Need help composing recipes for my next few brews.

[Fifey]

After a few weeks hiatus, where we got sick of bottle cleaning and bottling (seemed to take up a day every weekend, and we'd still end up having to go back during the week and finish off stuff), with the good weather we are back brewing. After cutting our teeth on winter lagers we are keen on putting that experience to some good ales.

So first up is Wassa's Honey Porter with Wyeast 1084 - Irish Ale. Got all the bits except for the yeast, need to order it in which I want to do next week.

After that's done, or in the fridge conditioning at least, we want to do our next batch of bitter from a black rock kit. We want this to be a bit special (pun not intended), a dark amber best or ESB with 1187 or 1275 as per Bullfrog's suggestion. I want to add some spec grains, but I'm both still very new to grains and English ales I haven't tried all that big a range of either so I'm not sure what's appropriate. As for hops should I grab UK Goldings pellets or NZ Styrian flowers, bearing in mind that I also want to use Goldings in my Belgian? Or should I just pick up something else?

At the same time I should have a new fermenter that my other mate will be bringing down from Beerbelly when he comes back from uni. In it shall be brewed a Pale Ale from a cascade kit. I want a good summer sesh beer. I've had a look around at recipes on the forum, but I'm still unsure as to what recipe I should use. We've got some cascade flowers for the Porter I don't know my way around hops yet either.

That leaves only a Cascy draught can in the cupboard. I'm not sure what to do with this. Another summer sesh brew? Maybe build it up into a stout? I want to build up a stout or two like that or with LDME at some stage. Finally, but a much lower priority, while the weather is reasonable I'd like to try out a 10-12L wheatbeer in one of our 15L cubes.

[bullfrog]

The ESB you'd like to do, I'd say you should throw some crystal in there, and if you want a bit of colour then maybe add a small amount of choc grain. The crystal will add a caramel-ish flavour to the brew and can be quite sweet, so if you decide to use any amount over, say, 200g then you'll want to do a hop boil (as opposed to just throwing them in for aroma) to balance out the extra sweetness with a touch more bitterness. Only use about 50g of the choc malt, if you decide to go that way. Choc can be pretty astringent and also adds a LOT of darkness to the brew's colour. You only want a touch of both the flavour and colour characteristics of this malt so that's why the low quantity.

Oh, and hops for the ESB, I love East Kent Goldings (EKG) in my English Bitters but there are plenty of other good English hops. I've heard that NZ-grown English hops taste hugely different to the proper UK-grown article, so maybe stick with the real deal. Never used the NZ stuff myself, however, so this last bit of advice should be taken with a grain of salt -- could be entirely incorrect.

Cascade will go wonderfully in a Summer-ish type brew. If you like commercial beers like Fat Yak or James Squire Golden Ale, then there's a crap-load of recipes around that you can find. Somewhere there's a kits'n'bits recipe for the famed Dr Smurto Golden Ale so maybe do a quick Google search for that.

[Fifey]

Ah good, thank you. I was leaning towards the EKG because of the Belgian I want to do, that settles it for sure.

Good tips on the malt too, I'm glad you suggested choc as I can use the rest in stout(s) later on.

I also googled Dr Smurto's Golden Ale, here's the kit & bits recipe I found:

KIT VERSION
1 can Thomas Coopers Sparkling Ale
1 can Coopers Wheat Malt
250g Caramalt (or other light crystal)
15g Amarillo @ 15, 5 and dry hop.
Yeast - US05

Sounds bloody nice!

[RUM57L]

Ah good, thank you. I was leaning towards the EKG because of the Belgian I want to do, that settles it for sure.

Good tips on the malt too, I'm glad you suggested choc as I can use the rest in stout(s) later on.

I also googled Dr Smurto's Golden Ale, here's the kit & bits recipe I found:

KIT VERSION
1 can Thomas Coopers Sparkling Ale
1 can Coopers Wheat Malt
250g Caramalt (or other light crystal)
15g Amarillo @ 15, 5 and dry hop.
Yeast - US05

Sounds bloody nice!

I wouldnt mind giving that one a go either actually

[earle]

Ah good, thank you. I was leaning towards the EKG because of the Belgian I want to do, that settles it for sure.

Good tips on the malt too, I'm glad you suggested choc as I can use the rest in stout(s) later on.

I also googled Dr Smurto's Golden Ale, here's the kit & bits recipe I found:

KIT VERSION
1 can Thomas Coopers Sparkling Ale
1 can Coopers Wheat Malt
250g Caramalt (or other light crystal)
15g Amarillo @ 15, 5 and dry hop.
Yeast - US05

Sounds bloody nice!

This one gets a regular run at my place except with s-04. Light and refreshing and very easy to make, has a short boil.

I can only get the Sparkling Ale tin from Mackay (150km away) and its $18-19. Next batch I'm going to try with Coopers Pale Ale (the green tin). If figure once you add the wheat, caramalt and amarillo the kit is not providing that much flavour, going to give it a go anyway.

[drsmurto]

The main difference between the sparkling ale and the pale ale tins is the IBU.

Calcs based on 23L;
Sparkling Ale - 36 IBU
Pale Ale - 25 IBU

So if you can't get your hands on the sparkling ale the Draught would be better at 31 IBU

[RUM57L]

This one gets a regular run at my place except with s-04. Light and refreshing and very easy to make, has a short boil.

I can only get the Sparkling Ale tin from Mackay (150km away) and its $18-19. Next batch I'm going to try with Coopers Pale Ale (the green tin). If figure once you add the wheat, caramalt and amarillo the kit is not providing that much flavour, going to give it a go anyway.

