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...

[Mark Weusten]

Hey Sam, if you are not step mashing a pils, what temp is best? I was going to go for 66c, then mash out for 10 at 75c........

[Sam DT]

From what I've read anywhere from 64 - 66 seems acceptable, I guess it depends how much body / sweetness you want left. I'd probably gun for 65. A lost of the US brewers talk about 148F which is a touch over 64 but that might be getting a little thin? Probably depends on how many IBUs your targeting as well.

Mine have another two weeks lagering but will post an update once they're carbed up and drinking - may even throw a few in for the beerfest comp for a bit of feedback if they turn out ok.

On the first one I added a couple of extra liters of cold water during the mash as I overshot my temps slightly - ended up boiling it off with an extra 20 min at the start of the boil but that combined with my thin pot ended up caramelizing it to the point it's not far off a pale ale in colour. Toned back the boil on the third batch (second one has so much ale malt it was quite dark anyway) - will be interesting to see if it's left me with any DMS issues.

[Peter Smith]

Pilsner Urquell Brew Off in London. Brewmaster Vaclav Berka was there to show six teams how to make a Pilsner-style beer using Pilsner malt, Czech Saaz hops, soft water and Pilsner yeast. The teams could then choose from a range of different malts and hops to create a new recipe for their beer.

After brewing, the beers were transferred to London Beer Lab who looked after the brews through fermentation and into the bottles, which were wrapped in bespoke labels. Then, six weeks after the brewday, everyone returned to the White Horse for the beers to be tasted and judged, where one beer would be championed as the best.

The judging process worked in two stages. The first was a public vote where everyone at the event could taste the six beers and choose their one favourite. The three beers with the most votes were then judged by Vaclav Berka, Greg Tucker and Mark Dredge, who together selected the one winning beer.

All the beers were excellent and varied greatly from classic-tasting Czech Pilsners, to a lemony Pilsner brewed with some oats, and even a deep brown Pilsner.

The winning beer, called Soundbite and brewed by the team from the Strongroom, a tankovna pub in East London, was a clean and refreshing Pilsner with a great hoppy, fruity flavour thanks to the use of Czech Kazbek hops. This is now going to be brewed byWindsor & Eton Brewery and will first be on sale at the White Horse’s European Beer Festival from 12 September.

For us, the Brew Off was a great way to be able to talk about Pilsner beers and to show others how to make them. There are very many different Pilsners in the world but we were the original one and have a lot of expertise which we want to share. The teams got to learn all about Pilsner Urquell and how we brew them but they also got to understand different brewing processes and different ingredients and how they come to influence the taste of different beers.

The gallery of images here let’s you see what the event was like. Below is some information about the six different beers. And don’t miss trying this one-off brew at the White Horse’s European Beer Festival.

The Six Brew Off Beers

Soundbite
Malt: Pilsner, Lager, Munich, Cara
Hops: Saaz, Kazbek
ABV: 4.8%
A classic Pilsner with the Czech Kazbek hops giving a great citrus aroma

Citron
Malt: Pilsner, Lager, Oats
Hops: Saaz, Kazbek, Galaxy
ABV: 4.6%
Oats gave the beer a fuller body while the hops had a lemony quality, hence the beer’s name

Czech Please
Malt: Pilsner, Lager, Munich, Melanoidin
Hops: Saaz, Tettnang, Kazbek
ABV: 5.2%
A German-Czech hybrid that was subtly sweet with a dry, spicy bitterness

Velvet Pilsner
Malt: Pilsner, Lager, Munich, Melanoidin
Hops: Saaz, Agnus, Kazbek
ABV: 5.0%
The modern Czech hops gave this one a fresh and fragrantly citrus aroma

Pegasus Pilz
Malt: Pilsner, Lager, Melanoidin
Hops: Saaz, Kazbek
ABV: 4.8%
A great pale Pilsner that was refreshing, dry and aromatic with hops

Another Fine Mash
Malt: Pilsner, Lager, Munich, Carafa
Hops: Saaz, Kazbek, Galaxy
ABV: 5.7%
A strong, darker beer with a hint of cocoa and spice

http://youtu.be/bR9_ZcbeZBM

winning recipe 

[Chris]

Looking for a sanity check on a chili beer I want to try (never made a chili beer before)

All-grain recipe, 5.25-gallon batch size
Original gravity: 1.068
Final gravity: 1.010
Alcohol by volume: 7.7 percent 

