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...

[Adam Tristram]

Thanks for this, will check it out.

[Stu McKinlay]

I'd look at something like what vdog suggest below... how about hopping to the same IBU but doing one as a "hopburst" (all in the last 10-15 minutes) and another with standard hopping (e.g. 60, 30, 15, 0)

[Pilgrim]

This was a Porter that I brewed a few months ago:
4.0kg Pale Malt
500g Black Patent Malt
500g Medium Crystal
250g Chocolate Malt
250g Munich
Mashed at 67degC
60g East Kent Goldings @ 60
1Pkt Gervin English Ale yeast
Came out 24litres @ 5.5%ABV Est. 32 IBU
Nice taste but a bit of tobacco taste which I'd like to get rid of for next time.
Any ideas for adjustments to get rid of that? I'm thinking that I should cut back on the Black Patent?

[vdog]

It probably is the black patent doing that - I'd cut about half of it out and replace it with pale chocolate. That'll give you some of the roasty smoky flavour but it'll be backed up by a nice dark chocolate note.

[Pilgrim]

Thanks, I'll give that a try next time.

[denimglen]

"Nice taste but a bit of tobacco taste"

Is that like burnt tobacco or raw tobacco?

I've noticed a get a dark fruit, berry, raisin like thing (not dissimilar to tobacco/unsmoked cigarettes) from chocolate malt. Pale chocolate is still plenty dark and does a better job IMO.

Black malt to me gives a more acrid, ashy, carbony type thing.

[Pilgrim]

Yes this was more of a 'lick the ashtray' thing. Well not quite that bad but more burnt than raw.

[James Lawson]

I'm thinking about a bittersweet burnt-caramel type beer as something different for summer.

Something like:

4kg pils
500g caramalt
150g black malt

Hopped to about 30IBU with NZ cascade late in the boil

Mashed fairly low (65) so the caramel flavours from all that crystal come through, but it's not too sweet or thick.

Fermented at about 17 or 18 with US-05, bottled with plenty of carbonation and served cold.

What do you guys reckon, would this work? Is that enough black malt, or could I bump it up a bit? I haven't used either black malt or caramalt before. Would caramalt give me that caramel sweetness I'm looking for?

[denimglen]

Caramalt gives a lot of sweetness and a little caramel, to boost the caramel flavour use a little light crystal in there, maybe a ratio of 1:3 of light crystal to caramalt.

I'd bump the black up a bit. For 20L, my porter uses 200g choc and 300g black, 290g choc and 390g roast barley in my American Stout. I'd so both are assertively roasty (but not aggressive) for my tastes. I'd say start at about 300g of black and go from there.

I'd also say up your mash temp to at least 66, if not 67. Just I reckon there's nothing worse than a thin and acidic roasty beer.

Which base malt is that? German pils or NZ? You should be fine if it's German, but the NZ stuff will be a little thin I reckon.

[Tony]

good call, Glen

[James Lawson]

"Just I reckon there's nothing worse than a thin and acidic roasty beer."

True that - one of the early kits I made (Coopers Dark Ale + Coopers brew enhancer 2) was like this and it was yuk.

I wasn't sure about the pils malt - I've used NZ pils before and it has come out extremely pale, so I guess I'll give the german a go.

Thanks :)

[MrC]

Dubbel Yeast Advice Required!

I'm planning a Dubbel and have two yeasts on hand, 3787 and 3522. I'm thinking of blending the two 50:50 for a dubbel. Any thoughts?

The reason I thinking of this blend is because I recently tasted my Belgian Blonde (3522) and my Trippel (3787) side my side and found myself liking both but also thinking that a yeast character somewhere in the middle would be even better.