My son wants to brew something with rye in it. He found this recipe on brewtoad. I haven’t brewed with marris otter before but like what I read about it. Seems like a base that fermented drier would compliment the rye.
Hops
Zeus .5 oz. 50 min
Columbus .5 oz. 50 min
Amarillo .5 oz. 20 min
Zeus .5 oz. 20 min
Cascade .5 oz. 15 min
Amarillo .5 oz. 5 min
Zues .5 oz. 5 min
Zues .5 oz. Dry hop
Amarillo 1 oz. Dry hop
Cascade .5 oz. Dry hop
Wyeast 1272 american ale 2
How does this sound? Any suggestions or recommendations?
Personally, I would take all of your finishing hops (the 20 min on down), cool your wort to 175F, then add them and steep for 30-45 minutes, ie., a ‘hopstand’. This will give you excellent hop flavor and some aroma as well. And I would at least double your dry hop amounts - 2 oz of dry hops works great for a pale ale, but is a little lacking for IPA IMO. FWIW, I use 4- 6+ oz of dry hops for IPA. Otherwise I think it looks good. You should post how it comes out !
EDIT - Though I would drop the Carapils (which you don’t need here) and the biscuit. Marris Otter malt already has a toasty/biscuit quality to it. I would add the carapils and biscuit amounts back in the form of more Marris Otter.
Way too much going on. Looks like a “kitchen sink” recipe. It doesn’t need to be so complicated to get the same excellent results! Throw out the Carapils and biscuit malt. Cut out one or the other of the CaraRed or CaraMunich. Also, increase your rye to at least 2 lb. Skip the mashout which is a waste of time and effort. Put your 20 minute hops in at 50 or 60 minutes, or eliminate them. And there you have it.
So, if the Vienna is a base malt, is there a good reason to use it here at 8 percent of the bill or would I do as well replacing that with another pound of Maris otter?
Hi - Personal opinion, but I’m not a fan of recipe sharing sites like BrewToad etc. Perhaps I’m wrong, or just being judgmental, but I feel like most of the recipes are in the category of “look mom…I got something on the Internet!” While you’ll find good ones, you’ll find way more…un…interesting ones too.
I’d personally make a lot of revisions to this particular recipe. Dmtaylor mentioned a lot going on in it…“kitchen sink” like perhaps. I say right on man! It really is. For a grain bill, I’m make it much simpler:
12 Lbs of MO
2 Lbs of Rye malt
Depending on your efficiency, this will give you a starting gravity at 1.065 or higher and an ETOH of ~6.5% or higher. I think it will be plenty malty with the MO but allow the spicy rye to show itself too. The original grain bill has way too much going on as mentioned by a previous poster, and it has a bad case of “caraitis” i.e. Carared, Carapils, Caramunich…
For hops, if you are looking for a rye IPA, I like the suggestion made by HoosierBrew of doing a “hop stand” technique so that you really grab a lot of hop flavor. I’d also simplify/clean up the hop bill too. Whenever I see recipes where Columbus and Zeus are used, I have to ask why. Just use the CTZ blend or stick to Columbus. Also, speculation on my part but IMHO, it looks like a it was designed around using 1 oz bags plus a left-over bag of Columbus from a previous recipe.
For your hop schedule, you can go traditional and use 1 oz of Columbus at the start of boil and then do the rest as late additions (20 mins or later), or steeping/whirlpool additions once the wort is down to 180, or exclude the 50 minute addition of hops and add them all during the last 20 mins and during whirlpool (hop bursting).
Ok so what I’m looking at based on all of the suggestions is:
11 lb 2 row
2 lb rye
1 lb CaraRed
1 oz Columbus at 60 min
.5 oz Amarillo - hopstand
.5 oz cascade - hopstand
.5 oz Columbus - hopstand
1 oz Amarillo - Dry hop
1 oz cascade - dry hop
1 oz Columbus - dry hop
I’m really just guessing at the hops. This is my first go at recipe formulation.
Yeah - what Steve said. Much better overall than the original recipe I think.
Grab a copy of “Designing Great Beers” by Ray Daniels and give it a read. I think that would help with developing your recipe formulation skills. I’m sure others can share some recommended reading to help also. You’ll become the master of your own domain…brewing domain that is.
I’m finally getting around to brewing this beer. I couldn’t get Amarillo hops. Instead I picked up au topaz. How do you think the topaz will work for the Amarillo? I also have 2 oz simcoe, .5 oz each of columbus, chinook and warrior that are unspoken for at this point.
Topaz should be a decent substitute for most of the Amarillo. However I have heard that isn’t not so great for dry hopping, so you might want to try one of the others for dry hopping. Or nevermind and it will probably turn out good anyway since it’s being used in combination and not all by itself.
