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...

[Matthew]

Excellent tips lads. Cheers! Really looking forward to this one.

[Reviled]

After re-reading a book on smoked beers and the history of them, it got me thinking I want to brew a historical porter and age it untill the depths of winter, might even look at brewing just before I go overseas for 3 weeks to give it a long fermentation period and a bit of conditioning...

Heres what im thinking so far - keen for any thoughts or feedback :o)

50% Weyermann Rauch malt
40% Brown - I may even go one further and smoke the brown malt for more authenticity
5% Medium Crystal
3% Dark Crystal
2% Black Patent

44 IBU's at 75 mins from a shitload of EKG
6 IBU's at 15 mins from 20gms of EKG

Shooting for around 1063 and 50 IBU's

[JoKing]

My only comment would be not to waste the EKG in your bittering addition! I'm sick and tired of using low alpha hops to bitter my beers with. Get some Challenger in there - at least it's about 8 - 10% alpha on a good day.

[David McKenzie]

Hi guys I want to brew a 10L batch of APA using extract and steeping some crystal. I've got some Bairds pale crystal (90EBC) and some caramunich II. Any suggestions on the grains to use? Here's what i've got so far....

Batch size 10L
OG1.052
FG1.013
IBU 40ish
60min boil (13L pre-boil)

Ingredients:
1.8kg M&F Light LME
??crystal or caramunich??
15g Northern Brewer (8.5%) @ 60min
11g NZ Cascade (7.2%) @ 10min
22g NZ Cascade (7.2%) @ 0min
Half packet US05 @ 19C

[denimglen]

Either or will be fine, Caramunich II is a bit darker in the 60srm range than the Baird's at about 45srm.

Depending how much caramel flavour you're after you could use up to about 200g.

[Karle]

IPA

I'll try to make this IPA on the weekend. What do people think? It would be good to get some feedback from the IPA lovers out there as I haven't made one before.

22 litre batch

Malt:

5.5 kg Vienna
0.5 kg Munich
0.5kg Melanoidin
0.3 kg Wheat DME (got some lying around)

Single infusion mash at 68*C for 60-70mins, mash-out for 10-15 minutes @ 75*C

Scottish reduction 5 litres to about 1 pint (also a first for me)

90 min boil

Hops: (Rakau - 11.5%AA, Amarillo 8.6% AA) - thought that would be a good combination according to descriptions found on the web (Amarillo - 'stone fruit like character, Rakau - tropical fruit)

60 min 10 g Rakau (17 IBU), 10g Amarillo (13 IBU)
20 min 10g Rakau (10 IBU), 10g Amarillo (7 IBU)
10 min 10 g Rakau (5 IBU), 10g Amarillo (4 IBU)
5 min 10 g Rakau (3 IBU), 10g Amarillo (2 IBU)
0 min 20g Rakau, 20g Amarillo
Dry for 5 days 30g Rakau, 30g Amarillo

Yeast: Wyeast 1272 American Ale II
Ferment @ 18*C

[denimglen]

That'll end up more like an imperial red (malt flavour wise, dunno about the colour), it will be waaaaaaaaaaaaay to malty to call an IPA if you care about style guidelines.

I'd drop the mash temp to about 66 - 67 if you're using 1272 or it will finish too sweet.

Hops should be all good, I'm a bit weary of rakau at the moment, but you can be our guinea pig ;-) I've only used it once and I think it was dominated by all the motueka and sauvin.

[Karle]

Thanks for the feedback. Right, Imperial Red it is. Sounds good to me. Mmmm... malty! I hope it won't end up being too much everything (malts & hops) though... I've stuck strictly to guidlines for my first about 10 all grain batches, now I'd like to try something a bit different.

I'll drop the mash temp to make it finish a bit drier though.

I tried a Renaissance MPA a while back and really liked it. That's made with just Rakau, isn't it? I'l let you know how the flavour comes out, but considering that I'm using Amarillo for the first time as well it might be a bit hard to distinguish.

[denimglen]

MPA is just Rakau, but you wouldn't know there were any hops in it from the bottle I had.

That will be one malty sunuvabitch, but if you're keen go hard. What is your OG and IBU? I'd be looking at about 1.065ish and 75ish IBU if I was brewing that. You'd want a bit of bitterness to sort all that malt out.

[Christian]

I loved the MPA I tried - Rakau is great - reminds me of juicy fruit chewing gum. I did a half-batch imperial IPA a few months ago using 100gm each of Rakau, Southern Cross and NZ Cascade - best beer I've brewed.

[jt]

I haven't tried rakau yet

If I bought some should I:
a) smash it
b) replicate my fav blande or pale recipe with it, or
c) ask for suggestions ?

[denimglen]

Ooooh option c could be like infinite loop :-P

SMaSH it - but I haven't had much luck with these beers.

Replicate - got a solid recipe, go hard I reckon!