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...

[James P]

From MoreBeer: 30L Great Western. A British crystal malt that can be used in a variety of beers. Slightly different flavor than American or Belgian Crystal malts. Can be used in recipes calling for British Crystal.

[jt]

I thought Bairds did a Carastan too, in their crystal type range, though rarely seen it mentioned in NZ

http://www.bairds-malt.co.uk/Roasted.html

[Soren]

I think carastan is closely related to weyermanns carahell. its more malty than carapils but less roasty than light crystal... sort of like a light caramunich...

[Reviled]

According to my brewing software carastan is the same as carapils??

[Greig McGill]

Hrm. I think I should have used Crystal 70 in my recipe in the weekend then (attempting to clone Rogue Dead Guy) rather than the carapils I went with (and adjusted to a 90m boil, which I hate doing). The rationale for the carastan in the original clone recipe was for head retention, but I didn't think to factor in the colour change. Plus I'm not a fan of crystal malt except in tiny quantities, and this was 10% of the grist.

Oh, by the way, I appreciate that I can just google it, but I value the opinions and experience of those here, so I guess when I ask "what is it" I should really have gone for "what makes it different in a practical sense". :)

[James P]

I can not find cocoa nibs in Christchurch, what about straight cocoa powder?

Also thinking of using vanilla syrup instead of vanilla pods...

what do you think of these replacements?

[Mike Neilson]

blah blah yuk!! Vanilla Syrup?? give me twenty bucks and I will have 200g of coco nibs to your door.

[Matthew]

From a foodie perspective, if you can get vanilla pods use them. Nothing else comes close. You'd just be selling yourself short. Not sure about cocoa nibs though...

[James P]

Thought as much, the vanilla syrup they use at the local coffee shop from work is F*****G good.

Mike you have a PM...

[Nolen Smith]

I've used cocoa powder several times, last 5 minutes of the boil. Get the best quality you can find (I get mine from a chocolate maker in Welly). I did use baker's cocoa once - I could definitely tell a difference between that and the quality stuff.

[James P]

Thanks Nolen, I was thinking cadbury or similar style cocoa, however Mike has sorted out some cocoa nibs for me!

When I went searching for them the woman in the organic shop stared at me blanky thenasked why I would put them in beer.... at least you guys understand me.

[Nolen Smith]

Mmmmm.... chocolate and porter..... mmmmmmm. If you really want to have some fun, throw in a couple of cinnamon quills with the chocolate nibs.