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...

[Reviled]

See where youre coming from Vdog, but, making a starter is excessively easy compared to make AG wort, so youve really got nothing to worry about!!

Make like 5litre of wort, pitch yeast into it, let it ferment out on stirplate, decant off liquid, pitch yeast... Easy! In fact, if I were you, id probably just brew up 20litres and use that to build up your yeast for the 75litre batch (dont tell your bro and keep it to yourself hehe)

The beer will be soooooooo much better for it in the end mate! Trust me, you can do this!

[jt]

Anyone else experienced brewing anxiety like this? How'd you get over it?

I got over it by going back to dried yeast.
It didn't exactly coincide with coming across 9 months worth of free yeast, but close enough
No suspiscions, doubts, worries or sleepless lagtimes

[Reviled]

Yeah but it gets a bit boring after a while with just dried - admittedly there are a few strains that are quite good, but personally for dried, if its not US-05, nottinham, or W34/70 then I wont touch it!

[James P]

Anyone else experienced brewing anxiety like this? How'd you get over it?

I joined the RealBeer support group and ended up swapping my brewing anxiety for a brew porn addicition.....

[Mike Neilson]

Yes this is a bad bad place!~!

[Tony]

Noooo, JT, I was just about to write you a love letter....then you broke my heart (not in a broke back mountain kind of way!). ;)

Vdog, as I said mate, you get, I'll help you out! It's like Rev said easy peasy. Just follow standard sterilisation practices, as per normal. You can't go wrong. I use Sprey malt DME. 10/1 mix water to malt will give you a starter of about 1.040 (perfect). Pitch it, let it activate, then throw the whole lot in with your fabulously made new brew. Watch and listen to the magic for about 4 days, you'll be drinking inside 14.

Come to the dark side....it rocks!

BTW, who heard Ralph '3 boys' Bungard on Radio NZ, today? If you did, I'll rest my case!

[jt]

sigh ... one day ...

[vdog]

Okay, I'm thinking about it... but need to get on and order the yeast quick-smart if it's going to be here for next Thursday night. Been looking on Craftbrewer, and I like the description of Thames Valley II (Wyeast 1882PC) - have any of you used it, and how did you find it?

[Martin Bridges]

I have some spare 1768PC (English Bitter) in my 'yeast bank' (aka the wife's food fridge) which I may be persuaded to part with if it'll help.

[Patrick]

Righto - first IPA

Shooting for 6%ABV

23L Batch
5kg MO
.5KG Munich
.5KG Crystal 60
.5KG Torrified Wheat

20g of each: Nelson Sauvin & NZ Cascade @:
60
15
0

Should be OG 1060
57IBU

What say you??

[vdog]

I'd say drop the sauvin back vs the cascade (say 30g cascade, 10g sauvin) in the late additions, otherwise it'll overwhelm the cascade completely. Which is fine if that's what you're after, but if so you may as well just use the sauvin and drop the cascade altogether.

I like the combo of those two hops (drinking a pseudo-pils at the moment with it, and liking it a lot) - not sure it'd be technically in style, but as long as you like what you're brewing I say forget the style guidelines and go for it!

[Patrick]

Yeah I am not too worried about style guidelines, still learning really. If I reduce the sauvin to 10g and increase the cascade to 30g for the 15 and 0min additions then I end up with ~54IBU.

Are the malts OK or is it too much crystal? I want it to be easy to drink but not too sweet, is 500g of crystal 60 too much?