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...

[jt]

I can brew as badly with liquid as I can with dried - in fact some of my worst have been with liquid.
Horses for courses and educated handling in both cases
No point in spending $20 (?) on a liquid yeast if you're going to a) use it inappropriately or b) introduce it to all the wrong bugs while you propagate it

[Tony]

yup ;)

[Matthew]

Having a shot at a Belgian next week. This is where I'm at:

I'm doing a small batch to start with (10-12L) as a bit of a tester. First aim is to keep it simple hence just the use of pilsner and a touch of melanoiden more for a background aromatic. I'm making my own candi/inverted sugar to add after a few days of fermentation.
I love the orange and spice in a lot of Belgians so I've gone with Pacifica and I'm using fresh orange zest and freshly ground coriander. I've also chosen T-58 for it's supposed spiciness (haven't used this strain yet) .

Do you think 150gm of melanoiden is too much? I want it to be subtle.
Maybe a little more candi sugar to help dry it out?

2.60 kg Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (3.9 EBC) Grain 86.67 %
0.15 kg Melanoidin (Weyermann) (59.1 EBC) Grain 5.00 %
25.00 gm Pacifica (60 min) Hops 26.1 IBU
15.00 gm Pacifica (15 min) Hops 7.8 IBU
15.00 gm Coriander Seed (Boil 5.0 min)
30.00 gm Orange Peel, Bitter (Boil 10.0 min)
0.25 kg Candi Sugar, Clear (Added after 3/4 days)
1 Pkgs (DCL Yeast #T-58)

66'C mash for an hour
90 min boil
Est Original Gravity: 1.070 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.018
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.81%
Bitterness: 33.9 IBU
Est Color: 12.4 EBC

Dank u!

[Karle]

Looks like an interesting recipe. I have used Pacifica in the Belgians I have made as well and they turned out very well.

One thing that comes to my mind is that it looks like a Saison recipe, but the estimated FG is too high and the yeast isn't a Saison. Thinking about it, the FG might go lower anyway with the simple sugars. It might be a good idea to start with a slightly lower gravity and finish lower, but that's just my personal preference (and I've got summer on my mind).

I wouldn't be too concerned about the Melanoidin, but you could substitute some of it with Munich if you want to keep it more subtle. My feeling, though, is that the spices/hops/yeast flavours will almost cover up the Melanoidin.

Anyway, looks like interesting experiment to me. I will make a Belgian Pale Ale coming weekend, looking forward to it.

PS: If you wanna dry it out some more you can always mash at 64 degrees for 90 mins.

[Matthew]

I wondered about the final gravity too, I thought 1018 was quite high. I was thinking it should be more around the 1012 mark. The lower/longer mash temp sounds like a good option. I do like it a bit drier.

[Matthew]

Right, I think I'm going to lock this in now. I will do the slightly lower mash temp to keep it on the drier side.

I've deliberately kept this recipe simple so that I can easily adjust malt/hop/spice additions later without getting totally confused about went wrong (not anything will you know ;-)

Time to order some malt.

[Nolen Smith]

I decided to play with some of the American hops I've managed to collect recently (thanks Joking) and threw this together with the last of my malt supplies as a test:

0.99 kg Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 27.97 %
2.00 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 56.50 %
0.30 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 8.47 %
0.25 kg Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 7.06 %
8.00 gm Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.20 %] (60 min) Hops 8.5 IBU
10.00 gm Southern Cross [15.90 %] (60 min) Hops 10.7 IBU
8.00 gm Simcoe [13.00 %] (60 min) Hops 7.8 IBU
8.00 gm Simcoe [13.00 %] (10 min) Hops 2.8 IBU
8.00 gm Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.20 %] (10 min) Hops 3.1 IBU
12.00 gm Simcoe [13.00 %] (Dry Hop 7 days)
12.00 gm Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.20 %] (Dry Hop 7 days)

I threw in the CaraPils 'cause I had some laying around.
I minimashed the grain for 60 mins at 68'C, batch sparged and ended up with a 10 liter boil, late addition 15 min boil for the DME. Boiled down to about 8.5 liters and topped up to 19 in the fermentor.

I missed my target gravity of 1.050 by 8 points! Usually I'm almost spot on, and not sure what i did wrong to be so far off. I've used this mini mash set up about 10 times now and this is by far the most I've missed the target.

Fermented with S-05 and got down to 1.011.

Kegged last night. Result? Beautiful aroma and hop flavour and lovely bitterness. Problem is very low on mouthfeel, verging on being watery (with a very dry finish). Could've ended up an awesome beer, but just too thin.

My guess on the thinness is due to missing the gravity. You guys reckon that's a correct assumption? Any ideas on how I could've missed it by so much?

Cheers!

[Reviled]

Oh yeh? Thanks Joking eh? Whered you get those columbus then huh? ;oP bahahaha

Recipe looks nice mate!

[JoKing]

I hooked him up with some of my personal stash :)

[Nolen Smith]

Oh yea! Forgot where the Columbus came from... DOH! Thanks Reviled!

Joking was way too kind and gave up some precious Simcoe... man, that Simcoe...

[JoKing]

I couldn't offer an opinion why you missed your S.G - but I have heard that adding water to boiled wort may cause a watery mouthfeel - but I think it has more to do with how much water you use after the boil.

Perhaps because your sparge was so small, there was still a lot of unextracted goodness in your mash? Could be one of the reasons why you missed your SG.

[Nolen Smith]

I think you're right, must have still had too much left to sparge. I always do a partial mash and have to add water after the boil. My beers are definitely not as big as they should be, but this is way thinner than usual. I *really* need to get myself a bigger brew pot.