NHC 2014 Medal Winning Recipes

[Crusader-Rob]

Better late than never. The obligatory post of Recipes for those willing to share of their Medal Winning Beers, over the last couple of years, I've found this thread to be very insightful, in the improvement of my beers. 

So post your recipes here, and give some people inspiration. Here's my English Brown Ale - Black Sheep Yorkshire Brown
33/50 - Bronze
I run BIAB No Sparge, which has its efficiency issues, but I'm happy with this one.
4.7kg Maris Otter
0.5kg torrified Wheat
0.35kg Caramunich II
0.29kg Pale Chocolate (Gladfields)
60min Hop - 20gEKG, 25g NZ Fuggles
0 min Hop - 30g EKG
Yeast Wyeast1469 West Yorkshire.
1054-1015

https://nhc.soba.org.nz/brewer/entries/1176/score/share?k=0cb124 Notes are here.

Share away.

[Paul Finney]

Ill go next with my Strawberry Berliner Weisse. The tasting notes are here https://nhc.soba.org.nz/brewer/entries/1318/score/share?k=89add4

This was brewed on my 4.5L system. 

In the mash was 350g of Pils, and 350g of Wheat

Mash for 60-90mins and get about 6L. Put that into a small chilli bin and chuck in 100ml of Pils malt. cover with foil and put a layer of CO2 over it. I had a fish tank heater that I could put in that was set to 35C. Leave at that temp for 3-4 days whilst the lacto on the grain does it work. I left this one for 4 days and the ph was about 3.8 so nicely sour. 

once you are happy with the sourness, put it into your brewpot and boil for 15 mins. I added 2g of challenger for the 15mins. Berliner Weisse's have very little hops as it is a German style and historically, because of the Reinheitsgebot  they had to have hops in it to call it a beer. 

Cool, and ferment out with a Kolsch yeast. 

OG was 1.026

FG was 1.002

I then racked mine onto 350g of strawberries. (you can experiment with other fruits) You don't have to though, normally it is brewed clean and syrups added to it when drank.

This one ended up at 2.6%

When you bottle carb to about 2.8-3.0 as it is supposed to be champagne like.

[Richard Jack]

I'll post a couple of colabs up that are a bit off the beaten track.

Those of you in case swap might have tried Jeykll & Hyde from Raff and myself: http://www.forum.realbeer.co.nz/group/nzcaseswap/forum/topics/cs10-...
The Saccharomyces version got knocked off rather quickly, but Raffe and I bottled off a portion of the straight brett (Mr Hyde) to age, and also made a few blends of 50/50 SO5 and Brett Trois ferments, called Jekyll's Lament. They are both very different beers to what they were back in last November - I'd say that anyone replicating these would do well to age for at least 6 months. They are quite distinct - I find a briny note in the 100% brett which is pretty unlike anything I've encountered before, and it hasn't dried out as much as the blend, which has more of the stereotypical "brett" character. Both versions were entered into 3R, american style brett beer.

The straight Mr Hyde scored silver at 43/50, and Jeykll's Lament scored gold and best in class at 46/50.
https://nhc.soba.org.nz/brewer/entries/1406/score/share?k=62bedb
https://nhc.soba.org.nz/brewer/entries/1407/score/share?k=25def8

The other one I'll share for those interested in sours / barrel aging - it's not really replicable by nature except for in a rough process. Myself, Hamish Ward (haish), Matt Littlejohn (brew_sci), and Raffe had an ex-chardonnay wine barrel left over from aging some cider, and decided that it really needed to become a lambic barrel. We read everything we could (ok maybe just Mad Fermentationist) then brewed up this in a couple of back to back batches at Hamish's house:

Guezetimate (5M - Belgian-Style Gueuze Lambic)

220l total batch size
OG: 1.048  FG: 1.006  ABV: 5.6%
IBU: 8?
SRM: 3.4
Date: 22/6/2013

60% Pilsner Malt
40% Wheat Malt
Mash at 64.4C
100 minute boil
330g aged hops at 100min. Guessed maybe 2% AA?

