PPOT homebrew thread. BEER!

[Shuie]

This is getting no traction at the other guitar and car forums I'm on, so I figured I'd post it here. It's my first partial grain/extract attempt, and I need to keg it this week. Any advice or feedback is appreciated. If it doesn't suck, I'll post a killer chili recipe to go with it for football season

Originally Posted by shuie

Does anyone have suggestions for a recipe that will get me close to Tilburg's Dutch Brown Ale? I guess it's Newcastle'ish, but it has A LOT more going on.

TIA

FWIW, here is what I have in the fermenter right now:

Grains:
2lbs - Pale Ale Euro, cracked
1lb - CL60, cracked
8oz - Chocolate, cracked
a negligible 0.85 oz of Roasted Barley, cracked
4oz - Carapils

Steeped grains for 1hr @ 150-160 degrees

added extract - 3lbs Gold Light DME, 3lbs unhopped amber LME and boiled for 1hr total
-@15 minutes I added ~1/2 of a 1oz package of Cluster pellet hops 7.9% AA
-@45 minutes I grated maybe 1/2 tbsp of orange peel into the wort for aroma and added 1/2 tbsp of irish moss

added Wyeast 1007 liquid German Ale Yeast to the wort after everything was chilled.

[Racerbvd]

I offer my serice as official taster......

[nynor]

first impressions:

steeping your grains for an hour is unnecessary. all of the grains you buy anymore, with few exceptions, are very very modified. all your conversion has already occurred, at the temperatures you mentioned, within 30 minutes.

using liquid malt extract pretty much insures that your brew will be overly sweet and removes your ability to control the sweetness/caramel character. this is due to the process in making liquid malt extract. you are much better off using straight dry malt, if you are using malt extract, and trusting your use of the caramel malts.

while brown ales would probably be more common using an english style yeast, i see this is dutch. your use of german ale yeast is intriguing and will tend to make the beer cleaner than it otherwise would be. wyeast is a good product, for sure, and is what i use.

i'd drink this beer. i think it is going to be on the sweet side, but maybe that is what you are shooting for, as i have not had the privilege of drinking the target beer.

[TimT]

This is a nice Brown Ale, in the vein of Newcastle.. I've never tried Dutch Brown Ale..

2-1/4 # Pale Malt
1/4# Wheat Malt
1/4# Roasted Barley
1/4# 80* Crystal Malt

Mash this for 1 hour @ 150 in a gallon of water..sparge after an hour with another gallon of water @ 172 adjust volume of water in kettle to 5-1/2 gal..

Add

1/4# Brown Sugar
2-1/2# Light DME

Start your boil

Add 1 oz. Fuggles at boil...and another 1 oz fuggles at 45 minutes

Boil for 1-1/2 hours... add Irish Moss

Chill wort, and pitch yeast.. Wyeast 1028 is good. 1084 works well also

Ferment for a week between 65-75 deg.. transfer to secondary for as long as you like... the longer it sits in secondary the clearer the beer will be..

Bottle

Enjoy

Burp

[TimT]

You can easily check for conversion using iodine...at least in light or pale mashes...

[nynor]

Originally Posted by TimT

You can easily check for conversion using iodine...at least in light or pale mashes...

yep. a little iodine and an eye dropper.

[nynor]

keep in mind that with the german ale yeast, you can ferment cooler than with other ale yeasts, lending a cleaner beer, or at proper ale temperatures for more ester production.

[stuartj]

Remember- cleanliness is next to godliness.

One stinking germ.....

[svandamme]

can't be arsed to home brew, i just went to Westvleteren last week and got me a crate of Abt 12 straight from the gates of the abbey

[TimT]

This is a 10 gal RIMS system I made for a friend of mine.. Whole grain brewing is nice, but it takes up a lot of real estate.. I prefer partial grain/extract brewing myself, having done whole grain brewing for awhile...

I like using Alexanders Pale Malt extract as a base and mashing the other half of the kettle with grains.. Alexanders is apparently the most transparent extract out there...works very well in partial mash recipes..

To hot to brew now though... even though I have a root cellar I can Lager in... the boils are to hot..

links:

http://www.riptidebrewery.com/ji00002.htm

http://www.riptidebrewery.com/ji00003.htm

[nynor]

i like your setup, timt. VERY nice.

[Tim Walsh]

Originally Posted by TimT

This is a 10 gal RIMS system I made for a friend of mine.. Whole grain brewing is nice, but it takes up a lot of real estate.. I prefer partial grain/extract brewing myself, having done whole grain brewing for awhile...

I like using Alexanders Pale Malt extract as a base and mashing the other half of the kettle with grains.. Alexanders is apparently the most transparent extract out there...works very well in partial mash recipes..

To hot to brew now though... even though I have a root cellar I can Lager in... the boils are to hot..

links:

http://www.riptidebrewery.com/ji00002.htm

http://www.riptidebrewery.com/ji00003.htm

Very nice setup.

