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...

[Reviled]

Holy sh*t, if JT thnks youre light on hops you most definately are ;o) haha

no offense to JT at all, he makes what looks to be some very quaffable beers

[jt]

None taken, it' s each to their own. Now how much would you add ?

[Nolen Smith]

Yea, I was expecting to get a few "WTFs??". I didn't have my laptop (thus BeerSmith) at home when I threw the recipe together, so really was just going by my limited gut feel. I might try 25 - 30gm of something in the secondary and see what happens. I punched in the recipe to BeerSmith just a while ago and it tells me it is within the style range of an ESB....we'll see.

[James P]

Ok my turn to get the experts time!!

Going for an American PA with US and NZ hops...

4.5kg Pale
.5 Light Crystal
.25 CaraMunich III
25gm Northern Brewer (7.9%) @ 60
25 Riwaka @ 5
25 Riwaka dry hop in cube for a week, then primary for a week, maybe secondary for a week and bottle for case swap.

Yeast will be S05

Comments please (I'm not sure on the crystal / caramunich ratios)

Could I use CaraMunich III and crystal in a porter? Or do I need to use roast and chocolate?

[Reviled]

1st of all, where'd you manage to get US Northern Brewer hops??

2nd of all, my 2 cents, youve got a shit load of crystal in that.. Id probably cut back both crystals to about 200g each, but thats just me :o) Other than that it looks tasty!!

Re Porter, yes you can but I reckon with a bit of roast or choc it will be alot better IMO...

edit : not that im an expert :oP

[James P]

Where'd I get my Hops? NZHops of course! Doreen rocks!

I'm really in need of a guideline as to the percentage of grain bill each grain should be.

[Reviled]

Yum, be keen to know what the US ones are like, citrusy like other US hops? Have you used them yet?

Theres built in guidelines on beersmith for percentages.. But it varys so much and depends on your tastes really.. I normally only stick to 5% for each crystal type..

Weyermann website also has some info on percentages...

[James P]

This will be the first use! I bought them for a CAP but bought 200 grams so will use some now!

[Doublehoppy]

I agree with Reviled, I'd cut back the crystal. I recently did a hybrid PA: 4500gm Maris Otter, 500gm Munich and 300gm Medium Crystal, Heavily (and late) hopped, mainly with US Cascade. Was expecting a big hoppy punch but it's all hiding behind the malt.

Next time I'll cut back to ~ 400gm Munich and 200gm Medium Crystal.

Still pretty tasty thou, just not what I was expecting, and Reviled, I'm bringing a couple of bottles to the brew day tomorrow so I'll be interested in your views

[jt]

Or add chocolate for an AAA or ABA ?

[Reviled]

Shit Brett that looks all good, I reckon 500g is allways a good amount of Munich, ill generally put in a minimum of 500g in all the PA's I do, sometimes up to 1kg!! I recently got half a sack cos I use it in pretty much everything!

Def be keen for a taste of that :o)

[Doublehoppy]

Yeah I think the Munich's OK, it's more the Munich + the Crystal. So maybe I'll keep the Munich at 500gm and reduce the Crystal to 150gm. Decisions, decisions..