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...

[Tilt]

Brewed this one up on the weekend. 

In the end I'm figuring I'll get a hoppy strong Southern English Brown rather than the "north of the watford gap" variety.  Either way should be tasty.

Mashed at 67, I used a good whack of Brown and Amber malts balanced with some medium crystal and bittered with Styrians to 35IBU.  I also included a small 15min and 2 min addition of Styrians and EKG to  increase the hop presence - the way I like my beers rather than to style I guess.

The 1318 had developed a 1cm krausen today, 12 hours after pitching 180ml of fresh slurry at 18degress.  I'll keep it low for two days and then raise it to 20 over the next three.  The starter dropped from 1045 to 1010 on the stir plate so I'm hoping to get the best  attenuation I can manage in a full ferment.  From what I've read this might mean some rousing and close temp management but will see how it goes.

[David Malpas]

Hi All - I'm planning a brew for this weekend - and wondered if anyone would care to comment on the following recipe I've come up with using hopville - it's either partial mash or extract plus grains (what's the difference?) and I'm looking to make a reasonably hoppy pale ale.

Any advice happily received - this is my third attemp and both attempt 1 and 2 weren't particularly successful for various reasons - hoping to get it right this time!

Batch size: 19.5 liters

malt & fermentables

3kg Black Rock Light liquid malt extract
500g Crystal malt
400g Dextrose

Hops

60 mins 25g Pacific Jade
10 mins 25g New Zealand Cascade
1 min 25g New Zealand Cascade

dry hop 7 days 50g New Zealand Cascade

Boil: 16.0 avg liters for 60 minutes

Yeast

Safale US-05 Dry Yeast

misc

10 min 1g Koppafloc

Original Gravity
1.056 / 13.8° Plato
(1.050 to 1.059)
Final Gravity
1.015 / 3.8° Plato
(1.013 to 1.016)
Color
27° EBC / 14° SRM
(Copper to Red/Lt. Brown)
Mash Efficiency
75%

Bitterness
43.6 IBU / 11 HBU
ƒ: Tinseth
BU:GU
0.77

Alcohol
5.5% ABV / 4% ABW
Calories
174 per 1/3 Liter

[Kelly Milligan]

Hey mate,

This is an extract with grains recipe. A partial mash involves mashing some base grain (e.g. Maris Otter, Golden Promise, American 2-row, Pilsner malt). These need that mash to turn the starches to sugar, where as in your recipe the crystal malt's starches are converted to sugars during the kilning process, so they just need to be steeped :)

Couple of tips for using Hopville:

- Batch size: This is the amount you plan to have in the kettle after the boil. So usually if you're aiming for a 5gal batch you'll aim to have 23L in the kettle, 21L into the fermenter (hop loss, hot/cold break, other trub), ~19L into bottles at the end. If this is what you're shooting for (19L into bottles), try adjusting the batch size up to 23L to account for these losses. This will shift your gravities a bit, so if you want the full 19L into bottles you'll need to add some extra fermentables.

- Boil size: This has a large impact on your hop utilization during the boil. If you're doing a full boil, adjust this up to the average between your post-boil batch size, and your initial boil volume (e.g. if 8L evaporates off during the hour, your boil size could be calculated at 27L). You'll see a huge jump in your IBU calculation after you adjust this figure. Conversely, if you're doing a partial boil then diluting in the fermenter, you'll need to compensate that way too.

Otherwise it's looking pretty nice dude :D

[David Malpas]

Cheers, Kelly.

I had (wrongly) assumed that batch size was in the fermenter.

I only have a 20l kettle - so had intended to add approx 5 litres of pre-boiled water to the wort in the fermenter to the get the volume up to 19.5.

If I did this - what should my batch size be?

Thanks again - you may have just saved me from my 2nd low/no alcohol brew! ;-)

[Kelly Milligan]

No worries mate, it isn't all that clear I know.. But I've used Hopville enough now to have it working really well for me :)

To explain though: its the volume of the total wort you're producing at your calculated gravity. When you have losses through trub/yeast after boil/fermentation the gravity of whatever you're able to collect is still constant, there's just less volume.

