I love rye beer… my house ale has been an evolving recipe for a while and currently I have been trying to strip it
down a bit to make ingredients last a bit longer - less of everything.
I started out with about 22% rye in this beer with an OG of 1060 and 40 IBU. It’s not a rye IPA, it was just meant to be my
house ale… UK pale ale malt, no color or crystal malt, Cascades and Nottingham yeast.
The latest batch was 9.5% rye with an OG of 1045 and 14 IBU of Cascades. Even thought it is a far cry from what I started
with it is still excellent house ale… even more drinkable than that first version.
Even at this small % of rye the flavor still shines thru with a spicy peppery taste.
What I need to know is how low can I go and still taste it?
From what I have read most of the info says that 10% will not be noticeable, but it is in my beer.
Is it more noticeable because there is no crystal in this recipe? Could it be a combination of the malts and yeast I am using?
I was just wondering if anybody else uses this small of a % in there beers and how they percieved it.
For what its worth, I had a fellow homebrewer share a beer he made from almost (if not) 100% rye. He brewed the beer as an experiment using rice hulls and I think around 10% pils malt to aid a very sticky sparge. The beer had a great rye flavor but was extremely viscous… almost gelatinous in mouthfeel. It was a beer with a gumbo-like mouthfeel. He said the sparge was horrible despite the rice hulls.
Rye is a nice addition to a brew. I experimented with it in almost all of my batches last year. Lends a spiciness even in a lower percentage for me. A bit gummy in the mash.
I think it really shines backing up the sweetness of Crystal malt.
I just made a batch with 25% rye, and the runnings were really slow, much slower than the last time I used rye and it was nearly 20%. I also experimented by getting my sulfate to chloride ratio at 1.50ish hoping it will bring out more of the malt flavor. It should be an interesting learning experiment since I’ve always brewed around a .77 to 1.06 ratio.
the % figure seems pretty system-and taste-specific. I did a beer with Denny’s Wry Smile as a template - the grain bill was identical and about 30% Rye in that one. I’d zero issues lautering - no rice hulls or otherwise and it ran-off as fast as any other non-Rye beer I’ve done. Personally, while the beer was solid, I’m pulling back on the Rye just a tad the next time around (brewing it again in another couple weeks).
I would like to try a ‘Rye-Wine’ for kicks at some point - maybe up to 40% Rye, British Pale making up the rest, and a mild, earthy hop. Not sure which way to go with yeast. Been reading up on Roggenbier too which I’ve only had once commercially, mmmm, Rye…
I’m just doing single-infusion mashes in a rectangular cooler with a stainless braid manifold, fwiw.