5 kg Briess two-row malt
500g Briess White Wheat
500g Munich malt
500g Vienna malt
150g Crystal 20L
10g Pacific Jade pellets (17.2 percent AA)—first wort, 60-plus minutes
20g Cascade hop pellets (7 percent AA), 60 minutes
10g Riwaka hop pellets (6.5 percent AA), 15 minutes
20g Riwaka hop pellets (6.5 percent AA), 5 minutes
10g Citra Hop pellets (13.4 percent AA), flameout
10g Citra Hop pellets—dry-hop, seven days
10g Cascade hop pellets—dry-hop, seven days
1 habañero chili pepper (Roasted and then sterilized in vodka;Add to secondary)
2 pkts Safeale US-05.

I really need to buy beersmith doing this in wordpad is hard lol.

Anyone have experience with balancing the chili?

[Samuel Loader]

Hi Chris, 

when I make chili beers I try to make sure that I get the flavour of chili not just the hotness this which can happen when you are just adding a tincture to the secondary maybe de-seed some and make a second tincture to add in combination you might get more flavour, also the chili oil will kill the head retention of your beer so I suggest adding a foam stabilising grain like carapils or gladfield gladiator.  

[Chris]

Yeah I was wondering about flavour vs hotness and balancing that with the hops etc.

I guess the only thing left to do is experiment thanks for the tidbit.

[Crusader-Rob]

Hey,
Anyone made this? http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2012/06/dank-amber-ipa-rebrew.... 
Looks pretty good. I actually thought about making it more Vindicator like. using Chinook Centennial and some Zythos (based on what panhead's bottle suggests)
Thoughts?

[Peter Smith]

Added half the 0 min hops at flameout, saved the rest for 15 minutes into the hop stand (when the wort had already cooled to 180 F). 30 minute rest total before I started chilling.

Interesting approach   I have been adding at 0 min then chilling until 68 then addding second hops with no chilling for 20 mins then chill to pitch...   I think you have to cut your 10 mins hops if you do this, he has in this recipe....  10 ml    HopShot (Extract) @ 60 min.
1.00 oz. Simcoe (Whole, 14.00% AA) @ 20 min.
2.50 oz. Nelson Sauvin (Pellet, 12.00% AA) @ 0 min.
2.00 oz. Columbus (Whole, 14.00% AA) @ 0 min.
1.00 oz. Simcoe (Whole, 14.00% AA) @ 0 min.

I tried  this on 3 versions of Deebles pale ale....found the super late hopping its hard to hit your ibu's consistantly over different batch even though you are pretty sure you are doing the same things....

Beersmith has issues here, I dont think it calcs both late hops and whirlpool on the same brew properly....

find that beers made with columbus/amarillo/cascade/ work better the nz hops for this style... dont know why...  I find it easier to make a US Pale ale then a NZ Pale ale... I have tasted a lot of oxidised bottles of us pale ale in nz, stopped buying bottles of hoppy beers recently, draft just seems better.

[Crusader-Rob]

Mty thoughts were along the lines of subbing the simcoe for chinook and the nelson for centennial, then zythos as the remaining. splittingthe  flameout in half for two hits of aroma. and the same in dryhop, adding in two separate stages.

[Cain Harland]

Hi peter what do you recon the difference between what you get out of a 20 vs a 10 min hop edition is? Ive been thinking I might put something earlier into my PAs. Also what difference from chilling to 68 before adding whirlpool hops?

[Peter Smith]

ok my thinking goes like this, in BeerSmith if you set a 0 min boil hop it says 0 IBU if you then set a 5 min whirlpool hop in the same batch it gives that, and only that hop an IBU rating, this cant be true if you added both at 0 mins....

steeping back if you add a 3min hop then whirlpool for 10 mins before cooling its not a 3min hop,  I dont think beersmith really allows you to set the whirlpool times correctly... it should recalc all +min hops as soon as you set a whirlpool tickbox and also ask about your cooling slope... at 68C you should not see many IBU's just aroma and possibliy some flavour.... the issue is that a 10 min whirlpool no cooling turnrs your 10min additions into perhaps 15-16mins etc if you do late big blast hoppijng then whirlpool be carefull you can end up with a bitter bomb unless they are low A wai-iti type hops.... debles pale ale is mainly last 10min blast, be carefull if then whirlpooling

[Cain Harland]

Beer tools pro also gives 0 IBU for flame out and post flame out additions which can't be right, even if you do start cooling right away, unless your chilling is instantaneous.