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...

[jt]

I've been wavering over brewing a stout for awhile now. I used to love a Dry stout, been a bit taken with a Cascade stout lately.
I haven't brewed one for a long time. The last one was an extract and grains partial with 20% flaked barley and 10% roast and I wasn't overly pleased with it. So I just shelved stouts as far as brewing went.

I've got to admit I've been thinking about Karl's Murphy's recipe at allgrain.co.nz.

Anyone brewed it, any opinion, hints, suggestions or good recipe pointers on any stout?

Cheers, jt

[Mark]

Just brewed a stout with a combo of roast barely (from memory about 400g) and pale chocolate (~150g), MO and bittered with SA (was also going to add oats, but I forgot to put it in :S). I wanted a stout that was pretty sessionable and not over-the-top roasty, and this one does the trick nicely. The pale choc brings something a bit different to the party, I think it's a nice combo. Beer's drinking well at any rate.

[jt]

Thanks Mark

I think I need a fair bit of roast in there, but reckon something like the pale chocolate is going to add more character than just the roast 'bite'

Did you just do the bittering addition ?

[Mark]

Yup, just the bittering, I think about 30IBUs. Didn't really fancy the taste of conventional chocolate malt for some reason, so I gave pale a go and it seems to have worked very well. I used WLP005 for the yeast strain which is pretty malty and soft. The whole thing's very drinkable, certainly not an 'extreme' stout.

[jt]

Agreed that the pale chocolate is good. Tried a dark IPA from Matthew in Tawa recently that had a high % in it and it was really nice.

Currently thinking W1275 - which I have, otherwise it'll be whatever I get next up, possibly Brit Ale II

cheers

[Mark]

Nice, those yeasts should work well. Mine was BIAB also, which seems to produce very malty beers.

[Scarrfie]

I put this one down last week http://hopville.com/recipe/1699044 , haven't even given it a name yet so open to suggestions :-) How could you forget the oatmeal Mark.Lol. Just a bunch of old hops in their to clean them out of the freezer but I may have overdone the IBU. Will be interesting to see how K-97 goes for a stout, is supposed to be similar to US05 and I had the yeast cake on hand. 

I did a nice Schwartzbier with some pale choc so agree with the sentiments on that. On previous stouts I have found a 2:3 ratio of roast to choc works well. Blew my only dry stout in hindsight with the gusher bug drying it out totally. Next time I do a dry I will add a bit of choc in and perhaps sour it.

[Robert McLeod]

Hmm .. maybe 'The 45th Parallel' for a name, its pretty (45IBU) heavily hopped so basing the name on the IBU could be good ... plus it makes a bit of sense (?) as they're all NZ hops ... dunno ... maybe its the Aro Noir and pernicious weed or two i've just imbibed ...

[Scarrfie]

LMAO, I like it. I think it really suits because the age of the hops means that the AA content is a bit uncertain. Sort of like the war that apparently still exists but is also a bit uncertain at the 45th parallel. 45th parallel it is, nicely done. 

[Tilt]

My thoughts are along the same lines at the moment JT.

For an easy quaffer I'm a fan of the more complex and lightly roasted stout from AHB - "Four shades of Stout".  I also tried the "3 shades" recipe last winter and found the 1kg of Brown malt brought too much sucking on woodchips astringency.

My take on 4 Shades with your favourite hop of the moment and a nice fruity lower attenuating English yeast

80% Pale

5% Flaked barley or rolled oats

4% Amber

4% Carafa Special II

4% Choc or Pale Choc

4% Roast Barley

20 IBU @ 60m

20 IBU @ 20m

[jt]

I used to love a bit of Amber

But I tried some in a porter a while back and wasn't so happy with it - changing tastes I guess

Thought I might go a little dark crystal instead

[Tilt]

Good idea.  I'm quite pleased with a recent porter that had a touch of Dark crystal.  Hints of bitter/burnt toffee raisins, (the type that stick in your teeth in your toasted muesli) sit well with the mocha choc to me.  Crystals aren't trad in a dry stout but you might be wandering into FES territory...