Help me brew an awesome American Rye Beer

[Wolfbrau]

Anyone have a really drinkable American Rye recipe? I would like to brew one that has some Rye character, but is very drinkable in a session.

Thanks in advance! Brew strong!

[nathanm]

If I remember, I will post a recipe I used Tuesday when I get home from work. If I don't post it - I took Denny Conn's Rye IPA recipe (search google) and modified it for an American Pale Ale. Modified meaning i took the recipe and just scaled it using Beer Alchemy (Mac user) and then using the same hops, used pale ale amounts to get the right IBUs.

Tasted it last night (3 days into fermentation) and so far so good! I'll try and post the final results.

[Wolfbrau]

I was thinking about this one, sort of an adaptation of Kent's Hollow Leg:

3.0 lbs Briess Wheat DME (65% wheat)
4.0 lbs Weyermann Malted Rye
2.0 lbs Briess American 2-Row
0.5 lbs Rice Hulls

0.8 oz Glacier 6a for 60 minutes
0.7 oz Glacier 6a for minute

Safale US-05

OG: 1.051
IBU: 21.6 (Rager)
ABV: 5%


My only concern is that my partial mash has 4 lbs of wheat malt with only 2 lbs of 2-row. Will it convert? Would using 6-row instead help? I'm running up against my limit on partial mash volume.

I'm also thinking about using WYeast 2565 Koelsch instead of the Safale.

Anyone have any feedback?

[BDawg]

Absolutely - Rye & Wheat malt have about the same diastatic power as 6 row.
It'll convert just fine.

I'll be honest, though. I'd use Wyeasst 3068 and make it into a nice Roggenbier instead.

Or, split the batch and pitch one half with the 3068 and the other with the US-05.
You'll be glad you did.

[Wolfbrau]

Thanks!

Question: Should I do a protein rest at 125 with all that Rye?

[dmtaylor]

No! Death to the protein rest!!

Protein rests will just hurt the body and head retention of the beer. I've done protein rests on hefeweizens before and the result is very thin and crystal clear. Expect the same if you do a protein rest with rye. A little cloudiness isn't unheard of with such beers, depending how much you use. Rye provides an even bigger body and head than wheat, IMO. To get the full effect of what rye can do for your beer, I'd definitely skip the protein rest.

[mookie1010]

Though it's not really "sessionable" here's a recipe I made a while ago. It had great mouthfeel and flavor, pretty hoppy. It should be noted that I screwed up while pouring grain and poured the rye in with the base malt at the LHBS so I sent it through the mill twice to crush up the rye as much as possible without damaging the other grains.

5 Gallon batch
1.063 OG @ 70% efficiency
1.017 FG
13 SRM

% LB OZ Malt or Fermentable
59% 8 0 American Two-row Pale
19% 2 8 Rye Malt
9% 1 4 British Crystal 65L
7% 1 0 American Munich
4% 0 8 Carastan
2% 0 4 Rice Hulls

Mash @153 - single infusion mash - 2 batch sparges raising the bed to 168*F. I don't have notes on the water additions, but you can put it into

60 mins 1.0oz Cascade pellet 7.5
45 mins 0.75oz Centennial pellet 9.3
15 mins 0.75oz Cascade pellet 7.5
1 min 0.5oz Cascade pellet 7.5

Wyeast London ESB Ale (1968)
Starter - Yes

21 days in primary @ 66-68F. I bottled this batch and it really came together after 4 weeks. 4.5oz corn sugar boiled and added to the bottling bucket and it carbed up nicely after a three weeks, tasted really great at one month.