Recipe Advice Thread

[denimglen]

Thought it might be handy to have a thread for some of the more advanced brewers to give some advice on recipes.

Let's see how it goes eh...

[JackoNZ]

Hey guys, looking at an English Bitter recipe and thought I'd use up some of my old malts, Special B and Aromatic. Just wondering if I'm going to get a bit too much raisin with these, here's my recipe any thoughts? I'm happy with my hop bill so have left that out:

89.5% Marris Otter

3% Caramunich 2

3% Special B

1.5% Aromatic

1.5% Chocolate

1.5% Roast Barley

Have I got too much going on here do you think?

[Scarrfie]

Yeast can made a difference. To give yo u an idea I get the raisin and plum thing going from caraaroma at 3% with Windsor, but nice and subtle with SO4. At 2%. it is still good. Haven't used special B but I would say it would not be as strong for those flavours as Caraaroma. I use 2% choc in my favorite ESB. 

Grist looks tasty anyway and you wouldn't be too far away from mine.

[JackoNZ]

I've got some 1968 lined up for this

[Mark]

I quite like 100g or so of dark crystal (maybe sub in Special B) in a bitter, it gives a slight dark fruit character to an ordinary bitter, although I would usually throw in 250g or so of a more caramel tasting crystal. What you've got here is not really a bitter at all, more like a hybrid dark ale, quite different in character to an English beer, at least as far as the crystal malt goes. I find German crystal malts to be quite different to English ones, more pronounced and raisiny, but nice none the less.

[JackoNZ]

Thanks guys, yeah the malts were originally for a Belgian Dubbel but thought the leftovers  might transfer well to a Bitter with the biscuit and dark crystal like flavours. I was really after a traditional style so perhaps I should stick with just the base and caramunich or base and Special B for this one.

[Scarrfie]

I am still learning to Jacko, so useful comments there for me also Mark. I am not such a fan of too much sweetness so don't go too heavy on the crystal malts. Jacko if you dropped the caramunich 2 and changed the roast barley for 2% brown malt you would be pretty close to my ESB. I don't think the caramunich will hurt though. Although I wonder as Mark does if it is a little on the dark side for the style, but damn it tastes good so I keep making it :-) I ran our of my dry roasted malt once and subbed carared and that still worked for the recipe. 

[JackoNZ]

That's the way mate, if it tastes good then keep brewing it! I wonder if I should just scrap that recipe and go with this instead http://www.forum.realbeer.co.nz/group/nzcaseswap/forum/topics/cs5-o... I remember that being a fine beer! 

[Scarrfie]

Brew them both :-)

[Edmund Barker]

Hi Scarrfie, I'm really interested in home roasting. My goal is to prepare as many of the ingredients as possible from home. I've got some hop rhizomes in the ground and have harvested yeast from a couple of brews (way easier than I thought it'd be).

What malt do you buy for toasting? Do you use any guide for the process? Thanks heaps :)

[Scarrfie]

I just use any pale malt but have even used Kolsch, but I can't say I have done enough to say if the base malt affects the flavour much. I started off using the guide by John Palmer and do the 1 hour dry and 2 hour wet. For both of these the colour darkens a lot in the last 15-20 minutes or so. I normally just drain the wet grain and then put it straight into a preheated oven. If you want the malt sweeter and closer to crystal, soak for longer, but the one lot I soaked overnight didn't go so well and I would recommend a lower temperature to dry the grain before ramping it up to toast it. Other guides like this use that technique.

With wet toasting you are pretty much mashing in the husk and I think you have to pay attention to the amount of time it will spend at that mash temperature.

I reckon soaking for two hours in water and then toasting at 175°C for an hour would give you something like Carared, but that is only theory :-)

Find some paper bags to let the toasted malt sit in and breath for a few weeks, it does help. It is good fun and makes the house smell great.

Edit: The wet toasts should be able to be steeped, but the dry roasts will need mashed. 

[Scarrfie]

Edit2: I use standard enamel oven trays and do two with a kilo of grain in each. It does require regular turning though, around every 10 minutes and perhaps 5 minutes in the final stages. Less malt would mean less turning. 500-750g might be better the first time just to see how it goes.

[Edmund Barker]

That's awesome information thanks Scarrfie :) I'm planning on moving to BIAB in the next few weeks. I prioritised a temperature control cabinet over a bigger pot. People have suggested quite strongly that temperature control and good sanitisation will have the biggest impacts on beer outcomes and consistency.