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...

[Scott Phillips]

Hey team,

Some advice on this would be appreciated. A bit of a pale ale with some dried jasmine flowers to mix it up.

I'm after a bit of advice especially on the hop schedule. What do we reckon?

Cheers!

4.50 kg     Pilsner (2 Row)
0.50 kg     Caramel/Crystal Malt
0.20 kg     Cara-Pils
25.00 g     Nugget [13.50 %] - Boil 90.0 min  
40.00 g     Jasmine Flowers (Boil 10.0 mins) 
30.00 g     Willamette [13.50 %] - Boil 1.0 min  
10.00 g     Amarillo Gold [9.20 %] - Boil 1.0 min    
14.00 g     Jasmine Flowers (Boil 0.0 mins)  
1.0 pkg     American Ale II (Wyeast Labs #1272)

[Mark Weusten]

Another pilsner recipe for advice please. My first crack at all grain and it is my take on a Tuatara Pilsner. Its a 10 gallon batch. I want the hop flavour to be full on but not sucking on a teabag.

11.3 kg NZ Pilsner malt

.3 kg Carapils

.3 kg Light Crystal Malt

90 mins

60 mins add 50g Pacific Jade

30 mins add 50g Motueka

10 min add Nelson Sauvin 50 g

0  add Riwaka 50g

[Mark Weusten]

Im going to back off the Pacific Jade to 30g and give a try. Too bitter otherwise......

[Peter Smith]

One other plan (though perhaps not for this first batch) is to add those 30 as a first wort hop as you begin to sparge...   It's said to produce a more mellow bittering vs a harsher one at 60mins,   I have recently started doing this for lagers but don't have anything in a bottle yet to make any comparisons.

Got to say, so far its been hard work and long time waits for lagering at 2C, about to try a US05 at 16C to see if thats just quicker,   will prob still do a 2 week at 2C to drop as much yeast out as possible and may look to try to filter before bottling as well.    Somewhere on the web I read a comment from Richard Emerson that most kiwis would not be able to tell a pilsner had been brewed this way if you have a decent amount of late hop burst in your beer.   If links up nicely with all the heresay about Emersons Pilsner being a cold ale ferment.

http://www.forum.realbeer.co.nz/forum/topics/us-05-used-for-lager-s...

[Cain Harland]

More process advice than recipe on this question but I'm having a fermentation issue.

I'm brewing a pilsner. Had shit brew day and between the bottom falling out of the plastic bag the grain came in and a wort spill I think its safe to say I would have missed my target OG of 1.055. I had no way of measuring then but now have a refractometer.

Pitched 2 packs of mangrove jacks Bohemian lager yeast into 40L which is a bit of an under pitch but worked well last time. Fermented at 13c. Got some weak airlock action after 2 or 3 days which then died off. after 2.5 weeks SG was at 1.033. I bumped the temp up to 16c, I had planned to go for 15c for a diacetyl rest anyway so upped it a bit more to see if I could get fermentation going and 2 days later smells like fermentation so took SG again and got 1.025.

My question is where to from here? Do I leave at 16c till it reaches something close to the 1.011 beer tools pro reckoned before lagering or drop now?

I am working on a magnetic stir plate so will make a decent started for future brews especially cold ones.

[Barry]

Are you measuring gravity with your refractometer?

Conventional wisdom says that you should use a hydrometer when there's alcohol (beer), use a refractometer pre-alcohol (wort).

You have to apply a mathematical correction to get an accurate post-fermentation reading with a refractometer.

That said, sounds like you did indeed underpitch, it might take a while to ferment out properly.

Definitely wait until it's terminal before you lager.

[Cain Harland]

I didn't know that thanks

[Cain Harland]

I found a good calculator here

It just takes Original Brix and Current Brix and gives you Current Gravity. Simple as. IMO if the calculation is accurate enough using the refractometer and running it through here is still miles easier and less wastefull than using a hydrometer.

Original Brix was a guess after brew day disasters and not having refractometer then. But when I put in anything close to the OG calculated in beer tools pro converted to brix  and current measured brix it looks like fermentation is now complete.

So rather than an under pitching/attenuation problem it was in fact an ignorance of how to use new equipment problem.

Thanks Barry for pointing that out.

[Barry]

Awesome mate, so what's it measuring now? How different pre and post calculator?

In my opinion hydrometer not wasteful at all, gives you an excuse to taste test (which you should always do at all stages as frequently as possible).

[Cain Harland]

Was supposed to be OG 1.055 FG 1.011 according to beer tools pro.

Opposite 1.055 on the refractometer is opposite 14 brix %

Current reading is 6 brix % or 1.025.

According to the calculator with 14 and 6 gives me a Current Gravity of 1.003.

I couldn't take a OG reading but I think its fairly safe to say with grain spilled on my deck and wort spilled on my driveway there is no way I made the 1.055/14 .

If I drop OG back to 11 or 12 brix % for the calculation then I get reasonable numbers for FG and ABV

Its all a guess with out that OG.

Its a pity I don't have a hydrometer for this one because I could work out a lot more if I could measure current brix and gravity.

Will just have to larger, bottle and find out how bad it is in a couple of months.

[Cain Harland]

By reasonable numbers. 12 brix gives me an OG of 1.048. Which accounts for about 1/2kg grain loss. And gives me a current gravity of 1.009 and and ABV of 5.1%. So will be a bit thin and over hopped but hopefully drinkable.

[Peter Smith]

http://vimeo.com/59712178      interesting video from a german home brewer on how to make home brew german lagers..   he is relaxed with a high temp diacetyl rest.   Some good stuff on ph adjustment.