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]

usually commonsense organics in the Hutt

[Matthew]

Making your own munich aye? Cheaky bugger.

I've decided to work off the smash I did a year ago. I used Kolsch for that one so I'll probably look at about 10% carapils to give the pale the merest of boosts. I did consider wheat too but worried I may not have enough of a backbone to stand up to the sauvin.

Hopping will have a minimal early addition because there's going to be a couple of generous late ones from 20 min. IBU/SG is about 1.6 at the moment.

[jt]

Making your own munich aye? Cheaky bugger.

Nah, just a thought, but I thought I'd put it out there to stimulate a bit of thought.
There was also the decotion idea and the idea of boiling down the first few litres of the first run off

gotta think outside the square sometimes - though I am going with the standard of 95% unadulterated malturop and 5% caramalt

[Mark]

I've played around with toasting Malteurop, the results seemed pretty good. I've only used one in a brew so far which is still in primary, but the flavours of the malts range from nutty through very toasty to strong coffee (they were all dry roasted).

[jt]

Hey that's very interesting Mark
To be honest, I wasn't really serious about it, more opening up an idea - and throwing out a red herring out to Matthew and Chris
I had some instructions from the oz.craftbreer.org site - Graeme Sanders - but the site seems to have gone awol
When there wasn't such a good supply and variety of malts around, I did consider it. But knowing my ability to f*** things up quite easily, thought better of it
Did you use your malt fresh or let it rest or mellow ?

[Chris Banks]

Theres no way im putting red herrings in it ! ;-)

[jt]

you're right - style guide doesn't allow it

But you could server herrings on toast to accompany it ?

[Mark]

Let it mellow, it made a lot of difference to the flavour. Initially I thought the darkest attempt would be unusable as it was very harsh, but it tastes much better now, very reminiscent of instant coffee (not sure if that's a good thing!). I basically dumped a tray full in the oven at about 150C and pulled portions off every now and then. Apparently wet roasting induces more melanoidens aka munich, aromatic, melanoiden etc

I haven't used much of it yet, but have plans to do so, will keep you posted!

It stinks the house out too. I roasted until the complaints got too much!

[jt]

I think the Kolsch had more guts than the malturop though ?

I've been looking at recent beers and notes and I'm wavering on the 5% cara, I think I'll use pale crystal and up it to more like 7.5% - maybe not so golden but as we didn't specify a colour range ...

[jt]

OK, nearly sorted for Sunday - pale crystal is the additional malt of choice
I'm taking a punt with the hops here though.
Just rejiggered the first late hopped ale ratios
1.042 25 litre boil and the shonky excel file calculates 28IBU
5g @ 60
7g @ 20
7g @ 15
11g @10
11g @5
14g @ 0

But what do you reckon for a mash temp ?

[Chris Banks]

66c?
The reason I say that is my Sauvin/Casacde pils has cleared and crisped up and is tasting awesome if I may say so!
And in my opinion the Sauvin works really well with the crispness.

Im sticking with my maltbill of Malteurop and Carapils - and thinking I will ferment mine low and slow with the SO5 with a little d-rest near the end perhaps

[jt]

And how's the Schwartz conditioned up Chris ?

I'm at the lower end of the gravity range - but I think I have about the same balance as Matthew from what he said. Where's yours ?

Not sure if I'll go with the little pink sachet of '05 or a repitch from the current batch

Luckily I don't have the consideration of temperature control, ambient all the way and one less thing to work out !