Pale Amarillo Brew too thin, advice needed.

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quiff

Pale Amarillo Brew too thin, advice needed.

Post by quiff » Sun Feb 17, 2013 4:04 pm

Hi Guys,
I've not been brewing for a while so I thought it was time to rectify that. I did a handful of Grahams recipes a couple of years ago which resulted in really good beer then did my own IPA recipe which was fabulous, even if I do say so myself 8)
This time I wanted a really light, hoppy, easy drinking beer for spring and did the below recipe:

3000g Lager Malt
1200g Pale malt
300g Wheat malt
200g Torrified Wheat

Amarillo 15g @ 90mins
Amarillo 22g @ 10mins
Amarillo 22g @ 5mins

80 deg steep:
20g Amarillo
25g Styrian
15g First Gold


Dry hop in secondary:
22g Amarillo
15g Chinook

Mash temp 67deg
FG=1044
OG=1010

1 sachet Nottingham + 1 sachet S-04
Brew Length = 26L
32 EBU 4.4 ABV 5 EBC

First tastings are Hoppy!! :D
However, it is thin and missing some malt backbone and probably a bit too bitter.
How would you change this recipe to improve it? I would like to keep it as pale as possible.

cheers

Quiff

jimp2003

Re: Pale Amarillo Brew too thin, advice needed.

Post by jimp2003 » Sun Feb 17, 2013 6:01 pm

To add a bit more malt flavour without adding too much colour I would us 10-15% munich or vienna malt. Also I would leave out the nottingham yeast and just use the SO4 or look into a liquid yeast.

I bit of light crystal such as carapils would help add a bit of body and subtle sweetness to counter the bitterness.

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Re: Pale Amarillo Brew too thin, advice needed.

Post by Rookie » Sun Feb 17, 2013 6:03 pm

The too bitter part will fade on it's own, it just needs some time.
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Beer O'Clock
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Re: Pale Amarillo Brew too thin, advice needed.

Post by Beer O'Clock » Sun Feb 17, 2013 6:14 pm

How accurate were your temperature measurements ? If you mash at a temp lower than 65 then the brew will convert more of the sugar to alcohol without leaving any residual maltiness. This improves in the region from 67-68 degs. I have had some quite thin brews where the mash temp was around 64/5 degs.

I know you stated 67 degs as your mashing temp. But have you tested to see how accurate your thermometer is ? How effective is your insulation ?
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quiff

Re: Pale Amarillo Brew too thin, advice needed.

Post by quiff » Sun Feb 17, 2013 10:14 pm

Thanks for the responses guys =D>

Jimp, I don't really know anything about Munich, Vienna or carapils etc. what properties does each of those bring to a brew?

I still use the same thermometer that ive used in all my beers so far and not had a problem before, I guess that's why I presumed it was more to do with the grain bill. My mash temp only lost 0.5 deg over the 90mins but that doesn't necessarily mean the readings were accurate [-o<

I saw in another post that using two packs of yeast could cause a thin brew, anyone know why this might be the case??

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Jocky
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Re: Pale Amarillo Brew too thin, advice needed.

Post by Jocky » Mon Feb 18, 2013 12:51 am

A couple of observations regarding the hops:

1. With just Amarillo in at every stage in there I can't believe you will get anything from the Styrian or First Gold in the steep.

2. The bitterness will fade, but for me a lighter pale ale with an ABV of 4.4% like that shouldn't need that long to age (it should be right after a couple of weeks in the bottle), so you want to dial back that bitterness. Personally l'd suggest that you adjust the hop timings so that only half the bittering units comes from the 90 minute hops, and the rest comes from the 10/5 minute hops.

Guessing that your Amarillo is about 14% AA I would suggest:
10g @ 60 min,
30g @ 10 min,
30g @ 5 min.
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