In that case I'd still calculate batch size at the total volume you're planning to use (e.g. however much your post boil volume will be plus the extra 5L your going to add). That will factor in your dilution amount to the gravity calcs. The tricky part here will be the IBU calculations, you'll probably need to set the boil size back to the average between your full kettle and the amount you'll have post boil. Of course you can keep adding water during the boil to keep that boil volume up, and get better utilization throughout.

Not sure if I'm making much sense today sorry lol, got Beervana on the brain!

[Tilt]

Great info from Kelly there. 

Good tasting beer depends so much on the process, sometimes more than the recipe

What was the problem with your last batch?  What do you want to fix?

Some ideas to consider:

• I don't use Hopville so can't give any advice on that front but if you're boiling 16 Litres I'd assume you're not boiling all your extract for the full 60min.  Make sure you've got a kilo or so of your extract along with the crystal steepings in the boil to get the best hop utilisation - then add the remainder of the extract either to the fermentor or your boil at the end if your pot's big enough.
• Cool your wort to 18 degrees as quickly as you can
• Very much opinion - is that NZ Cascade can be one dimensional as a single flavour/ aroma hop.  Maybe sub out some of the Cascade for Motueka, Nelson Sauvin or Pacifica to give the beer some more depth.  I'd double the amount for your 1 minute addition too.

 Looking like a good beer though!

 

 

.

[Kelly Milligan]

Agree with all 3 of these points too! cheers Tilt :)

Motueka + NZ Cascade is a totally awesome combo, love it!

[David Malpas]

thanks both! the problem with the first batch was I tried to half the ingredients of a recipe I found on the internet - but part way through forgot to half some of them (most importantly - the water!) - which led to watery beer only good for the drain.

With the second batch, it was during the cold snap earlier in the year and I struggled to keep the temperature high enough - so ended up with something that tasted alright, but wasn't particularly alcoholic or bubbly - I've hopefully resolved this now by building a fermentation chamber with a heat (and cooling) source.

Thanks for the advice RE: hops - I'll try adding some Motueka as well.

[Tilt]

Aah buggar - reminds me of times when I've left the fermentor tap open as I run in the cooled wort....

Good luck with your next crack at it.

[Edmund Barker]

I bottled the hefe from a few pages back last night, tasting good out of the fermenter. Nice banana notes, light and quaffable! I washed some yeast and am thinking of trying this next, any advice?

Ingredients:

• 7 lbs. malt extract syrup (70% wheat malt/ 30% pale)

• 1.5 lbs. Munich pale malt

• 0.5 lb. carapils or dextrin-type malt

• 0.25 oz. Perle hops (7.3% alpha acid) for 60 min.

• 0.75 oz. Hallertauer hops (3.5% alpha acid): 0.5 oz. for 30 min., 0.25 oz. at end of boil

• Wyeast 3068 (Weihenstephan weizen), 1 pt. starter, or White Labs WLP300 (hefeweizen)

• 2/3 cup corn sugar for priming

Step by Step:  

In a nylon bag, steep crushed grains in 5 gal. of 150° F water for 30 min. Sparge grains with enough 170° F water to make 5.5 gal. Heat to boiling and add extract syrup.  Total boil is 60 min. At beginning of boil, add Perle hops and continue for 30 min. Add 0.5 oz. Hallertauer hops and boil for 30 min. more.  At end of boil, add remaining Hallertauer hops and 2kg  of blended frozen raspberries and steep until cooled to extract color and flavor then strain out the fruit as the beer goes into the carboy and pitch starter. Oxygenate/aerate well.  

 

How does it look?

[Tilt]

Looks a good recipe - just not sure about the best way to use the raspberries.  From recent experiences I'd be inclined to save the fruit for up to a week in the secondary to make sure you keep as much of the subtle fresh flavours as you can.

[Edmund Barker]

Thanks Tilt, maybe a moderate approach between the two methods would work. 2 kg at the end of the boil and a kg in the secondary for a week.