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...

[Dougal]

Thanks! That'd be great- can swap you something too. And +1 on using the pitching calculator. I found I was getting unpredictable attenuation rates from pitching slurry till I started using it.

[jt]

I use  http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html  and find it really good

[Paul Fraser]

Heard a bit about Mr Malty but never used it - will give it a go. Also i was going to mash the base malt with the oats but was going to do a hot steep with the dark grains and add the resulting water to the fermenter. I may not, but, IF i was going to adjust water chemistry how would i go about this? Just adjust water for mash or water for mash and steep??

[jt]

You'd need to add the liquor the steeped grains to the boil, not the fermenter, needs to be boiled.

[Steve Manning]

Hi -  I have only made about 8 all grain brews so I am new to this. I have been making Pale Ales  - trying to get that real hoppy taste like the Hopwired IPA. I realise now I think by reading everyones comments and listening to a local friend here in Napier that I have probably been over powering the hops by using too much Crystal (about 15% of the grain bill). I have also discovered that not everyone likes really hoppy beer! I was also intrigued by an off the wood brewed by Howard at Independant Brewery - a Dark and Hoppy beer - something that I imagined didnt exist until I tried his one. I have put the following recipe together - a combination of some found in my books and on the net. Can anyone give me any comments about how it might turn out before I invest 5 hours of labour in making it? I am calling it  "Hoppy Darky"

Hoppy Darky

4.5kg NZ Pilsen
150g Crystal
150g Roasted Barley

60 : 20g Green Bullet
15 : 20g Sauvin
FO : 30g Cascade, 30g Southern Cross
Dry hop: 20 Motueka + 20g Cascade

Yeast S05

I will mash with about 20 litres @ 67 - 69 C, sparge at 76 C ish to collect about 36 Litres. Boil for about 90 mins. I expect to have about 28 litres to ferment. I will collect about 1/2 litre of wort (before the boil) to use for secondary fermentation. I will store this in the freezer and add it directly to the fermenter just before I bottle it, instead of using sugar in each bottle. I have been using the wort freezing method instead of adding sugar for the last 5 or so brews - it seems to work fine I get well carbonated bottles. I use the old 750ml bottles.

[Grant R Baker]

I like you wort freezing idea, but why before the boil? Won't sulfur etc still be in the frozen wort?

That's a lot of hops... but I'm not the best to judge. I like Bitters but not the over hopped IPAs.

All the FO and Dry hops are not going to impart any bitterness tho & very little flavour, mostly aroma.. they need to be boiled to extract the Alpha Acid for bitterness and flavour.


Mash temps etc look good for a dark ale... I would consider an English yeast for that beer tho.

Your comment on not too much crystal is valid... most good beers have a good balance of all (okay some are over the top and great too) base/cara/crystal/choc/black malts & hops. There are so many Cara malts to play with, CaraHell being a favorite of mine in light to amber beers, CaraMunich too.

 And the base malt can make a huge difference. One Dark Ale I make I accidential ordered Maris Otter instead of Pale Ale.. big mistake.. beer was boring, caramels were understated and the hops seems washed out.

 

I recommend that you start looking at smaller test brews. BrewSmith & BrewMate will calculate your 28litre brew down to a 4-5litre brew that you can make in a small BIAB on the kitchen stove, ferment in a pail or small caboy, makes up about 4-5 bottle and you will know if yo have a winner without having to drink 28litres of something your not happy with.

I often do this when toying with a new brew idea and may have 2 to 4 variants brewing at once. Then the wife helps me decide the winners (we don't often agree tho).

 

Have fun.

[Steve Manning]

I got the idea about taking the runnings before the boil from a German backpacker who stayed in Napier for a month or so. He had just finished a brewing degree in Germany and is a keen home brewer. I asked him your question and he said that it is better to take it before the boil because there is more sugar. I did a brew on Sat and I tested for sugar using my Refractometer and it was 13%. I didn't follow this recipe but I did cut way back on my uses of crystal malt to see the effects.

Thanks for the suggestion of caramalts I will get some in my next order. I will try the small brew idea too - I am not sure that my wife will put up with a very smelly kitchen though LOL. Thanks for your comments , much appreciated.

[Kelly Milligan]

Hey Steve :)

That looks pretty solid mate, a couple things to think about:

- Just using roasted barley will give you a nice dark colour and a bit of roast, but it's kinda that Black IPA mentality, where its Black, but it's not really full enough to be a dark beer like a porter. 

- At 150g crystal your'e only looking at ~3.1% crystal. You are mashing quite high which is good, but I'd be tempted to up that to more like 7-8% given the dark brew you're composing here.

- Brewing 28L is cool, it's nice to have extra volume there to drink, but I've personally found that sticking to your standard 23L wort > 21L into fermenter > 19L into bottles mentality very very beneficial to my consistency and recipe formulation. This is the size standard used by a bunch of resources including How to Brew, Can You Brew It (http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/The-Jamil-Show Check out this resource.. I F'ing love it!) etc. Once you start dialing in recipes to the point where you want to re-brew them is when you probably start looking at doing 45L batches too, and getting the new kit that comes with it. 

 

Hopping looks great, should give you a nice amount of aroma, but it won't quite be to Black IPA sort of levels ;)

 

Happy days mate, own this hobby, it rocks!

[Steve Manning]

thanks for your comments - I really appreciate them

[Steve Manning]

Hi - I spent an interesting couple of hours listening to the guys on the Jamil show - a great resource. I am trying to figure out how to get a couple of the shows onto CD so that I can listen to them in the car. I have already been looking at a 45 L system - maybe a Sabco Brew-Magic V350MS. 5 hours work for 30 bottles is a big time investment but 8000 dollars for a brew system is too. Your thoughts. Home tel is 06 8358458 if it is easier to call that type.

[Kelly Milligan]

No worries mate, 

Typing is good for me, makes it less suspicious that I'm reading brewing forums when I'm supposed to be doing design work ;P 

I personally use iTunes, they publish all of The Brewing Network's podcasts up on ITunes (they shuffle them a bit but eventually you'll see everything). Theres at least 300 hours of content up there at any 1 time. I then chuck them on my phone/ipod/computer and listen to them that way. 

If you don't have itunes, go ahead and download the MP3 files by going to one on the site, then as it starts playing ctrl + s and it should give you an MP3 download. If you're car's CD player supports MP3's you could cram probably 30-40 shows onto 1 disc, otherwise you'll need to do the audio disc thing which only allows 70mins per CD.. (man CD's are getting old now!)

If I was looking at a really nice system I'd probably go for the Farra 50SSB. It's about 1/2 the price of the V350MS but uses gravity feed and doesn't have the electronics. I love the manual process part of brewing though :)

[Gareth]

You can also use iTunes to burn them to CD. Drag a selection of podcasts (say, 70 minutes worth) to the sidebar to create a playlist, then right or command click the playlist and select 'Burn playlist to disc'.