The aged hops were given out by Shane from Steam a couple of years ago at a WBC, I think they were Argentinian cascade. I put them in an unsealed plastic bag and they sat on my deck in the sun for a few years :) To make extra sure they were dead, I baked them before brewing, which effectively transferred the smell of rotting pineapple from the hops to my house, furnishings, clothes, and hair. 

We fermented separately (as fridge space permitted), in a clean primary ferment with WY1272. After primary, the beer was very neutral. Then we all carted our fermenters over to Matt's house to load the barrel, which had been filled with a barrel storage solution after draining the cider. It got a few good rinses but nothing more than that. We pretty much pitched everything we could get our hands on. A few packs of Wyeast Lambic Blend, a Roeselare Blend, some isolated strains: brett brux var trois (WLP644), Brett claussenii (WLP645), Brett lambicus (WY5526), Pediococcus (WY5733), Lacto (WYeast 5335). Also added over aging were various bottle dregs, Cantillon and 3 Fonteinen come to mind.

And, yeah. Left it under Matt's house since July 2013. Matt was pretty vigilant keeping the barrel topped up - usually with starter wort. we've taken samples every now and then, and it really started getting good a few months ago. It has dried out to 1.006 and hasn't moved for a few months now. I was kinda in a rush so ended up using carbonator caps to try and get some bubbles in some sample bottles to send into NHC. Didn't do a very good job of it (unsurprisingly).

Technically this is a straight (unblended) lambic, but it tastes more like a gueuze lambic as it's still a bit young for a straight, so that's where we entered it.

Beer was ineligible for prizes as Hamish and Matt are pros now. It scored gold, best in class at 48/50. https://nhc.soba.org.nz/brewer/entries/1307/score

We're planning to fruit 100 in a series of 20l batches (suggestions welcome!) and bottle the other 100. I'm super excited about a second fill of the barrel.

[Crusader-Rob]

Nice work guys, keep them rolling in.

[Ryan Perkins]

Here are my two that took me by surprise.

The first a Munich Dunkel that scored a 38/50 Silver. https://nhc.soba.org.nz/brewer/entries/1082/score

I wasn't going to enter this as it was getting a bit old hence the oxidation comment in the score sheet but I had to replace another beer that got infected.

15 litre batch

3.5 Gladfield Munich

0.15 Carafa II

16g Wakatu at 60 mins

9g Wakatu at 20 mins

Saflager S-23

1.053  - 1.011

The other was a hoppy brown porter that scored a 37/50 bronze.  https://nhc.soba.org.nz/brewer/entries/1083/score

15 litre batch

3.6 Gladfield Pale

0.4 Gladfield Munich

0.2 Gladfield Pale Chocolate

0.15 Gladfield Medium Crystal

0.07 Gladfield Chocolate

11g Nelson Sauvin at 60 mins

11g NZ Cascade at 15 mins

11g Nelson Sauvin at 15 mins

11g NZ Cascade at 0 mins

11g East Kent Goldings at 0 mins

6g Nelson Sauvin at 0 mins

12g East Kent Goldings dry hop for 5 days

12g NZ Cascade dry hop for 5 days

Safale US-05

1.064 - 1.012

First time entering so pretty happy with the results, looking forward to next year!

[Peter Smith]

Ryan  - did you enter the IPA?

[Ryan Perkins]

I didn't have any left and ran out of time to make a new batch...next year.  I'll be bottling some in a few days for the case swap though.

[Peter Smith]

Of the three beers I thought it was the best.

[Ryan Perkins]

In hindsight I should have kept a couple, I just figured the hops would have faded too much by the time they were judged.

[Peter Smith]

in hindsight I may have drunk your gold medal.....

[Ryan Perkins]

Ha ha...I don't know about that!

[Crusader-Rob]

Good work on this one, given the ABV, would it not be more robust porter?
What sort of temp did you mash at?

[Ryan Perkins]

Thanks, yeah I guess it should have been entered as something like that. I mashed at 67 but 68 might be better.  I used a rectangular mash tun for this one which doesn't hold temp very well, so on average probably lower than 67.