First time brewing with rye

Northern Brewer General
1

I am starting with Denny’s recipe and making a few adjustments.

A couple of questions:

  1. How does rye affect mouthfeel/body? Reason I ask is that Denny’s recipe is fairly high gravity, and still uses nearly 10% crystal (if you include the carapils). So wondering if the rye thins out the body???

  2. I think I’ll keep the Columbus/Mt Hood hop combo. But I’m a big fan of Columbus in later kettle additions and want to know if that would still jive well with the rye. I would like to carry it over beyond the 60 minute addition. Was thinking of 70/30 MtHood/Col at 20, 10 and FO.

  3. I am going to reduce the OG to the 1.062 range. Any recommendations besides just reducing all grains in proportion to get the lower gravity? I think I will go for about 70 IBU to balance out that somewhat lower OG.

Thanks for any suggestions.

2

It’s been a few years since I brewed this recipe, and I had to sub hops also (because I couldn’t get Columbus when I needed it), but everything you are considering should work fine. The IBU/OG ratio seems fine, and I would simply reduce all the grains proportionally to get the OG you want. In fact, that’s what I do with every recipe I brew from someone else so that it reflects my system’s efficiency, boil-off dynamics, etc.

And just so you are aware, rye won’t thin the beer body - the opposite is true. And be prepared for a slow sparge. Rye tends to gum up the works. Some people use a lot of rice hulls to deal with that. I don’t use rice hulls (can’t buy them here), but I will do a mashout if I’m using a lot of rye, and keep the valve choked off to prevent the mash bed from compacting while it drains.