Hi Earle,

What abv% do you normally get from the above recipe

[earle]

Doc, the draught is a bit darker so I was thinking the pale ale and up the hop bitterness a bit.

Rum, can't say for sure but beersmith estimates 3.73%. I know it's naughty but my hydrometer stays in the cupboard and only comes out for special occasions such as a high OG beer or if I'm using a yeast that I'm unfamiliar with. I sometimes have a bit if a fruit/vinegar fly problem so prefer to not use the tap until bottling.

[drsmurto]

Don't let colour worry you Earle, i have made the golden ale with very dark crystal malts pushing the golden up to amber. Give it a go sometime, caraaroma works well in a golden ale.

RUM - If you only top it to 20L you should get an OG of 1.048, an SG of ~1.014 giving you an abv of ~4.5%. Less beer but tastier beer.

[earle]

No worries Doc, I have some caraaroma and carabohemian so might give one of them a go next batch.Colour doesn't worry me, more for other people who think that anything darker than their toohey's blonde is stout. Stuff em though, their happy drinking their swill so I should just make beer that I like.

Comes out quite tasty at 23L too. When morgans wheat malt came in 1kg tins that was all I added to the kit as well as the crystal. Now morgans wheat extract comes in 1.5, same as coopers so this is the more flavoursome version.

[drsmurto]

Carabohemian is worthy of the much needed drooling emoticon, I have made a few golden ales using it and its delish!

[earle]

Will be a little while until I brew another GA but Carabo is a definite then. Got it with my last order from Craftbrewer but hadn't actually found a brew for it.

Fifey, sorry for the maybe derail of your thread. To bring it back on topic - you could probably use the cascade draught as a base for the above golden ale but in 23l it only has an IBU of 18 which is quite low to the Coopers Sparkling ale at 36 IBU. Amarillo is quite high AA% so you could use some additional to bring it up or you prefer to do the original recipe first. Somehting to think about anyway.

[Fifey]

Don't worry about the thread, it is all helpful in some way. I was thinking about using the GA recipe as written, and the draught can in a base for a stout. But then I could always just load the cascade can up with amarillo.

So what crystal malt should I grab for the bitter and GA? Just go with Caramalt or is there something a bit different that would happen to suit both?

And for the choc, standard or pale?

[earle]

I would just get some light crystal. Its whats in the GA recipe above and would also suit a bitter. Once you have tried it you can repeat the recipes with caramalt, caraaroma .... to see the difference.

For a choc malt I usually use carafa special, its like chocolate malt but dehusked to make it smoother in taste. Be aware that choc malts are bitter, not really like chocolate that you eat.

Why not load the cascade can up with cascade, another very popular hop you should try if you haven't already.

[RUM57L]

Thanks Doc / Earle,

When using grains whats the preferred way to steep for this recipe, i've never used them before

[earle]

The method I use depends on how much grain I'm steeping.

For up to about 150g I use a one litre ss thermos. Tip grain in, fill up with water at about 70C (I put 700ml boiling water in a jug, top up to 1L mark with tap water to approximate this temp). Leave for about an hour. Strain into boil pot through stocking in collander. Gentle pour another 2L of 70C water through to rinse grain. Drain. End up with 3L liquor in pot for boil.

For larger amounts of grain I put it into stocking/s. Add say 3L water at 70C and keep at that temp for 45-60min using low heat. For this you need a thermometer of course. I also put a cake rack in bottom of pot to prevent scorching of grain/stocking. Lift stockings into collander and rinse with a few more litres at 70C. Drain. End up with say 6L in pot.

The stockings I'm talking about are the short ones that go to the shin. Don't wear them but boil them to remove any excess dye etc.

Once you have your liquor in the pot you need to boil it to kill any nasties.

To figure out how much malt extract to add use the following formula

Malt in boil = Total malt / batch size x boil size.
eg If using a 1.7kg kit and 1.5 kilo liquid extract, 3L boil - 3.2/23x6=835g of malt extract in boil.
Technically you should take the steeped grain into account but in practice this works fine and is simpler.

Tip this malt in, stir, bring to the boil and then you can start adding you hops.
About a minute before the end of the boil pop the lid on so the steam can kill any nasties.
At the end of the boil pop the pot in the sink full of cold water (and ice) to cool your wort.
You want it cool before you tip into the fermenter to prevent aerating the hot wort which can lead to oxidation.

Hope this helps

Edit:spellink

[RUM57L]

helps very much, as always Earle!

[Fifey]

The bloody cheque from my old work hasn't arrived yet, bit annoyed. I reckon I'll just grab a packet of dry yeast and do a Pale Ale with some Cascade that I have on hand.

[Fifey]

Wassa's Honey Porter has 1kg of DDME. The Belgian has 2.3kg of LDME. I've also got some Carafa spec II and some black grain. Would it be a good idea to sub some of the DDME in Wassa's Honey Porter for some Carafa to free up a bit of DDME for the Belgian? I'm not happy with the variety of malt in the Belgian recipe, it's just LDME, 50g of black grain and various sugar fermentables (brown sugar and honey, though I've got some candi syrup to sub the sugar with).

[drsmurto]

Wassa's Honey Porter has 1kg of DDME. The Belgian has 2.3kg of LDME. I've also got some Carafa spec II and some black grain. Would it be a good idea to sub some of the DDME in Wassa's Honey Porter for some Carafa to free up a bit of DDME for the Belgian? I'm not happy with the variety of malt in the Belgian recipe, it's just LDME, 50g of black grain and various sugar fermentables (brown sugar and honey, though I've got some candi syrup to sub the sugar with).

I wouldnt put any DDME in a belgian so no.

The key to a good belgian is the yeast. Make sure you have a belgian yeast.