Hey guys I put together this extract recipie just had a couple questions. First being will this turn out descent? The 2nd, can I use carafoam with the other Grains in the steeping period? Recipie to follow. Let me start by saying I like a maltier ipa. My favorite is 90 minute by dogfish head American IPA 8lbs pale malt extract Steeping grain: 8oz caramel 40 8oz Vienna malt 8oz munich malt 4oz carafoam ( if possible) Hops: 1Oz centennial 60 min .5oz centennial 15 min 1oz simcoe 5 min 1oz Simcoe 1 min 1oz simcoe dry hop 7days .5oz centennial dry hop 7 days Am I missing anything? does it seem well rounded? And is the carafoam possible? Please and thank you.
You can steep carafoam. But as mentioned, don't steep Vienna and Munich. Or rather, steep in such a way that you are meeting mash conditions.
Looks like a good start for a recipe. Thoughts: Vienna and Munich malts should be mashed. You can do that easily enough just by steeping those separately in 2 qt hot water to hit 150 F for about half an hour, then add the rest of your brewing water and extracts after that. Or else, skip these malts if not doing a mini-mash. Consider adding 4 oz Special B (tastes like raisins), Special Roast or Victory (toasty) for more malt flavor. You don't really need Carafoam. Your late hops aren't really enough for an IPA in the 21st century. Bring up your 1 minute addition and/or your dry hops to at least 3 or 3.5 oz for bigger hop flavor. Enjoy.
Dave (@dmtaylor) is living in a different 21st Century than I am. I regularly brew IPAs with 1 oz. added at the end of boil and dry hop with 1.5 ounces. Feel free to add more hops here if you are so inclined but that amount of hops will provide a very noticeable hop aroma for those hop varieties. Cheers!
1-1.5 oz is usually enough for me as well. I am a malthead myself and love me some Scotch ale and doppelbock, etc. I was speaking in generalities based on the average IPA gulping joe who enjoys 90 IBU stuff like Dogfish Head 90-Minute. Might be malty for an IPA but it's got to have more than an ounce of hops at the end to be anything close to resembling an IPA IMO.
Dave, my house IPA is a Centennial IPA (akin to Bells Two Hearted) and I brew that beer at least once a year (sometimes twice a year when my wife demands more). In that beer I use 1.5 ounces of Centennial pellet hops for dry hopping (7+ days). That beer has a very noticeable hop aroma, I should caveat that I also add 1 ounce of Centennial hops at the end of boil for aroma as well. I respectfully disagree that a total of 2.5 ounces of American aroma hops (1 ounce at end of boil and 1.5 ounces for dry hopping) does not result in a 21st Century IPA. Cheers!
In general, Crystal/Caramel malts and dark Roasted grains can be steeped, and anything else should be mashed along with a diastatic base malt. (Vienna and Munich are both diastatic base malts.) A base malt is a malt that has the enzymes needed to convert its own starches (and the starches of non-base malts mashed along with it) into sugars/dextrins, i.e. it has Diastatic Power. The reason Crystal/Caramel malts and dark Roasted grains don't need to be mashed is that their starches have already been (mostly) converted to sugars.
The conversation about which grains should be mashed vs steeped is fascinating. What @dmtaylor describes as mashing sounds like a long steeping to me. Whats the difference?
Steeping can be at pretty much any temperature (but I'd say keep it below 170F), pretty much any water to grist ratio, and pH is relatively unimportant (within reason). Steeps are often fairly short, like 15 minutes or so. Since there's no conversion of starches required, you don't have to worry about having enough time for full conversion. Mashing requires a diastatic base malt, a temperature between say, 144F and 158F (the edges are debatable, and various temperatures yield different results in fermentability), a water to grist ratio (ideally) in the 1-2 quarts per pound range, and ideally a mash pH within a fairly narrow range (say, 5.2 to 5.6) for best results. Mashes are typically longer than steeps, because you need to ensure full conversion of starches (at a minimum). Even longer times (beyond the full conversion threshold) will result in a more fermentable wort. All mashes are steeps. Not all steeps are mashes.
