% of Rye Malt in a Pale Ale?

[DrewG]

I'm just starting to play around with recipe building...I'm thinking about an APA using some rye malt, 2 row Pale and a little crystal 40. I've got some homegrown chinooks that will be ready soon too, and I'd like to incorporate those as a late addition kettle hop, mayhap with cascades or amarillo. Warrior or magnum for bittering.

So....howzabout...

1.050 OG
35ish IBU
001 or 007

80% Pale
15% Rye
5% Crystal 40

Is that enough Rye? Too much? Will it play well with Chinook, or maybe a Chinook/ Cascade blend?

Thoughts, idears, etc welcome and appreciated.

[jmcamerlengo]

Id get the rye up to closer to 20-25%. Chinooks IMO are great for bittering ok for flavor/aroma and great for dry hopping.

I would bitter with Warrior, aroma/flavor with Cascade and dry hop with 2 oz or so of your Chinook. But experiment!

[DrewG]

Thanks for your thoughts Jason, I like the dry hopping idea a lot.

 

[DrewG]

Another question.....rice hulls?

[denny]

15% rye is good for a present but subdued rye flavor.  Adjust to your tastes.  Whether or not you need hulls will depend on your equipment.  FWIW, at 15% I really doubt you'll need them.  I've gone as high as 40% and I've never had a problem.

[DrewG]

Batch sparging, round cooler with a false bottom. I haven't had any sticking issues with it so far

[denny]

Batch sparging, round cooler with a false bottom. I haven't had any sticking issues with it so far

Then you should be fine.  Round coolers can be a bit more prone to sticking sue to the grain bed depth, but this mash shouldn't be any more difficult that any other you've done.

[DrewG]

Cool, thanks for the "pragmatic" input

[corkybstewart]

My rye pale uses about 30-35% rye malt and is a real crowd pleaser, especially if people don't know it has rye in it.  My wife's usual comment is that she hates rye bread.
I also don't use rice hulls, but I do have some on hand if I need to add them.

[jmcamerlengo]

No problem Drew! And I agree with above on the rice hulls but that will be system dependent.

FWIW I did a roggenbier with about 40% rye in a round Gott type cooler without rice hulls and didn't have any issues.

[DrewG]

More thoughts.....

Since I'm trying to build this to my tastes from scratch, should I leave the crystal malt out to begin with? I'm not sure why I had in in to begin with to be honest, other than most pales have some crystal in them.

Would some victory or Munich be more appropriate than the crystal in a beer with rye?

What I'm shooting for is a session-able Rye Pale, fairly hoppy but not too far out of balance. Decent body to it, but not overly sweet.

[jmcamerlengo]

5% crystal is certainly appropriate. Munich and Victory have their own distinct flavor. Whatever is to your liking!

Ive done 1 Rye Pale in my brewing days and it had 70% 2 row, 20% rye, 5% crystal-40, and 5% biscuit FWIW.

[DrewG]

Heres what I decided to go with
80% Pale Malt
15% Rye Malt
5% Crystal 60
mashing at 156
40 IBU
.75 oz Warrior @ 60
.50 oz cascade @ 5
.50 oz Amarillo @ 5
.50 oz cascade @ 0
.50 oz amarillo @ 0
 1 oz of the above each for DH
WLP001 @ 68f

[DrewG]

Kegged this up the other night. It's not bad, maybe a little thin for my tastes. Seems to need a little more bittering and maybe some munich for more malt backbone.

[erockrph]

Thanks for the follow up. I would have never guessed that 15% rye could still end up thin. What was your OG/FG?

You could always swap your base grain for Marris Otter for more maltiness as well...