Home of the BrewNosers

I've decided I want to always have a solid session beer on hand. This is my first attempt at from-scratch recipe development, so I'm looking for tips & suggestions. I plan to brew this sometime in early January. I need to be able to purchase all of the ingredients locally.

Batch size: 23L fermenter
Brewhouse efficiency: 63%
Target OG: 1.040
Target FG: 1.010
ABV: 3.9%
IBU: 28.4
Colour: 7.7 SRM

95% 4.75kg British Pale Malt
5% 0.25kg Brown malt

28g Fuggles 60 min (13.5 IBU)
28g Kent Golding 20 min (10.0 IBU)
28g Fuggles 10 min (4.9 IBU)

4g CaCl (60 min mash)
2.5g gypsum (60 min mash)
2.5g epsom salt (60 min mash)

Mash schedule:
13L @ 77C for 67C 35 min
6.25 L @ 95C for 77C 10 min
13L @ 80C for 74C 15 min

Final top-up water: 2L.

Yeast: Wyeast 1056. (I am recovering it from the Black IPA that is currently on the go. If it is a bad fit for the beer I'm open to change.)

I've got my fingers crossed on this one. Is there anything I could do to improve this without going out of limits for the style, or creating something bitter? It needs to be something that won't scare off my friends and won't leave my mouth dry. That's what my Black IPA is for.

Looks reasonable to me, but I'd use a british strain of yeast - 1028/1318/1968/1275/1187

mr x wrote:Looks reasonable to me, but I'd use a british strain of yeast - 1028/1318/1968/1275/1187

Okay. It looks like NG stocks 1187 so that may be the winner.

benwedge wrote:

mr x wrote:Looks reasonable to me, but I'd use a british strain of yeast - 1028/1318/1968/1275/1187

Okay. It looks like NG stocks 1187 so that may be the winner.

Brewtarget says that it'll drop the ABV to 3.7. The style technically runs from 3.8 to 4.6 (BJCP) but that's not my foremost concern. I'm guessing that the lower ABV is nothing to worry about? How much of a difference does the strain truly make?

Edit: we need a big "n00b here" smilie a la

I know very little about the technical details of yeast, but 1056 says it has an alcohol tolerance of 11%, and 1187 10%. So why, if both are being used on a beer below 10%, would you have a different ABV?

Jimmy wrote:I know very little about the technical details of yeast, but 1056 says it has an alcohol tolerance of 11%, and 1187 10%. So why, if both are being used on a beer below 10%, would you have a different ABV?

My understanding is that they have different abilities to process sugar & the difference in the high end has to do with how much alcohol they'll take before going comatose and dying of alcohol poisoning. I'm just confused as to why I get that big of a drop, but obviously there's a reason. I would have thought the ringwood would keep going beyond 1.012 though.

So I guess that's the attenuation? The 1187 has an attenuation of 68-72%, vs 73-77% for the 1056.

So far end of the spectrum, there's potentially a 9% difference in the two yeast...if what I'm thinking even makes sense..

Jimmy wrote:So I guess that's the attenuation? The 1187 has an attenuation of 68-72%, vs 73-77% for the 1056.

So far end of the spectrum, there's potentially a 9% difference in the two yeast...if what I'm thinking even makes sense..

Maybe? I know nothing virtually nothing about yeast. Hopefully an expert will clear this up for us!

Ringwood is lower attenuating, but it IMHO, it takes a few brews to judge a yeast. Keep in mind that 1187 is notorious for diacetyl.

mr x wrote:Ringwood is lower attenuating, but it IMHO, it takes a few brews to judge a yeast. Keep in mind that 1187 is notorious for diacetyl.

I have heard that. It's the only one NG stocks, but if I make my mind up today I could do a special order.

I'm slightly concerned with my efficiency & I think the crush is reasonable. Would changing the mash temps help?

Doesn't NG still stock 1968? Mashing low should help. Or use a 5-10% corn.

mr x wrote:Ringwood is lower attenuating, but it IMHO, it takes a few brews to judge a yeast. Keep in mind that 1187 is notorious for diacetyl.

LOL. I wanted a little of that diacetyl for the classic English taste, but the Ringwood in my current ESB certainly pushes my limits

I've made my English bitters with 1187, 1098 and 1028 and I'm going to have to try out all those other varieties Robert listed. 1098 (British Ale) is boring, 1187 too diacetyl. The 1028 was used on an otherwise failed brew, but the yeast characteristic might be right.

mr x wrote:Doesn't NG still stock 1968? Mashing low should help. Or use a 5-10% corn.

They do. I must have missed it when I glanced at this. It comes in at 3.6ABV according to BrewTarget & the FG ends up at 1.013, which is out of style... Again, style isn't my first consideration on this brew, so I may go for it and see what happens.

I'll try a lower mash temp. I'd like to avoid corn.

Those FG calculations are pretty meaningless. IIRC you will get the same calculated attenuation whether you use 100% sugar or 100% carapils...

mr x wrote:Those FG calculations are pretty meaningless. IIRC you will get the same calculated attenuation whether you use 100% sugar or 100% carapils...

Okay. My 3rd AG is in the primary and I forgot to take an FG reading on the oatmeal stout to see how that even compared. Hopefully I'll become more attuned to what's accurate in my software as time goes on.

If you can't find anything else, just use Nottingham dry yeast. With a name like that the music playing during the brew session is likely as important as the yeast.