SOBA NHC 2015 RECIPES.

[Crusader-Rob]

HI Everyone, In keeping with tradition on this site, every year after the NHC, people will shara and post some of their winning recipes for people to learn and get inspired etc.

so without further delay, one of my recipes below, which is also one of my wedding beer tests.

Empire of Gold - Designed as a Lager/pilsenr type beer,witha quicker turn aorund using US-05.

21 litres at 75% efficiency

1.054-1.012

4.4kg pilsner

0.24kg gladiator

0.16 acidulated malt

0.1kg aurora.

all gladfield malts.

60min-8g pacific jade

30min- 25g motueka

10min- 25g motueka

5 min- 25g riwaka

0min- 35g kohatu

US-05 fermented at the lower end. started at 16c and rose periodically, finishing at 20c

kegged and fined with gelatin. Notes suggested slightly too bitter and too sweet, bitterneds is all those later hops, and pacific jade can be quite bold as a bittering hop.

the sweetness i believe is from the riwaka, giving it a raro type flavour to some extent.

basically a less crisp pilsner.

[oliver]

Flanders Red:

Based on the recipe in brewing classic styles.

OG: 1.056
FG: 1.008

IBU: 12 (tinseth)

ABV: ~6.3%
25-27L Batch
Brew day: 3/6/2013

5Kg Gladfield Pils
1Kg Gladfield Vienna
1Kg Gladfield Munich
500g Carapils
300g Gladfields Wheat
250g Gladfields Aromatic
250g Belgian Aromatic
250g Caramunich II
250g Special B

100g Maltodextrin

10g Southern Cross (12% AA) 60min

US-05
Wyeast 3763 - Roeselare Blend
Bottle Dregs of your choice (e.g. Cantillon).

20g european oak cubes (light toast)

Given it was 2 years ago and I'd only just started brewing all grain, my notes are a bit sparse. Here's what I could find/remember:

Colour wasn't quite as dark as I would have liked, racked some dark wort into it a bit down the track to get it up to a nice deep ruby red.

I like to brew at least 25L on brewday so I can fill a 23L carboy right up to the neck in primary/secondary. Sometimes I'll do the primary in a 23L carboy + a 4.5L demi-john, use the demi-john the top up the fermenter once the yeast has settled down.

Mashed at 70 deg C (1 hour?)
Christchurch water, no adjustments

Boil:
90min+
10g Southern Cross (12% AA) 60min

Primary (6 months):
Aerated cooled wort normally.
1/2 pack US-05 rehydrated
Funky Slurry (courtesy of Douglas) (originally roeselare blend + cantillon dregs)

29/12/13:

Secondary (16 months):
Racked to secondary on top of some dark wort for colour adjustment. Added oak cubes, 100g Maltodextrin and yeast nutrient.
I used the wardrobe in the spare bedroom of our flat for all my sours, this room got almost no direct sunlight so was the coolest/steadiest room in the house temperature wise.

1/9/14:
Gravity: 1.008, added some of the blend from our Chch barrel brew (dregs from several homebrew flanders bottles + RR beatification). 

9/4/15:
Racked 4.5L into a demi-john for future blending.

Bottled the rest ~17L with 140g table sugar.

Rehydrated CBC-1 for bottling.

So it was close to 2 years in fermentation + 6 months in the bottle by the time it was judged.

When it was young in the bottle it had kind of a buttery / ethyl-lactate type flavour + aroma. This seemed to drop off after a few months. 

I left it in the fermenter for so long because I believed it wasn't sour and complex enough. I pretty quickly learned that the perception of these beers changes a lot when you add some CO2 into the mix, it helps to lift the aroma and increase the perceived acidity. I think it's quite aggressive for the style, but if you like aggressive sour beers then adding some dregs can really help. 

The main thing I'd improve in this beer would be to try and boost the mouthfeel and general malt backbone. I've recently put down a bigger, darker version using only fresh roeselare in primary. I'm hoping the bigger OG will give more residual body + mouthfeel (as well as a different grain bill). If the fresh roeselare doesn't produce the acidity I'm after, my plan is to blend with some more aggressive batches.

Anyway, I hope my crazy kitchen sink attempt at a flanders inspires someone to give it a go ;). Don't let anyone tell you that brewing sours is difficult, if you can make wort you can make sour beer :) Malt extract brews are great for sours too.

