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...

[Scarrfie]

Well Chris I finally got around to a side by taste of the Elemental Porter vs my own partial grain Porter. The good lady could no really tell them apart and actually prefers my brew. I must say I am enjoying the Elemental more than the last time I tried it, and it is my preference over my own brew. So there you go, I guess tastes can change depending on the moment.

Trying to analyse technically I am sure the Renaissance beer has some roast barley in there. The label does state 'Roasted Malts', although of course the barley isn't a malt. Hmmm... I would say a bit more chocolate malt also.

I would say some hops through the middle whereas I only used aroma at 5 mins. Not in your face but they seem to be there.  I talked before about mash temp and the Elemental Porter definitely has more body.

Hopefully that is some help in your recipe formulation and good luck :-)

[Chris P]

Brilliant. I have an IPA (award worthy I hope) to lay down first and then will give this a nudge. Awesome that you had a side by side comparison to see how close you got and where improvements can be made.

[Mark]

I want to brew a pilsner with a reasonably malty character and plenty of hops. Unfortunately I can't get any Saaz so I'm experimenting with green bullet - anybody got any advice a good schedule for this hop? The bittering's easy enough, but what sort of amounts are reasonable at later stages of the boil? Is dry hopping out of the question?

Cheers

[Liam Callaghan]

I made a really nice lager with this last winter, very small hop additions every 10 minutes for a 60 minute boil.  I don't have my beersmith at work so can't give you the volumes but easy enough to work out if you have it loaded at home.  I finished with a moderate dose of GB at the end after flame out for some aroma.  Great flavour profile with bittering and aroma was moderate in the final conditioned beer.  From memory I used saf lager yeast at ambient workshop temps (around 8-12 degrees in winter).  Pilsner 80% Munich 20% with a small addition of wheat (200g/25 litre batch).

I was really pleased with the result, an under used hop I reckon, great value for its price. 

Given the choice I would use Saaz B of course, hard to go past that for me.  I've used GB since in a few ales and blondes for the primary hop and finished with an aroma hop.  I don't tend to use GB for the aroma part, too scared of pitching in a huge quantity and bittering the bejesus out of it :p

[Mark]

Thanks for the info Liam. I ended up using additions at 60, 20, 10, 0 and dry (all GB, all 20g) with pilsner malt only, a kind of Steinlager-on-steriods thing. Hopefully it won't be too bitter, according to Beersmith it's about 40-45IBU. It's definitely got it's own characteristics, will be interesting to see how it tastes.

[Scarrfie]

I saw a beer when browsing a few months back that was a GB only IPA. Scandinavian I think from memory and it was rated quite well. Might have been on ratebeer??

[Mark]

Yeah I saw that too, it got mixed reviews. Would be an interesting beer to try. For some reason I've always thought of GB as a pilsner hop, probably because of SLager.

[Andrew Robinson]

Planning on brewing this next weekend any improvements that anyone could add?

Recipe: Chocolate Porridge Imperial Stout
Style: Imperial Stout
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 33.29 l
Post Boil Volume: 27.92 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 23.02 l
Bottling Volume: 21.32 l
Estimated OG: 1.088 SG
Estimated Color: 116.7 EBC
Estimated IBU: 63.6 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 81.6 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
23.02 l Christchurch, NZ Water 1 -
7.00 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (5.9 EBC) Grain 2 70.0 %
0.75 kg Chocolate Malt (886.5 EBC) Grain 3 7.5 %
0.75 kg Roasted Barley (591.0 EBC) Grain 4 7.5 %
0.50 kg Caraaroma (256.1 EBC) Grain 5 5.0 %
0.50 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (157.6 EBC) Grain 6 5.0 %
0.50 kg Oats Malt (2.0 EBC) Grain 7 5.0 %
75.00 g Green Bullet [10.90 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 63.6 IBUs
0.30 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 9 -
1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) Yeast 10 -

Mash Schedule: BIAB, Medium Body
Total Grain Weight: 10.00 kg

[Aidan Curran]

Recipe advice wanted

I've already got a good pipeline of pale ales, IPAs, stouts etc. so for my next brew I want to do an easy drinking, low alcohol, session beer. I also want to use only the ingredients that I have on hand which are Hops: Motueka, Nelson Sauvin and Simcoe, Yeasts: US04, S04, Grains: TF Chocolate, TF Golden Promise, TF Maris Otter, Bairds Pale Crystal, Weyermann Pilsner, TF Caramalt.

Here's what I've come up with:

Blondie (Blonde Ale), Partial Mash

Grain Bill
2.000 kg Pilsner (62.5%)
1.000 kg Liquid Malt Extract - Light (31.25%)
0.200 kg Crystal 10 (6.25%)

Hop Bill
15.0 g Motueka Pellet (7.1% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (0.7 g/L)
20.0 g Motueka Pellet (7.1% Alpha) @ 30 Minutes (Boil) (0.9 g/L)
25.0 g Motueka Pellet (7.1% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Boil) (1.1 g/L)

Misc Bill
Single step Infusion at 66°C for 60 Minutes.
Fermented at 18°C with Safale US-05

Recipe Specs
Batch Size (L): 23.0
Original Gravity (OG): 1.034
Final Gravity (FG): 1.009
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 3.34 %
Colour (SRM): 3.7 (EBC): 7.3
Bitterness (IBU): 26.5 (Average)
Est. Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 70
Boil Time (Minutes): 60

I'm looking for feedback on this recipe. Do you think it will be a decent tasting light blonde ale, or might it be too bland/watery? I picked pilsner malt instead of pale ale malt for lighter colour. Would I get better flavour with a pale ale malt such as Marris Otter? Also going with a small quantity of the palest crystal malt to keep the colour light. Can a beer this low in alcohol still taste good?

[Kelly Milligan]

I'm not 100%, but I would think that would end up a bit to thin with the 66c mash. I'd suggest maybe adding an extra bit of malt then mashing at more like 68c, aiming for an FG more around 1.012. Will give you some more body and flavour, and with just that small amount of really light crystal I don't think it would make things too sweet :) 

[jt]

Go the session beer !
I did a part mash a while back
A KG each of Pale (Malteurop or was it Golden promise?) and Munich 1. 250gm dark crystal and 50gm pale choc
Mashed high, from memory 69 or 70 and got a good body, partly from the LME too I think
I used the whole 1.5kg of LME and was somewhere around 1036

Yours looks good, but for my taste I'd add some of that Motueka in at 10 or 15 minutes too, maybe in place of some of the 30 minute addition.
You might even want to add the whole 1.5kg of LME if you have the whole tin, won't add too much in gravity and it'll help the body

[Aidan Curran]

good suggestions Kelly & jt. So mashing high will produce more unfermentable sugars? I've heard mashing high can extract astringent flavours, is this an issue at 70C?