Mashing is just glorified steeping. It gives the enzymes in the grains time to convert the starches into fermentable sugars. At the end of the mash, there should be almost zero starches left, just sugars and grain husks. It will sound to a newbie like a lot of complicated rules, but it's really not bad -- if you can steep and have a grain bag huge enough, even a chimpanzee can very easily mash in a bag successfully. If you want to use a big cooler with a false bottom instead of a bag, go for it, that's very easy too. Rules of mashing (similar to Vikeman's): 1) Crush your grains well. If you don't have access to a grain mill, and want to just have the grains crushed at the store, ask them to double crush. This would help your efficiency so you can get the beer you expect and not some wimpy version of it. How do you know if the grains are crushed properly? Husks should remain mostly intact but close examination should reveal each kernel of grain to be broken into about 6-7 little white chunks. 2) Don't use too much water in the mash. 1 to 3 quarts water per pound of grain is good. Most people go between about 1.3 to 2 qt/lb but the exact amount is really not that critical. Heat the water to around 175-180 F ahead of time so that the mash temperature falls into the right range after you mix the grains into it... 3) Shoot for an average temperature of 148-153 F for at least 40 minutes. A longer mash is fine and 60 minutes is the standard, but it really is not necessary to prolong your brew day so much unless you want this to take all day. After 5 minutes of soak time, measure the mash temperature in at least 3 or 4 spots and take the average. If temperature is 147 F in one spot and 156 F in another spot, that's normal and that's fine. The average temp is what really matters. If temperature is too hot, add 2 cups of cold water at a time to bring it down. If temp is too cool, you can bring this up with direct heat if you stir carefully, or get 2-3 quarts of water boiling on your stove separately just in case the temperature falls, then dump that in. If everything doesn't go as planned, don't sweat it. You're still going to make good beer no matter what. After the first 10-15 minutes of the mash, stick your finger into the mash and taste it. Tastes like sugar. Not starch soup anymore at that point. Longer mashing just makes sure you get most of the sugars converted to simple ones that yeast find easy to digest. 4) Keep an eye on mash pH, about 5.3 plus or minus like Vikeman says. (Note: pH of the plain water will be 7-8, but that doesn't matter -- the pH of the mash with the grains in is what matters!) Give the mash a good 5-10 minutes soak time before you check the pH. As long as you don't use really crappy hard water or spring water, you'll find your mash pH naturally falls into this range for most beers anyway. If mash pH is a little too high, add a teaspoon or two of calcium chloride. If pH is too low, add a fairy dust sprinkle (like 1/8 teaspoon) of baking soda. Then after a few minutes, check pH a second time to see how you did. 5) Rinse ("sparge") the grains with more hot water if you want good efficiency. Or don't, that's fine too, but expect your efficiency to be only like 50-55% without a sparge as opposed to 70% or more with sparge. Sparge water in the 190s Fahrenheit is about right, as it will average out with the 150-ish temperature of the mash to get you towards a mashout temperature of 170 F. However it's not wrong to use boiling water. Again watch your pH coming out of the sparge and adjust if necessary. On your first batch, decide whether you care about efficiency and do what you think is easy. If you don't sparge, just use an extra couple pounds of pale malt compared to what your recipe says and it will turn out great. And that's about it. Any details beyond that are most likely minor details that intermediate and advanced homebrewers love to argue about but actually do not need to be considered for >90% of beer styles and novice all-grainers. Hope this helps get a couple people started on all-grain. It's really not difficult. It does take time though. Expect about 5 hours of your time on your first batch. If you want to save time, try smaller batches. 2 or 3 gallons only takes about 3.5 to 4 hours. Cheers.
I think "Hot to Brew" www.howtobrew.com has a list. But it's not just diastatic vs. steepable. There are non-diastatic malts (i.e. non-base malts) that must also be mashed. But they must be mashed along with a diastatic base malt, which will provide the enzymes needed. Diastatic Base malts include... Pilsner Pale Malt "Lager" Malt Pale Ale Malt (including Maris Otter, Golden Promise, Mild, etc.) Vienna Munich Pale/White/Red Wheat Malt Non-Diastatic Malts/grains that must nevertheless be mashed along with a base malt include... Brown Malt Amber Malt Honey Malt/Brumalt Aromatic Biscuit Victory Unmalted Barley/Rye/Oats/Corn/Wheat Too many to name them all here Non-Diastatic malts that don't need to be mashed... Crystal/Caramel Malts Chocolate Malts Black Patent Roasted Barley (actually not a malt) Midnight Wheat Pretty much anything dark roasted
VikeMan's list is good, but it may help (or may not) to just remember grains with a lot of starches need to be mashed. Very loosely, some of the "starchy" grains have enough diastatic power to convert the starches into sugars which can then be fermented by yeast. Other "starchy" grains are not able to convert themselves and need to be mashed with a diastatic malt. The non-diastatic grains that don't need to be mashed have been "processed" so that the starches have already been converted to sugars (or other stuff). How to Brew has a pretty good description of what is going on when you mash grains vs. steep.