[oliver]

Flanders score sheet

[Sam DT]

Pohara NZ Pale Ale

I had a glass of emporium enigmatic the day before and thought I'd aim for something similar but with NZ hops. I use NS and Mot as the base for my NZ Pils, but figured I'd add some Cascade for more of a grapefruit hit. I actually did the mash as a double and used the other half of the wort for a Citra PA which picked up a bronze - might post that later if I get time.

Fermented at 18 degrees for first five days and then ramped to 21, ended up splitting the dry hop in half adding for 7 and four days. Cold crashed for a couple of days, kegged and hit with gelatin. All up a 17 day turn around as I got started a week late, would have been four weeks grain to glass on judging day - sheet attached.

The water additions work out to be 4g CaCl, 6g Gypsum, 6g Epsom with Christchurch water.

Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 24.50 l
Boil Size: 32.06 l
Boil Time: 90 min
End of Boil Vol: 27.56 l
Final Bottling Vol: 22.00 l
Equipment: BIAB Setup
Efficiency: 76.00 %

Recipe 

Water: Christchurch NZ 35.00 l
Gladfield American Ale Malt (5.0 EBC) 4.50 kg
Gladfield Wheat Malt (4.2 EBC) 0.40 kg
Gladfield Gladiator Malt (10.0 EBC) 0.20 kg
Gladfield Light Crystal Malt (63.0 EBC) 0.20 kg
Gladfield Sour Grapes Malt (4.0 EBC) 0.20 kg

Nelson Sauvin [11.10 %] - Boil 60.0 min 16.00 g
Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins) 0.50 Items
Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min 20.00 g
Motueka [6.70 %] - Boil 15.0 min 20.00 g
Nelson Sauvin [11.60 %] - Boil 15.0 min 5.00 g
Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min 20.00 g
Motueka [6.70 %] - Boil 5.0 min 20.00 g
Nelson Sauvin [11.60 %] - Boil 5.0 min 5.00 g
Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min 20.00 g
Motueka [6.70 %] - Boil 0.0 min 20.00 g
Nelson Sauvin [11.60 %] - Boil 0.0 min 5.00 g

US West Coast Yeast (Mangrove Jack's #M44) 2.0 pkg (Rehydrated)

Cascade [5.50 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days 40.00 g
Motueka [6.70 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days 40.00 g 
Nelson Sauvin [11.10 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days 20.00 g

Gravity, Alcohol Content and Color
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.1 %
Bitterness: 39.4 IBUs
Measured Original Gravity: 1.052 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.013 SG

Mash & Water Profile
Mash Name: BIAB, Medium Body - 66.7 Degrees C for 60 minutes
Mash out at 75
Mash pH 5.3
Ca: 85 ppm
Cl: 60 ppm
SO4: 175 ppm

[David M]

Congrats, great result and thanks for posting the recipe. 
Post flameout are you chilling immediately or doing a stand/whirpool delay?
What chiller are you using (immersion or counter flow)?

Cheers

Dave

[Sam DT]

Cheers no worries. Just a plain old copper immersion chiller cooling as fast as I can. I give it a good stir to get a whirlpool going and repeat every 3-5 minutes to keep things moving. Takes me about 30 minutes to get down to pitch temp.

No special tricks, I'm still brewing on a pot wedged into the top of my barbecue :D

[Sam DT]

I picked up a Bronze for my attempt at a Liberty C!tra clone as well - recipe, score sheet and commentary in the clone brews group.

[Tilt]

Congrats on the gold Sam - looks a tasty recipe and its great to see an all Gladfields grist, something which is getting easier and easier to do given their expanding product line. 

I'm curious about the size of your Epsom salts addition (which looks large by my Auckland water standards).  Does Chch water have very little Mg?  

[Sam DT]

Cheers stoked eh, yeah we're lucky to have the full range on hand down here in Christchurch, big fan of the American Ale as a base malt especially.

Yeah we don't have a lot of anything in the water down here mg runs at 1.5 ppm so my standard 4g Cacl, 6g Epsom, 6g Gypsum gets me into the 20 ppm range which according to palmer is mid range. To be honest I haven't paid much attention to magnesium (apart from keeping it in range), my main driver was to get the SO4 up towards 180 which is recommended for hoppier beers.

The CaCl is there in part to further boost Ca but also because in my NZ pils I had a bit of soapiness coming through - apparently CaCl helps eliminate this in hoppier beers (and seems to have done for me). It was only in my NZ Pils that I noticed the soap but I use the same water profile for all my beers (mainly hoppy NZ / West coast style) and to be fair NZ Pils is probably closer to a pale ale than a traditional pils with the amount of hops you need to get that NZ style hit. Also helps to keep the Cl/SO4 ration in check. - EZ water sheet attached.

