of date (11-2009) sachet of US-05 that has been loitering in my brewing parts box for a while now, or I can pick up some S-04 when I grab the grain.

Am I being stupid with this? Will it work? Any ideas on ratio of hops in terms of Bittering/Aroma? I really want to keep the recipe simple as it's my first brew and I would like as little room to screw up as possible.

J

[dave-o]

A few things i'd say:

-Probably best to use torrified wheat rather than torrified yeast.

-100g of hops is quite a lot. I'd say 50g would be more like it unless you want it really bitter or really hoppy. Perhaps 30g full boil and 20g late.

-11//09 is seriously out of date. I wouldn't use it, or i'd at least have a backup sachet in case it doesn't work.

[quixoticgeek]

A few things i'd say:

-Probably best to use torrified wheat rather than torrified yeast.

-100g of hops is quite a lot. I'd say 50g would be more like it unless you want it really bitter or really hoppy. Perhaps 30g full boil and 20g late.

-11//09 is seriously out of date. I wouldn't use it, or i'd at least have a backup sachet in case it doesn't work.

Can you spot I wasn't very awake? Torrified wheat does make so much more sense :p

I do like my beers hoppy, but could easily wind back the hops on this. The main reason behind 100g of hops was that they come in 100g packs. Incidentally, is there any difference in weights used if I was using pellets over the actual flowers?

J

[RichardG]

Well if I may; AG#2 for me was probably the best I've done to-date. It consisted of:-

Maris Otter pale malt - 4.5kg
Torrified wheat - 150g

25Ltr brew length.

Goldings - 90mins - 5.1AA - 50g
Goldings - 15mins - 5.1AA - 30g
Goldings - 5mins - 5.1AA - 25g
Goldings - 1 week dry hop - 5.1AA - 35g

Yeast used was a packet of Nottingham.

It was, to my mind, simply brilliant and went down a storm with all who tried it. Now, I should stress that this worked for my taste, and may not work for your's. All I can say is 140was fine for me, so give 100g a try and see what it does for you.

[quixoticgeek]

Well if I may; AG#2 for me was probably the best I've done to-date. It consisted of:-

Maris Otter pale malt - 4.5kg
Torrified wheat - 150g

25Ltr brew length.

Goldings - 90mins - 5.1AA - 50g
Goldings - 15mins - 5.1AA - 30g
Goldings - 5mins - 5.1AA - 25g
Goldings - 1 week dry hop - 5.1AA - 35g

Yeast used was a packet of Nottingham.

It was, to my mind, simply brilliant and went down a storm with all who tried it. Now, I should stress that this worked for my taste, and may not work for your's. All I can say is 140was fine for me, so give 100g a try and see what it does for you.

Looks perfect, do you think it would work as well without the dry hopping?

My local brew shop is out of stock of nottingham, would s04 work ok do we think?

Julia

[Horden Hillbilly]

My local brew shop is out of stock of nottingham, would s04 work ok do we think?

Ask if they have got Gervin ale yeast in stock, it's the same as Nottingham.

[quixoticgeek]

My local brew shop is out of stock of nottingham, would s04 work ok do we think?

Ask if they have got Gervin ale yeast in stock, it's the same as Nottingham.

Turns out that the brew shop did have some Nottingham in stock, so I picked up a couple of sachets. So I think I now have all the ingredients here for the brew, next I need to finish construction...

Thanks

J

[RichardG]

Quixotic, in answer to your question about dry hopping, yes, I'm sure it would be fine to, say, steep rather than dry hop. It's actually what I was going to try next time.