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...

[Andrew]

I'd go for about 300g's Munich, 200 Crystal maybe cut the Dark choc to about 150 and add 50 Black patent as well. You might need to dilute that as well. Starting at 1060 and then adding another kilo of malt should give you about another 5-7 lites.

   I've never tried them all but I've heard good things about all those hops.I've done cascade/hallertau late on and it was a great combo. I'd use one for bittering and add a little of all of them in the last 10-0 mins for aroma.

  This just gave me an idea though. These pack would be great for hop or yeast trials with out tons of brewing. Just buy the same kit base and use different yeasts or hop combo's. I

[Richard Deeble]

I'd go for debittered carafa malt if you are really wanting to make a black IPA, rather than a hoppy porter. Less roasty or bitter than black or chocolate

[Stu McKinlay]

Debittered carafa is for sissys!!

[John H]

Stu convinced me. I was considering one of them Black IPA's (Dark American /Cascadian ales ) using Carafa but then I came accross one of Stu's posts on the Aussie Homebrew forum - so brewing this tommorrow:

I couldn't get US Cascade from Brewers Coop (sold out)- so had to make do with NZ Cascade instead. Doing a lower gravity version OG 1.058 and 50IBU (to keep same SG:BU ratio) Hope it is a good-un!

 

Quote:

Gidday... here's the recipe for PKB Remix 2010... 6.8% and 60ibu. It's pretty much the same beer as the first homebrew Pot Kettle Black I brewed in late 2007, and then again in early 2008 (without any idea that I'd make it commercially). It was close to a year after I first made it, and well after we'd made the first commercial batch, that I heard of the term Black IPA and the rise of these beers in the US. I liked the term, as a bit of a laugh, but I certainly consider Pot Kettle Black (and this remix) to be a Porter. It's just a bit hoppier than usual.

The standard Pot Kettle Black uses exactly the same crystal, pale and black malts but a little more pale malt, no munich, and 6% melanoidin. It is hpped to a similar OG/IBU ratio with a little Sauvin, a bit of Styrian and a lot of NZ Cascade (7g/L all up). For the styrian addition we've tried pacifica and motueka but neither of these hops work that well with black malts in my opinion. I'm not sure Citra does either (and I wouldn't use too much Sauvin). I'm intending to move the PKB grain bill back a bit closer to this remix recipe below but we'll stick with 6%abv.

PKB Remix 2010 (US Mix)
Malt:
56.3% Pale Malt(2-row)
25.0% Munich II
12.5% Crystal 90
3.7% Pale Chocolate Malt
2.5% Black Patent Malt

Hops:
n.ng/L Nugget 13.0%aa 60 min. (enough to hit 60ibu)
1.6g/L Cascade (US) 5.75%aa 30 min.
1.5g/L Cascade (US) 5.75%aa 15 min.
3.0g/L Cascade (US) 5.75%aa 0 min.
0.5g/L Cascade (US) 5.75%aa Dry hop warm (after krausen)
0.5g/L Cascade (US) 5.75%aa Dry hop warm (after krausen + 4days)

Yeast:
US Ale


Personally, I wouldn't use carafa special or sinamar... it's just a bit of gimmick for people who are interested in making a hoppy dark beer but aren't interested in really thinking. I guess you could produce one IPA and then put food colouring in for the Red IPA and sinamar for your Black IPA... but who really wants that? Hope to try the Feral beer or the Thorny Goat when I'm in Melbourne next month.

Slainte mhath
Stu

[Quinn]

Hey guys

I thought I might ask

I am very new to homebrewing but I want to know how I could get a decent alc volume using beer kits I was thinking maybe using a draught can kit and liquid brewing sugar with one of those cooper enhancers is it to much using both the brewing sugar and the enhancer and if i made a 20 or 21lt brew would it increase my alc volume .

:) any advice would be greatly appreciated.

:)

[denimglen]

To be honest, if you want to sacrifice flavour and quality for alcohol then your idea will work.

 

What percentage are you looking for?

[Quinn]

umm between 5-7% any suggestions where the flavour and body would not be affected .any suggestions on what i should use in my canned kit? may the enhancer and the sugar or just 1 of them?

I am a newbie so am unsure how i would achieve a decent percentage with a good taste

BTW thanks for your reply

[John H]

You could try 2 cans of draught or Aussie Pale Ale and no sugar. With 23L should be about 5.3% if you bottle.

You may find it a bit bitter - depending what you are used to so increasing water to 24-25L will reduce bitterness , flavour and alc.

 

I used to prefer my results when I used all malt kits instead of kits and sugar/ brew enhancers.

 

Some fresh hops will improve your kit results considerably.

 

Good luck

[Matt Cox]

I just brewed a two can Coopers Pale Ale the other week. Mainly to see if it can make a reasonable quaffing beer that doesn't take 4 hours to prepare, and doesn't need extra spend on hops and yeast.

 

It's been in the bottle for 2 weeks now and the main issue is the bitterness. You basically end up with a beer twice as bitter as intended.

A better option would be one Kit plus unhopped malt extract (liquid or dry) to make up your planned OG. And a few hop pellets added to the boil for 5-10 mins to add some hop flavour and aroma.

[James P]

Or with your second can, put it in the four litres water you need to boil for the kit and boil it for 45 minutes. That should "neutralise" the bitterness of the second can.... IIRC.

[warra48]

As far as I am aware, boiling the can doesn't lose any bitterness, although you will drive off any aroma and much of the flavour from the can.

Bests to do as Matt Cox suggested. It will give you a much better balanced and flavoursome beer.

[Quinn]

with the bitterness couldnt you add some honey as it is fully fermentable from what ive heard and a bit of that brewcraft beer sweetener stuff:)