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...

[Matt Cox]

Thanks guys. This is the first time I've tried adding spices, so am concerned about overdoing it. I might pull back the spice amounts a bit then.

Has anyone tried boiling up a "spice tea" and adding it to the bottling bucket? Just a thought. Then I could sample and adjust before bottling.

Joking, I'm still a novice, but does mash temp affect the body of the beer? I did a standard porter a while back and mashed a bit on the low side, and the beer came out quite thin tasting.

 

[JoKing]

Making a spice tea and adding back is the trick.

 

Mashing high does add body... but the thing with US-05 is that especially with beers less than 1.060, it'll still attenuate around 78 - 80%... unless you use less than a whole packet.

[Andrew]

I would try your spice tea idea, using these spices is like amking a curry. 1 tsp of cinnamon will go miles further than 1 tsp of nutmeg. I'd make up a solution of your spice and add them in different amounts to a known amount of store bought beer similar to what your aiming to produce.

[Matt Cox]

Thanks for the tips guys. I did a wee experiment last night. Using a coffee plunger, I made a tea with the spices, plus a little roasted barley and chocolate malt, cooled it and added to one of my APAs.

It was more to get a feel for how the flavours might work together.

 

The result: Flavours should work well. But as JoKing suggested, it could prob do with some Crystasl in there to add a little sweetness.

[Raffe]

Looking to brew an American Brown for the cooler weather and to use up my last US hops.

OG 1.052 for 21L batch
80% pale
5% dark crystal
5% pale crystal
5% cara-pils
5% pale chocolate

35IBU of Southern Cross at 60min

Then at 15, 5 and 1mins, 7g each of Amarillo, Chinook and Simcoe.
This will take it up to around 52IBU. (I usually aim for at least a 1:1 BU:OG ratio, as my partial boil method seems to dilute the BU's when I add the top-up water)

S05 yeast.
May dry hop with any left over hops, 15-20g or so. 

Any thoughts on the balance of the grain bill and hop additions greatly appreciated.

[Andrew Dixon]

Hi Raffe,

 

I've haven't got any comments on your recipe unfortunately, but I would be interested to hear about your experiences with partial boils.  I make 12L AG batches with a 10L boil with no problems.  But I'm looking at making a low gravity mild soon and I'm considering making a 16L batch with a 10L boil and I'm not sure if this will give me some issues.  Any advice you have would be much appreciated.

 

Andy

[Raffe]

Hey Andrew - I do a 10L boil also, then top up to final volume - essentially diluting to the desired OG. Seems to work well enough, as I am only a extract + steeping grains brewer. I don't boil all of the extract either, partly not to over-caramelize, and partly not to have a high gravity boil that would reduce the hop utilisation.

 

The only advice I would give is to compensate your bittering hops for the dilution made when adding the top-up water. I don't have a formula, and my internet research was varied in its results, but my understanding is adding the top-up water does reduce the IBUs calculated from the boil volume. Just add more hops at the start to compensate. I sort of worked this out by feel over a few batches. 

 

[Andrew Dixon]

Thanks Raffe,

 

I think my brewing software (BrewTarget).  Already takes the boil volume and the topup water into account when calculating IBUs, so I think I sorted as far as that goes.

 

Andy

[Raffe]

Sweet - I think I will download Brewtarget tonight then - I use the web-based Hopville software, and I am not sure how effectively that calcs IBUs with partial boils.

[Andrew]

I use Brewpal for iPhone and it works spot on for my system. I think it really good because its got all the BJCP styles logged into it and you can compare your beer spec -wise to these styles. it does OG, AE, BU, Alc, Colour etc. Bad bit is I don't even have an iPhone, so I knick my good ladies iPod touch on brewdays.

[Andrew Dixon]

BrewTarget seems pretty good, from my limited experience - and it's free.  I'll need to have a bit of a play with it to test if it takes the partial boil into account when it calculated IBUs.

 

Andy

[Reviled]

Personally Raffe i'd ditch the carapils and up the dark and pale crystal instead.

 

Hop combo looks good, but id probably be more inclined to move the 5 min addition into the 15 to make sure youre getting a good smack of flavour out of those delicious hops!! And definately dry hop!! Well, I would anyway ;o)