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...

[Barbara Joppa]

I have been looking at recipes for my next couple of brews. Several of these have had hop additons at 90 min boil. The book I use for all my calculations (yes I do them all by hand) does not have caluclations for a 90 minute boil. Plus, none of the software I could find would accept a 90 min boil for the calculations either.

The last batch I did had a 90 minute hop addition but since I couldn't calculate the IBU, I only added hops at 60 minutes.

What is up with that? Do people really boil hops for 90min? Doesn't this over extract things? How do you do the calculations? Please enlighten me!

The recipe is as follows:
6.1kg NZ pale
800g caramalt
40g hallertau (this is the one suggested at 90 minutes)
30g hallertau 30 min
10g hallertau 5 min

Thoughts?

[Reviled]

(yes I do them all by hand)

Wow, just wow Barbara, I am shocked and amazed, you must be a mathmatician to be doing all those figures by hand?!?! haha

Yes people do boil hops for 90 mins, I do regularly and find you get more bitterness with a little less flavour. As far as software goes im currently using Beersmith but that costs money, if youre after something free then try doing a google search for Beer recipator which is an online spreadsheet with enables 90 min additions.

I think brewmate is another one that you can download and use for free, so theres plenty of options out there - throw away your work book and use all that extra time for brewing ;o) lol

[JR]

assuming 1.050 gravity wort and 5% aa hops

using reiger formulae

60 min gives 32.1 IBU

90 min gives 36.4 IBU

thats about 13% extra

(only calcing the bittering addition at 60 or 90 mins)

[Andrew]

Bitterness is like a curve if you look at it like graph and you'll just get about 10-15% more utilisation for the extra 30mins of boil. If you can't be bothered to boil for the extra 30 mins you could just increase your 60 min addition by 10-15% to achieve the same BU.

[denimglen]

Do people really boil hops for 90min? Doesn't this over extract things? How do you do the calculations?

Yes. No. Fuck knows?

Software for me, Beersmith is the go, you can download a trial from their website, play with it. It's one of only two pieces of software I've ever paid for and no regrets at all.

I don't think you start overextracting until you hit about the 120 minute mark.

I don't really see the point of 90 min boil for the hops (unless you're already doing a 90m boil). It usually only adds a few IBUs as JR has shown.

I do regularly and find you get more bitterness with a little less flavour.

Right, but unless that 60/90 min addition is your only one I don't think you'll notice the difference.

[denimglen]

I have some 1469 spinning up at the moment.

The plan was to brew a Northern English Brown with it but I'm feeling extremely uninspired and bored by that idea at the moment.

I've got an ESB fermenting right now, so don't really wanna go the bitter route. Drinking a stout at the moment so would rather not be too roasty. Any suggestions?

[JoKing]

AAA bro. Or maybe an NZAA for a point of difference... or a combo of the two. I tried Mikes Amber thing which had Styrian and Amarillo and that combo was suprisingly good.

Or go all out and do a hoppy brown... Cascade / Amarillo / Pale Choc / Caramalt = Jaffa Ale: Chocolate and orange... num num.

[denimglen]

Hoppy brown did cross my mind, a rebrew of a Janet's Brown Ale would be quite good.

Amber could be the go. My 'ESB' uses motueka and my other beer in the line up is a NZ lager so would prefer to go away from NZ hops. But it does make me think some sort of crunchy, toasty, bitter crossed with an APA/AAA could work.

Have you used 1469 much before? How is it on the hops - wash them out or make 'em pop?

To be fair this isn't actually 1469, it's Galbraith's strain, but should be pretty close to 1469.

[JoKing]

1469 doesn't seem to handle the hops all that well... when I used it there were no hops left. Best to keep the late hops out and chuck them in the dry hop.

How many hands has this yeast passed through? How is it holding up?

[denimglen]

Keith's hands then into mine.

I was lucky enough to get some off him that was top cropped from Bob's when I emailed him about cloning that beer. I grew it up on a stirplate and then split it into a few vials. I used one vial once to brew the clone, the yeast worked well but I was miles off on the beer.

The beer I brewed had a decent amount of hop presence IIRC (but they were hops I'm not very familiar with so don't want to make up my own mind at this point), but the strain has probably mutated.

[denimglen]

Just stumbled across this recipe I saved from the Jul BYO. Said I didn't wanna go 'bitter' but meh :-P

1.037, 29IBU

95% GP
5% Dark Crystal

50% goldings 50% Fuggles to bitter.
28g / 20L Styrian Goldings at flameout.

I think I might run with that, but will have to sub NZ styrians for Slo styrians and the UK goldings.

[jt]

1.037

Oh yeah that's good !

Brewing and drinking a fair bit of sub 40 beers these days and really enjoying them