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...

[Glynn Foster]

Wednesday and already distracted by the company I work for being bought by Oracle, so nothing better than to daydream about brewing.

Thinking of putting down the following, I guess probably close to a Best Bitter, and would be interested in feedback -

Original Gravity: 1.043
Terminal Gravity: 1.011
Color: 12.44
Alcohol: 4.18%
Bitterness: 29.9

Ingredients:
4.2 kg Maris Otter
100g Cara-amber®
20g Chocolate Malt
20g Challenger (8.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
20g Challenger (8.0%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min
10g Challenger (8.0%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
1084 Irish Stout *

* All I have in my cupboard right now - first attempt at yeast washing and re-using from a previous batch

[Greig McGill]

That yeast finishes pretty dry from memory. It might pay to add some crystal, up the cara-amber, or mash slightly hotter to compensate.

[jt]

There were some great reviews of Barry's Ordinary Bitter in the case swap, why not try that ?
He used SO4, which should be relatively easy to get in Welly at short notice.
SO4 does get some bad press, hopwise, but I think he gave his fermentation regime in the What Are You Brewing Thread which should go some way to appeasing the hop ?

[Reviled]

Considering a Bock as im getting some Munich Lager yeast shortly - Ive got a few questions tho before I post my Bock recipe

1st of all - For a 1080 OG apparantly im gonna need a bloody 8.74 litre starter?!?!?! So I was thinking of just doing a low OG 10 litre ale of say 1040ish to build up the yeast - So whats gonna work well for this? Can I ferment it warm or should I ferment cold? Any Ideas, hints, tips or tricks??


Edit : I just worked out that 1 can of extract should give me 1046 at 10 litres - Should I just use this as a starter with no hops and ferment warm then tip it?

[Reviled]

Yeah Doppelbock, may as well make me a winter warmer aye ;o) Ill post the recipe soon, still working on it as we type

Probably gonna have to harvest after the primary's finished, crash it down then dump on the yeast cake.. Even better - was thinking I could just get a shitty kit from the supermarket and use that!

Considering ill be tipping this, do I need to build up a small starter for my 10litre batch? Or does it not matter?

[JoKing]

In what form is the original yeast? If it's a tube, or smackpack it will pay to start it in a pint first, thenpitch at 20... drop to 14 until terminal... CC... dump beer... pitch doppelbock. Should be about a week of mucking around first.

[Reviled]

Yeh smackpack.. Its cool im happy for a bit of mucking round, better than tipping a whole batch due to phenols like my Pilsner..

[JoKing]

If you're super duper clean - you'll be able to do both fermentations in the same fermenter... One question though - how will you get your Doppelbock wort down to 10 degrees before dumping it onto the yeast cake? Would you do this in your kettle (in the freezer)?

[Reviled]

Ill def be doing both ferments in the same fermenter. And youre spot on, no chill overnight in the kettle, then put the kettle in my chest freezer with a fresh whack of iodophor on the lid and crash it down to pitching temp.. Prolly better that way than pitching warm and crash cooling to ferment temp..

Im prolly gonna do it in a cube so I can ferment in my fridge (sits between 10-12*)and keep my freezer for my kegs - allthough 10*c serving temp aint bad I guess?

[JoKing]

Sounds like a good process. 10 - 12 is acceptable ferment temp... no hot alcs from that anyway.

[James P]

I've just cultured and frozen and batch of Wyeast 2308, it fits the profile for a Doppelbock nicely.

[Reviled]

Yeast will probably be hammered afterwards aye? So no point re-using? Might save a bit from the 1st ferment..