[Tilt]

Makes sense with the clean slate brewing water you're starting with.  As you say - not much of anything in that base profile - perfect for pilseners in fact.

Its interesting you say adding the Chloride from CaCl has reduced the soapiness.  I'd definitely vouch for it giving a hand to a fuller malt body, and (in theory as I haven't studied it in depth) happier yeast with the Ca it contributes. 

Thanks again for sharing your recipe - and be prepared for more questions on your process because that's where the champion beers are made or broken. 

[Dan]

Hi Rob

Out of interest, what style did you enter this as and how did it go? Looks similar to my NZ pils recipe, only I use Bohemian Lager Yeast.  I wasnt sure weahter an "NZ lager" would do too well if entered as a Bohemian Pils Style.

[Crusader-Rob]

I entered as a Blonde ale. As I used US-05 yeast, which is ale yeast for fermentation, and it wasn't quite as crisp as it could have been, had i used a lager yeast.

While fermenting lower with US-05 will dicatate a cleaner more crisp profile in most cases, it certainly doesn't stack up for a true pilsner or lager.

but as a quick turn around easy drinking summer beer, its perfect.

1.054 to 1.012 not bad.

[Scott Lyon]

Hi everyone, I had some luck this year, and happy to share the recipes.

Style: Wee Heavy
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 36.28 l
Post Boil Volume: 33.28 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 27.00 l
Bottling Volume: 23.00 l
Estimated OG: 1.072 SG
Estimated Color: 41.1 EBC
Estimated IBU: 20.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 85.3 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------

5.00 kg Pale Malt, Golden Promise (Thomas Fawcet Grain 1 57.4 %
2.00 kg Gladfield Ale Malt (6.0 EBC) Grain 2 23.0 %
0.50 kg Gladfield Gladiator Malt (10.0 EBC) Grain 3 5.7 %
0.50 kg Gladfield Light Crystal Malt (63.0 EBC) Grain 4 5.7 %
0.35 kg Gladfield Aurora Malt (58.0 EBC) Grain 5 4.0 %
0.24 kg Special B Malt (354.6 EBC) Grain 6 2.8 %
0.12 kg Gladfield Roast Barley (1450.0 EBC) Grain 7 1.3 %
23.00 g Pacific Jade [13.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 20.9 IBUs
1 pkg Windsor Yeast 
French Oak Chips med toast (boil for 30 min in 1 litre water to make tea, add to taste at kegging)

Mash  68.0 C for 60 min @ 5.2 pH, boil hard for 60 min, 24 l @ 1:067 into fermenter

Notes: Can finish at 1.025-30 (its not stuck), and will taste bad out of the fermenter, needs some time to age. Seemed to change everytime you drink one.

Also did a Timmy Taylors landlord clone that went down well, although, I tasted a bottle of it the same day as the NHC and it had lost its omph a bit. It had been the bottom of the keg when bottled and then sat in the fridge for 2-3 months. When it was fresh this was a lovely beer, and so simple to make, I think the yeast is vital for this one. If I would change anything I would use some Goldings and Fuggles hops as well as just styrian goldings but in the same amount/IBUs

Style: Special/Best/Premium Bitter

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 55.92 l
Post Boil Volume: 49.92 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 44.00 l
Bottling Volume: 38.00 l
Estimated OG: 1.044 SG
Estimated Color: 11.6 EBC
Estimated IBU: 29.6 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 81.8 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------

8.00 kg Golden Promise (Simpsons) (3.9 EBC) Grain 1 97.3 %
0.22 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (236.4 EBC) Grain 2 2.7 %
100.00 g Styrian Goldings [4.40 %] - Boil 60.0 mi Hop 3 25.9 IBUs
40.00 g Styrian Goldings [4.40 %] - Boil 10.0 mi Hop 4 3.8 IBUs
1.0 pkg West Yorkshire Ale (Wyeast Labs #1469) Yeast 5 -
60.00 g Styrian Goldings [4.40 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Hop 6 0.0 IBUs

Mash 75.4 C 65.6 C for75 min

Sparge: Fly sparge with 42.91 l water at 75.6 C
Notes:
------
Acidifiy all liquer to 5.4 pH