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...

[Liam Callaghan]

Awesome thanks guys!

Billy will be stoked!

[Scarrfie]

If you get stuck on the rye then one then I tried that gave a spicy finish was using raw wheat berries that I had toasted. You don't need many and it didn't do it for me :-)

[Bryan Livingston]

We stock rye, cararye and chocolate rye at Brewers Coop.

[Peter Smith]

I am just starting all grain,   I dont have a wort chillor, does this change the hop schedule in any way , ie should i add more later ?   does the conversion stop quickly as the wort drops from boiling or as i have no wort chiller will the hops keep bittering for some time?  even late additions??

thanks Peter

[Chris P]

From my own experiences it did tend to make it a bit of a bitter mess in terms of the hops.

Maybe you could get a (food grade) 20 litre (they usually hold 23 odd litres) Jerry can and do what is called "no chill". There are a few articles on this, especially from the aussies who struggle to get wort temp down and so they throw the jerry in the pool or on the cold concrete floor of the shed and either pitch the yeast into the jerry the next day or transfer to bucket and ferment the next day when the wort is a better temp.

 

Just an idea

[Dougal]

You can also just chill it in the bathtub. Throw in some ice if you have some. Isomerisation of hop alpha acids is most pronounced at hot temperatures, so getting it under 70ishC quickly should avoid the need to change your hop additions around. Faster chilling will preserve more delicate hop aromatics in the finished beer though.  

[Peter Smith]

need to buy a chiller and a fridege temp controller..... then goes another 2 hundy

then the grain mill....  do u use refractometer for og?

[Des Ross]

IMO a wort chiller is really important...fermentation temp control is also important but I brewed excellent beers by getting the temperature down to at least 17-18 degrees C as quickly as possible, pitch yeast and place fermenter in the coolest part of your house to ferment. Wrap in an old sleeping bag or duvet with some plastic sheeting on top to protect from possible leakage from airlock. Have a look at this cooler on trademe
http://www.trademe.co.nz/home-living/food-beverage/other-beverages/...

[Peter Smith]

saw that one, i would rather use the in kettle ones, I think easier to clean and also will sanitise in the boil if i add at 10min   there is a guy out west akl that does good units at 110 nzd  http://www.trademe.co.nz/home-living/food-beverage/other-beverages/...

I have a fridge just need the temp controller, the more i read the more i understand about matching the temp profile of fermentation to the yeast etc,   I also want to have a crack at a larger over winter....

[Dougal]

Refractometers are most useful if you fly sparge to know when to stop sparging. If you're doing BIAB or batch sparging, then an ordinary hydrometer will suffice. Just cool your sample to around 20C.

[Peter Smith]

I really need to take a few photos but basically I have a pot inside a pot,  inner pot bottom drilled out,  the guy I got this off then used a pulley system to lift it out and did a "watering can" sparge.

its a pretty big setup can easily do a 50L run as the main pot is around 70-80L   

the main pot has 2 elements at the bottom,   each needs to be on a 10A breaker so I assume they ar 2k each, guy said use 2 to get to boil, one to keep it rolling.

there is not much info on the watercan method on the web....   I guess its just a slow flow batch sparge with the entire batch at once??

[Dave W]

Yeah a slow cool will def change the late addition hopping's flavour/aroma/bittering balance.

I'd add the late addition hops even latter.