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...

[Stu McKinlay]

I would think that the gip that S05 gets for hazy beers is, more often than not, actually from a process issue on the brew day.

Whenever my beer is hazy, I will have almost certainly known they will be so before fermentation even begins. Generally from a rushed lauter.

it's really impossible to tell 100% where the haze comes from but here are some ideas:
* water (wrong makeup, e.g. too high pH)
* malts (undermodified)
* process (missed conversion, too much sparging or too high a temperature, not enough vorlauf/recirc, too fast a run-off, too much cold break - although I'm not sure on that theory)
* fermentation (wild yeast / infection)

The first place that is easy to discount is the process side... is your run off crystal clear? A few "floaters" of grain here and there are ok in my book but a really hazy wort is not a good start...

If three weeks of cond conditioning hasn't got your beer pretty clear, then the issue isn't likely to be with the yeast.

[Mike Neilson]

I dont think Ning lets us post a theasus on Turbity in beer does it? Its to complex to even contemplate. if it was that easy to get clear beer than why do they make beer filration systems and or wine.

90% of its Malt, 8% Practice and the rest is the rest

Simply put my thoughts are on US05 is that it is so viable and they give you a massive pitch of the yeast that it all most becomes a super yeast once it finshed eating the fermentable sugars it hangs around like a purana waiting for more food. If you have more goodness in the malt (ie F.A.N)( or worse to much 02 Souble Protein, Beta Glucan Polyphenol etc) than the yeast needed to start a healthy fermentation, than it could want to feed of it once its finished attenuating your beer amking it hang around longer, or...... As above and there to much fan again and other microbes have introduced them selves to the turbity of the beer?
What happens when you add Dry hops? or add heavy oiled flavour contributers to your beer?
Again long boring topic and much a demise to the brewers!! I make clear beer but not to the degree of a hard filtered Heinieken (how ever you spell it) does

[jt]

Well if I want a clear beverage I reach for a can of lemonade .. I am well over clarity in beer

[Mike Neilson]

Or Brewing Liquor!!

[Justin M]

Cheers Stu. I should have mentioned that i recently moved to auckland so the water will be completely different to the Welly water. Also, i have commissioned an immersion chiller rather then the counter flow that I was using, so that would had some effect as well.

The next step (more time saving then anything) is to get a perostaltic pump put together to aid with the vorlauf and also speed uo chilling (a pseudo whirlpool chiller).

I'll keep up with the US05 and see where we get to...

[Stu McKinlay]

the next question is what do you mean by Golden Ale?

Here's some examples (3 BJCP ones and then 1 World Beer Cup one):
Blond... http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/style06.php#1b
Kolsch... http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/style06.php#1c
English "Summer/Golden" Ale... http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/style08.php
Golden or Blonde Ale... 79 @ http://www.worldbeercup.org/beer_styles3.html


I find that most homebrewers would be tending towards the the last one but with the hop characteristics medium to high (instead of low to medium). For that I'd use S05. If you're at the low end of the ABV, and looking for a subtler beer than a "Pale Ale", then I'd probably go with S04 but try to keep the ferment temperature pretty low. I know Barry Hannah can pull off some lovely balanced beers, with great hop character, using S04 so it is a matter of using it the right way.

[MrC]

Good point about what is a Golden Ale or even Summer Ale for that matter, especially when using a clean yeast and NZ hops.

I had a style dilemma with a beer that I entered in the NHC this year that I think pretty much falls into the category of Summer Ale. I think the World Beer Cup style is the closest style for the beer I brewed but that didn't help me for the NHC. I decided to enter it in the Speciality Beer category in the end, hopefully I didn't get it wrong. It was NZ hops all the way so I specified that it was a small NZ Pale Ale as I think the current SOBA NZ Pale Ale category leans more toward an IPA style beer, especially when you look at the commercial examples listed.

I'd go for US-05 in a Golden Ale too. As Stu mentions, Barry seems to get great results with S-04 in these type of beers but it seems to be a "black art". Maybe no-chilling helps? ...or maybe its just a Barry thing :-)

I still reckon US-05 is the culprit for the occasional cloudy beer of mine but 4 weeks cold conditioning or gelatine fining seems to fix it. I'd stick with US-05.

I can't comment on the Carahell as I have never used it. I do, however, quite often use carapils in my smaller beers that don't have a lot of specialty malts to give it some body that may otherwise be lacking. Carahell would likely do the a similar job.

[vdog]

Personally I'd steer clear of s-04 for a beer like this just because it has a tendency to strip away the hops.

What I've found works well with us-05 is to give it a couple of days at 1deg before bottling/kegging, and if you really care about it being crystal clear fine it either before you do that or as it goes into the bottles/kegs. That fuggles/cascade pale of mine that you tried was done exactly like that and it's come out clear as.

Can't comment on carahell as I've never used it either sorry.

[JackoNZ]

Yeah you don't want S-04 in a golden ale, like vdog said you'll have no hop aroma at all. I find S-05 cleans up much better than S-04 also. Fine with Gelatine and some conditioning in the fridge and S-05 cleans up real nice.

[Adam Tristram]

How do you do the Gelatine - and where do you purchase? Is this better than islinglass??

[Llew Bardecki]

Just ordinary gelatine from the supermarket.

Boil a small amount of water, leave to cool down for 10-15 mins.
Dissolve a teaspoon or two the gelatine in the water (for a 20L batch.)
Pour into your fermenter (ideally secondary, but I've used it to fine effect even in the primary a few times)
Cool down to 5 degrees or so for a few days. (Not strictly necessary, but it'll work faster if you do.)

I've never used isinglass, but gelatine has worked fabulously for me whenever I've felt the need to use finings.

[Dai]

Do you need a little more priming sugar if using gelatine and bottling?