I currently do 2.5 all grain batches on the stove. It works well since I don't have to worry about the weather. Next time I brew I'll take some pictures. Just bottled an Imperial IPA and 2 pale ales for the 24 hours of lemons crew.



I've only done one steeped grain extract batch and it came out ok(second batch ever) Steeping grains is more for the color/flavor. Your "mash" is REALLY thick(0.75Q/lb) if you're looking to get fermentables out of it.

[red-beard]

It's too hot to ferment here, without a fermenting refrigerator. I used to use Wyeast 1028 and would over pitch into a "used" fermeter. I was brewing every week then and I ran a 3 week cycle. 1 week in "primary" and then 2 weeks in a secondary. Then, off to a corny keg for chilling and forced carbonation.

For what you are attempting, I would use Wyeast 1214. With the 60CL crystal, I'd drop the carapils in the future. And ferment around 72-75 F, to allow more esters to form, since you are going for a more estery profile.

[trekkor]

Wow! Total flashback, dude.


I haven't brewed any beer in over 15 years.

My favorite was a pale ale that I added sliced tangerines into the boil.
It had a sort of Gran Marnier aftertaste. Yum!


KT

[nynor]

Originally Posted by red-beard

It's too hot to ferment here, without a fermenting refrigerator. I used to use Wyeast 1028 and would over pitch into a "used" fermeter. I was brewing every week then and I ran a 3 week cycle. 1 week in "primary" and then 2 weeks in a secondary. Then, off to a corny keg for chilling and forced carbonation.

For what you are attempting, I would use Wyeast 1214. With the 60CL crystal, I'd drop the carapils in the future. And ferment around 72-75 F, to allow more esters to form, since you are going for a more estery profile.

if you get a saison yeast from wyeast, you can brew clean, good tasting beer at fermentation temperatures well into the 80's F.

the carapils, especially at the amount the OP added, will lend body to the beer to balance the high alcohol content. an easier way, maybe not better, is to add a small amount of maltodextrin.

[Shuie]

Thanks, guys. I really appreciate the feedback.

I really wanted to do use light extract and to get all of the flavor from the grains. My homebrew shop only had 3lbs of the light extract, tho, so I went with the amber LME since it was the next lightest option. The German ale yeast also wasn't my first choice, but that's what the shop had, so I used it. The Carapils and Spanish Moss were suggestions from the homebrew shop. The Orange peel was unplanned. I was actually getting ready to eat the orange towards the end of the boil, and it just smelled right, so I threw it in the pot since I had no aroma hops.

I used hops sparingly. I don't hate bitter hoppy beer, but I really didn't want this to be to hoppy at all. I added up to about half of the pack of hops during the boil, based on the smell I was getting. The homebrew shop guy told me I could add the rest in the secondary fermenter if I wanted to.

I also never racked this to a secondary fermenter. I was told the Spanish Moss would help clear it. I'm not comfortable with the siphoning or handling secondary carboys yet, so I just decided to leave it in the primary for 3 weeks, and then keg.

[TimT]

I was told the Spanish Moss would help clear it

Sure it wasn't Irish moss? never heard of Spanish moss used in a brew?

I did full grain brews for years, the went back to partial mash brews.. i.e. using an extract like DME or a high quality liquid like Alexanders, for half the kettle, and whole grains for flavor color etc... Again I went back to partials because of the reduced footprint... The 10 gal RIMS i made had to be used out side, and 10 gallons is a lot of beer to bottle. So I now do 5 gal partials in my kitchen..

I used to have a link to a calculator where you can convert full grain recipes into partials and vice versa.. I'll see if I can find it..

[nynor]

leaving it in the primary for three weeks is not going to hurt it, unless the temps are really high.

this is a good recipe tool:

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator

i think there are one or two recipes from me in there somewhere.

[Shuie]

Originally Posted by TimT

Sure it wasn't Irish moss? never heard of Spanish moss used in a brew?

Yes, irish moss. Synaptic misfire

Originally Posted by nynor

leaving it in the primary for three weeks is not going to hurt it, unless the temps are really high.

I don't know what my temp is, but I think it's probably okay. My fermenter is sitting on a cool slab of concrete in a coat closet. I can't imagine it's getting any warmer than ~72-74F during the day.

[nynor]

Originally Posted by Shuie

Yes, irish moss. Synaptic misfire




I don't know what my temp is, but I think it's probably okay. My fermenter is sitting on a cool slab of concrete in a coat closet. I can't imagine it's getting any warmer than ~72-74F during the day.

yeah, you are fine. i'd be careful about letting it sit much longer than that, however. the yeast may start to autolyze, leave your beer tasting odd, proteiny, and have a slimy mouth feel.

synaptic misfires come with homebrewing!