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...

[Grant R Baker]

woohoo... hopefully they will get to some of the other variants like Dark Caramalt (40-50EBC) and a Victory variant.

 

I talked to an Ozzy distributer of Victory malt a while ago and they couldn't find anyone to work with here in NZ to import it (no idea why).

[Druid]

Gladfields malts are well known to mash with a higher pH than others. The recommended adjustment to bring it down is to add 1% acidulated malt by weight - so thats somewhere between 45 to 80g depending on the total weight of your grains. I don't bother on grain bills with a lot of dark malts though.

[Scarrfie]

Thanks Druid, I really appreciate that. And yes it is only happening for my pale beers although I am having trouble getting the body I want on my darker ones, but I have changed mash tuns so I am still learning to drive that.

[Druid]

Actually - now that i think about it, I believe that's only part of the story.

I'm still a bit murky on it but I think the full story is that a 1% acidulated addition will lower the pH by 0.1 ie. to lower it from 5.6 to 5.3, you would add 3%

Trying to remember where I read this so i can confirm. Anyone else able to confirm this?

I know Steve Plowman from Hallertau opened my eyes to Gladfields pH peculiarities and how to deal with it when he published his Maximus recipe http://www.forum.realbeer.co.nz/xn/detail/1500433:Comment:83497 and I've also had it confirmed by Shane from Steam who indicated that it was fairly consistently 0.3 pH higher than other malts.

[Bryan Livingston]

Grant- we at Brewers Coop in Auckland have stocked Victory and other Briess Malts for neary 2 years. We also have dark Cara as a current stock item for those interested.

[Grant R Baker]

I used Dark Caramalt in two test beers and it was 'amazing' then it disappeared. Full Mr Baker swearing rant ensued.... but if you can get it I'll order some (stock up and get 5Kg for the shelf).

I tried subbing in Pale Crystal but the flavour wasn't as good.

[Darrin Smith]

we have dark caramalt available

http://craftbrewing.co.nz/malts-grains/specialty-malts/dark-caramalt

[Crusader-Rob]

Looking at an easy drinking nice light blonde ale. How does this look??

Pale Malt 71%

Vienna 10%

Wheat 10%

Caramalt 4%

Carapils 2%

Clover honey 3%

Centennial bittering

Styrian at 20 and 5

Cascade at 5

ratio for Styrian and Cascade is 2:1 at 5 mins

WY2565

OG1050

What sort of FG should I expect?

[Liam Callaghan]

Hey mate,  I brew heaps of blondes as they are my favourite tipple at home.  The recipe looks good and I find they always turn out nice with a bit of aroma hop at the end.

 

Personally I run about 20% to 50% munich in mine and you could try the same with vienna although I find vienna has a bit more digestive biscuit flavour that can be a bit over powering.  A good rate of wheat is always nice in a blonde and dont be too nervous about using too much.  The best pils malt I've found for it is the bohemia, nice malty overtones and great for dry crisp blondes.

I didn't like the kolsh yeast too much, too low flocc but I think I needed to cold condition it for longer.  I preferred the helle bock yeast which produces a nice dry finish and promotes the malts - especially tiny additions of darker malts like Munich II and Special B at 100g in a 10kg batch.  They also brewed out really well with the farmhouse ale yeast run at 15 degrees and then cold conditioned for a week at 1 degree.  Low yeast aromas but FG was 0.998 and was an amazing beer.

Generally I like my FG to be around the 1.008 mark for blondes but anything as high as 1.012 if I use a saf ale yeast.

Interesting to hear how it turned out with the honey.

L.

[Scarrfie]

I am loving NZ Styrians at the moment and put it in just about everything :-P Still having problems with the harsh bite from late hops though and have yet to make a nice pale/blonde ale.

  I am switching away from the K-97 Kolsch yeast back to S-23 as a couple of my best beers have been with that( I always make a starter), but the Kolsch yeast actually finishes dryer.

[Liam Callaghan]

The Kolsh and Bock yeast are both high attenuating and make for a good dry finish - especially with a small amount of sugar addition to dry them out.  Really nice when highly carbonated, although I still have trouble getting this right.  I just need to brew more consistantly rather than every three months.  I've been given a couple of carbonating excel sheets but have not got into them in detail.

The dryness can be a little harsh though if its not what your expecting, especially if you want the mouth appeal that S-23 will give you with the residual sugars.  American Ale II has a similar mouth appeal to S-23 but a nicer finish and the Ringwoods strain made a great blonde, nice malty finish and really promoted the late addition aroma hops.

Never really noticed any harsh bite from late hops.  I only add 80-100g tops for a 60 litre batch and usually Riwaka, Cascade or EK Goldings.  Not sure what volumes you using.  I add them 2 minutes from end of boil or flame out and rest for a few minutes before the chiller is fired up.

When fermenting I usually run them at the best temp to suit the yeast, maybe a few degrees lower if I want to try it on a new yeast.  Once initial fermentation is complete I lower the temp to about 10 degrees and leve it for a week.  The last two I dropped to 1 degree and they have been two of my best beers.

Made some crackers with S-23 though, nice yeast especially when you have been running it for a few months, they just seem to get better.

[Scarrfie]

Useful and good notes there Liam. I tried 1272 in a couple of brews that I cultivated from bottles I swapped with Kelly, it didn't do nice things for me. I actually really like S04 but since I brew in ambient S-23 works well in the range I have, as does the K-97. I only stopped using S-23 because I wasn't getting the final attenuation I thought I should be getting.

I was also having carbonation problems that I linked to the attenuation but they may not have been the case as I seem to be doing better with the carbonation lately.

The suspicion I now have with the hop harshness is the mash ph, which is apparently quite a bit higher with the Malteurope product. This malt is a common factor to the beers I have had with this problem. I brew about every two weeks and the next couple will be darker beers which gives me time to get my hands on some acid malt for the next pale ale attempt.