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...

[Daniel .l]

cheers for the replys,,,, i was having trouble matching the hops to the flavors in the recipes , but the penny has dropped (a little ) thanks to the links provided

i should have put the beer was the IPA from mount brewery in the b.o.p , tryed it from the keg it was real good !! , got a letter bottle on the way out but it was not the same,, flavor had dropped out abit but still well drink able

i have found a link to a hopwied clone and the hop flavors seem to match i guess,,, im just gonna have to give it a shot , even if i stuff it up a little, It will still have be better then what i have been making out of the cans

[Damon Colbert]

My next brew is to be a Belgian Dubbel style ale.  Despite having finished reading Brew Like a Monk over a month ago, my mouth is still watering for a rich, complex malty, raisin-y goodness.

One of the lessons Stan attempts to paint in his book is simplicity.  Which makes it strange that the recipe in the back has eight malts!  (Reproduced below)

Tomme Arthurs Dubbel

Original Gravity: 1.067 (16.4 °P)
Final Gravity: 1.014 (3.6 °P)
Alcohol by Volume: 6.9%
IBU: 15

Grist Bill:
Belgian Pilsener malt 58.8%
Wheat malt 8.4%
Belgian aromatic malt 6.7%
Belgian or German Munich malt 4.2%
CaraMunich 3.4%
Gambrinus Honey malt (substitute-CaraVienna) 3.4%
Belgian Special “B” 3.4%
Belgian Biscuit 3.4%
Dark candi sugar (rocks) 8.4%
Raisins (end of boil)―comparable to 4 ounces for a 5-gallon batch (113 grams for 19 liters)

Hops:
Styrian Goldings, 90 minutes (11 IBU)
Liberty, 60 minutes (4 IBU)

Mash: 152 °F (67 °C)
Boil: 90 minutes
Yeast: White Labs WLP500
Fermentation: Start at 64 °F (18 °C), 5-7 days
Secondary: Cold condition for 2 weeks

It have a bad habit of trying to include too much, when I create something.  So I instantly liked this recipe.  I do want complexity here; but is this going too far?  Too much of a good thing etc.

If I was to brew this recipe, I wouldn't be using the raisins, would be dialing the sugar back to 7%, would have to substitute the CaraVienna for something, perhaps CaraBelge.  And would plan on using WY 3787 Trappist high gravity.  Should I simplify the malt bill as well?

Any suggestions or advice?

[Damon Colbert]

For posterity's sakes, the brew day;

Mash in was on the mark at 64C (I planned to make it more attenuated than the published recipe).  Mash out missed the mark a bit, at 70C.  But I got to recirculating immediately and had glorious golden-red wort running to the kettle in no time.

Alas, the missed mash-out temp and perhaps too fast a lauter completely bricked the sparge.  A quick remix and recirculation remedied it, but it wasn't quite the same after that.

Having collected a full 28L, I extended the boil out to 120min to get the volume down to the 20-ish litres required. To be honest, two hours was probably a bit too long of a boil, on my setup at least.  90min was probably more than sufficient.

I should point out that I didn't use the raisins (and in fact made all of my modifications described above).  Only once the ferment is fully underway will I be adding the dark candi sugar (syrup, not rocks), boiled in a litre or two of water.

I pitched my smack-pack of WY3787 into 2L of slightly diluted wort to boost cell numbers overnight.  Unfortunately I neglected to give it a heat pad, and it got down to 16C overnight.  Bad move for 3787, make sure you keep it above 18C.  I'm still trying to get it to recover a day later.

[Mark Hillhouse]

Hello....just did my first non-kit beer. I used the English Pale Ale recipe from The Naked Brewer - a simple extract plus specialty grains one. I doublde the ingredients to make 21 litres as all thair recipes are small batch 2.5 gallon ones. I even emailed one of The Beer Chicks and she said double everything except the yeast. But when I went to do the steep, I forgot to double the water I used. So, I doubled the grains for the steep but I forgot to double the water. I kept making this mistake for every step up to an including the boil. After the boil I topped up to 21 litres.

But will this work, or should I have double the amount of water in the steep, sparge and boil steps?

[Scarrfie]

If I am reading you right then there are two results from your mistake. One is that your extraction from the steeped grains will be down, means less sweetness and body but not fatal. The thicker boil means lower hop utilisation, which means less bitterness. They may cancel each other to a degree. Not perfect, but it won't be the end of the world.

[Mark Hillhouse]

Great...thanks for the explanation. Currently they specified 3 litres for the steep phase, 3 more litres for the sparging and 2 litres more water added before the boil. This is 8 litres all up plus the 2 cans of extract. I only have a 15 litre stock pot. So I am guessing that I may be struggling with that....might need to get a bigger one.

Is it fairly normal to have approx 15 litres before we even pour it all into the fermenter (where I top up to 21-23 litres)?

Cheers

[Scarrfie]

I haven't done extracts as such Mark so I can't say what is normal. Just use plenty of water on your steeping grains and accept you will have to use more hops to overcome the loss of utilisation with the thicker boil. Check out "How to Brew" by John Palmer for the technicalities on this. Try a calculator to get the IBU target you are after. Try Brewmate or Brew Toad.

[jt]

Hey Mark, that pot should be ok.
Checkout the howtobrew link from Scarfie and the section on extract and grains. That goes through a partial boil and top up too.
And to avoid to high a gravity boil, just boil one tin for the 60 minutes and add the other tin for day the last 5 minutes.

Cheers, jt

[Crusader-Rob]

I've done extract, and Yeah the volumes aren't far off, I usually end up with a preboil volume of around 12-14litres after sparging etc.  add 1 tin then the second tin in the last 15mins or so. howtobrew.com is a great resource for extract brewers.

[Mark Hillhouse]

Cheers for all the help guys. Next week I'll move this brew into the 2nd stage fermenter and try to do the recipe again, using all the advice from here. Thanks again.

[Josh C]

Anyone have a good hoppy porter recipe? I want something around 5% abv, with lots of hoppy goodness (probably a decent dry hop). I have Weyerman pilsner malt so will use that as the base malt and I will probably get a proper pilsner liquid yeast strain of some sort.

[Ralph]

Pot Kettle Black? - as in the Yeastie Boys...

Apparently this recipe here is pretty close http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/52920-pot-kettle-black/