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...

[Richard Deeble]

I'm planning to brew an Amber with a malt bill similar to Stone Levitation Ale but I think I'm going to use NZ hops. Has anyone done a beer that is 100% Pacifica? I've only used once with goldings and cascade in particularly malt and ester dominated beer so I'm not 100% sure of its profile.

23 litre batch

Recipe so far is:

4.25 kg of Golden Promise

0.5 kg Thomas Fawcett Medium Crystal

0.25kg Thomas Fawcett Dark Crystal

0.02 Carafa Special III for colour (still have some left over from a black IPA)

Mash at 157

I'm thinking of doing  30 grams of Pacifica at 60, 30, then a couple of bigger additions at 10, an 0.

Ferment with 1098 at around 19. Any feedback? 

[Grant R Baker]

Pacific Gem yes, Pacifica no.  PG turned out very nice in the Amber ale.

 

My grain bill is quite different tho.

[Mark]

Yep, I used it in an Amber Lager a while back. From memory I used too much home toasted malt which dominated the flavour so it didn't give a very good indication of the hop. Sorry I can't be more help! It must be quite a subtle hop. I'm planning a pale ale with that and Hallertau Aroma, be interesting to see how that one turns out.

[Tilt]

I'm with Mark and Scarfie on the subtlety of Pacifica.  I've used it as a lone hop in an American Wheat recently at about 25IBU with additions at 60, 10 and 0 from memory.  I used an oddish yeast as this was a bit of an experiment (re-cultured Coopers from a bottle of Pale Ale) but the hop seemed to give a mild citrus/floral, nutmeggy character to me.

[Scarrfie]

 I tried it last winter in some lagers (ambient fermentation) and agree with mark that it is subtle. Compared to Hallertau I actually prefer the Hallertau, although perhaps that is better in the middle with Pacifica late. I picked up a tip from these forums that it makes a good compliment to Cascade, in about a 4:1 ratio. I have done that in a IPA and it turned out nice.

[Scarrfie]

Quava's, any recipe ideas for them? I just picked up 3Kg of red ones  from windfall at a neighbours.

I know I could do a Belgian, but that might be a bit too ambitious for my experience level. I have been thinking of doing a big stout and am thinking the quava's might sit behind that nicely. Other thought was to try T-58 behind an imperial stout, so perhaps I could combine the two? Or is that also too ambitious?.

[Tilt]

Funny you mention this - I froze 5kg of these yesterday while I think about what to do with them. 

Are they the little red ones about the size of a large cherry -and similar colour when really ripe?  White flesh and full of small hard seeds.   I think they're native to Hawaii - got one in our backyard and only used them for jam so far. 

I was thinking along similar lines to Martin's case swap 8 beer - maybe a sweetish cream ale racked onto fruit in secondary.  Theyre pretty tart in flavour - I'm not sure they'd be so good with a roasty dark grist - and I'd be looking to see a little of that colour in the beer.

[Scarrfie]

Yes that sounds like the little babies, I quite enjoy them but off the ground they be going to be best cooked in some way or form. You got me interested enough to look them up on Wikipedia:-) Thank you for the input on the beer.

[Tilt]

No probs - I'd be interested to hear where you get to on the recipe. 

A wheat beer would be another more 'standard' choice - but there's something appealing about pushing the boundaries with these - maybe a guava porter with a sweetish pale choc influenced grain bill and a fruity less attenuative english yeast - the guava colour would give it some ruby highlights and it could end up with blackforest cake like flavours!  Endless possibilities.

[denimglen]

Strawberry guavas - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psidium_cattleianum I think?

I have a tree in backyard.  The skin seems to be tannic as all hell so I'd try and avoid adding too much of that if possible.

I'd go lighter beer, blonde or wheat.  As the flesh doesn't have that much flavour you'd have trouble getting that to cut through a lot of malt or hops.  Also, as Tilt mentioned, they're pretty acidic and it can be a bit of trouble getting the acidity balance right with fruit in a dark beer.

[Tilt]

Yeah - they're the ones Denimglen. 

If you can't decide on what to do with a beer they make good jam/jelly if you like yours a little less sweet - boiled up and pushed through a sieve to remove the seeds - and the skins make it a deep red purple colour.  They do need the sweetness to make them palatable though.

[Scarrfie]

Thanks guys. I have read of guys using 2Kg of cherries, would this be too much for the Quava's? I have frozen two 1Kg bags so I can try them in a couple of different beers depending on the quantity recommended. Just thinking I posted a recipe here of a Dunkelweizen/American Wheat on here that might lend itself to this plan. It has a modest amount of chocolate malt but being a wheat beer might still be light enough to let the guava come through.