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...

[Josh C]

Thanks Scarfie. I will order the ingredients on Monday for brewing next Saturday now that I have it sorted. One change is that I will probably use NZ mild ale malt as brewshop is out of Marris Otter. I am also considering adding a small amount of brown malt (say 4%),maybe instead of some of the Munich.

[Scarrfie]

If you are using NZ malt then I would go with the Munich, perhaps even up it. Or you could keep the Munich and add the brown malt in. Check my recipe out here. The brown and special b are just what I use for my home toasted malts, which are wet and dry toasted. It is one of my better beers as you will see in the notes. Downside is I only have two bottles left.

[Josh C]

On further thought I might just leave out the brown and go with what I had. Is there a better sub for Marris Otter?

[Scarrfie]

Not sure, but there is info on these forums about NZ malt and the general consensus is that it is okay but requires more specialties. Malteurope do a Munich now so perhaps you could use that as your base. I reckon go with your posted recipe except up the Munich a bit, or you could use Munich II to give it that little extra punch.

[Josh C]

What about golden promise as base malt for the recipe I posted?

[Scarrfie]

Yes that would work well. If you like it then you can brew at a later date with MO to compare. 

[Hamish Jones]

Doing a couple of brews today and was thinking of a wheat and chucking 1kg of frozen strawberry's into the mash, am I better to mash them or add them to the fermenter, what's the thought process on getting a better result with fruit?

[Scarrfie]

Visit page 242 and you will see a discussion near the bottom regarding Guava beer that extends to the next page :-)

[Hamish Jones]

mint best I get reading as I am about 5 minutes away from mashing in

[Karl Hayes]

Evening Folks.

I'm going to brew a "Shits and Giggles" Stout tonight.

The grain bill is a simple stout recipe up to a point:

• 3.45KG Gladfields Ale Malt
• 300g Gladfields Chocolate Malt
• 240g Roast Barley
• 130g Gladfields Medium Crystal
• 275g table sugar
• 150g toasted oatmeal

and for shits and giggles

• 100g of pale ale malt that's been caramelised in a popcorn popper
• 450g of un-milled malted rye.

I've no idea what the last two ingredients will add to the recipe, if anything. Anyone able to help here?

For hops, maybe just 15g each of Magnum (60 mins) and Goldings (15 mins) and pitch with 1084 Irish Ale yeast.

[Scarrfie]

Anyone have any advice on a cider like flavour coming through in a beer. I have read that it can be lagered out, but will this happen in the bottle? Will it happen at all?

This fault is apparently caused by adding sugar, which I did to try and drop the gravity. With a subsequent batch I have the yeast a good stir and it dropped the gravity 10 points in two days!

[Mark]

Sometimes it's caused by acetaldehyde which will (hopefully) condition out. I've had problems with this but it seems to disappear after a few days on the yeast cake at room temp. Not sure about in the bottle though, you might find as everything settles out the problem goes away.