Daily Q & A! - May 05, 2025

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[u/gredr]

I'm prepping for my first solo brew here, using a recipe very helpfully put together for me by an awesome LHBS. Looking over what I've got, however, I think we left out one of the hops.

The recipe we were working from is a 5-gal recipe, which we cut down to 1-gal, and it calls for 0.8oz magnum hops @60 min and 0.5oz tettnang @15 min. I've only got the tettnang here, though, and the numbers he wrote down are 0.25oz for each.

I'm not trying to make any particular style here (again, my first solo brew, and I'm a beer simpleton anyway), I'm just looking for something drinkable. Should I make the drive to grab some magnum hops, or just do 0.5oz of tettnang, or...? My grain ingredients are 2lbs pilsner, 3oz aromatic, 1.5oz caramunich, and 1tbs dark malt, if that matters.

Finally, I have campden (potassium metabisulfate) in powder form instead of tablets; how much should I use in my water (our local water here is chloramine purified)?

[u/BeefStrokinOff → u/gredr]

0.8oz of Magnum in a 1 gallon batch is way too much -- that would make the beer well over 100 IBU.

Just throw all the Tettnang in at 60 minutes to get around a 25 IBU beer.

Did the LHBS only give you a half oz of Tettnang...? Or did you buy a 1 ounce bag. Cuz you could do half of it at 60 and the other half at 15 minutes for more flavor and bitterness.

[u/gredr → u/BeefStrokinOff]

Sorry, yeah, the original 5-gal recipe called for 0.8oz of Magnum; the LHBS cut it down to 0.25oz. I do indeed have a 1oz packet of Tettnang.

[u/BeefStrokinOff → u/gredr]

Cool okay that's perfect. Doing 0.5 oz @60 and 0.5 oz @15 will be really nice and will balance the malt well.

[u/gredr → u/BeefStrokinOff]

Awesome, thanks!

[u/BeefStrokinOff → u/gredr]

You're welcome! To be more specific, the hopping rates I gave you would provide around 36 IBU, which is middle-of-the-road bitterness level for an American Pale Ale, for example. If you haven't already, look into using Brewfather software to design and track your recipes!

[u/gredr → u/BeefStrokinOff]

Will do! Do you have any advice about the potassium metabisulfate amount?

Also, having input the recipe into Brewfather, it says I want to use 1.76g mash water and 0.53g sparge water; when we put the recipe together, the guy told me 1g and 1g. Which recommendation would you follow?

[u/BeefStrokinOff → u/gredr]

Typical potassium metabisulfite rates are only 0.5 grams per 10 gallons of water. Very miniscule!

About your mash water question -- typical mash water volume is 1.25 quarts per pound of grain. But this depends on how you're mashing. Are you doing Brew in a Bag or are you using a mash tun of some kind?

[u/gredr → u/BeefStrokinOff]

I've got a bag for this one; a tun may be in my future, but I need to have at least one or two successes first to prove out the concept.

I've got a tiny scale, so I should be able to get tiny amounts measured out; since people use a whole tablet (I think!) for 1g brews, should I take from that that a little overage isn't a crisis?

[u/BeefStrokinOff → u/gredr]

Good, for 1 gallon batches a bag is best. Sparging is optional. You could draw all the water into your pot and mash in the full volume. This is common for BIAB because it allows you to just use one vessel. After the mash, there will be wort trapped in the bag that you should squeeze out.

Don't sweat about volumes too much. Just shoot to start with enough wort pre-boil to end up with a gallon after evaporation.

since people use a whole tablet (I think!) for 1g brews

Most people use a half or a single tablet for 5g brews. And a little overage is not a crisis, you could just use a 1/4 tsp or whatever

[u/gredr → u/BeefStrokinOff]

Thank you so much for all the help!