[Closed] Brewers of STW

I'be got a nice recipe for a double chocolate stout, loosely based on Saltaire Brewery's Triple Chocoholic (speaking of which I've just put a bottle in the fridge for Ron).
And a loverly London Porter recipe too, if that floats yer boat.

Not on the pc tonight so will post them both up tomorrow

Thks Peter, looks good.

Be good to see those recipes as well John, cheers - don't think I've ever brewed a stout, so keen to give it a whirl.

i did my brew day too - great fun! I'll post some pics / a long and boring story atthe weekend.

[b]Double Chocolate Stout[/b]
to make 23 litres at OG 1045 (to give 19 litres in the fermenter) so adjust your quantities as necessary. The nearest commercial beer to this is Saltaire Brewery Triple Chocoholic

3855g Pale Malt
568g Chocolate Malt
219g flasked oats
219g Torrified Wheat
110g Black Roasted Barley
110g Cocoa Powder (well I did say it was a Double Chocolate stout)
Mash at 68degC for 60 minutes

Boil for 90 minutes
44g Fuggles at 90 mins
11g Fuggles at 10 minutes
11g Fuggles at 0 minutes
Ferment at 20degC with Danstar Nottingham yeast rehydrated as per packet instructions

[b]London Porter[/b]
to make 27 litres at OG 1044 so adjust as necessary. I make 27 litres with 4 litres in the dead space below the tap, aiming to get 23 litres in the fermenter. Nearest commercial beer to this is Fullers London Porter

4467g Pale Malt
654g Brown Malt
347g Crystal 120
255g Chocolate Malt
127g Torrified Wheat
mash for 60 minutes at 67degC

Boil for 60 minutes
84g Fuggles at 60 minutes
26g Fuggles at 10 minutes

Ferment at 20degC with Danstar Nottingham yeast

110g Cocoa Powder (well I did say it was a Double Chocolate stout)

John, I've done a few chocolate stouts recently. The first one I did was using cocoa powder, but it didn't turn out as great as I expected. After a bit of digging I found that cacao is supposed to be a much better alternative for brewing than cocoa powder.

Managed to pick up a block of 100% madagascan black cacao from wholefoods and added that instead the next time I brewed the recipe...FANTASTIC! Well worth trying it next time you're trying something with chocolate.

My most recent one was experimenting with cacao nibs, soaked in dark rum for a few days before being added to secondary. It's still a bit young, but initial tastings have revealed a lovely, subtle chocolate layer.

sounds interesting, I'll give that a try next time I brew the Choc Stout

Do you find that these stouts can be on the sweet side? I guess that big maltiness is part and parcel of a stout, but it's not something I'd like to go OTT on. Prefer the minerally bitterness you can get with some of them.

mine isn't especially sweet, but boiling 44g of fuggles for 90 minutes will raise the bitterness level enough to offset the sweetness. You could up the amount of hop to increase the bitterness still further

Hey Peter, did you ever get your grainfather?

If anyone wants one i have one on order due in a couple of weeks that due to time constraints i won't be needing.

Interested NZCol, sent you a mail

Clobber, I was waiting for Col's review 🙂

Doh! Col, if clobber doesn't want that grainfather............

That grainfather looks awesome! Very easy.
I like their kegerator too

Just bottled my latest batch. American IPA 36 bottles at 6.3% ABV. Should be ready just in time for my 50th anniversary of entering this world. One thing to look forward to I suppose 😕

Sounds good Johndrummer. Hope it tastes great.

All: So my next step on this wonderful discovery, I have decided is to dry hop.

So I have a brew ready to bottle. it's nothing special, more of a clear out of stuff I had. It's BIAB using the basic massive brewery recipe, but using some crystal malt. So it's 2kg of Maris Otter, 500g of crystal malt. Goldings hops 16 g at 0 minutes and 34g at 55 minutes. Using Safale S-04.

So how do I dry hop it and with what and how much and how long?
I now have phoenix, amorillo, williamette, and goldings at my disposal in a flake style rather than pellet

I usually use decant from primary into a bottling bucket and add a sugar solution in mass rather than per bottle. Do I decant into a bottling bucket, add the hops in a hop bag, wait for a period of time, take the hops out then add the sugar solution etc.

All suggestions really appreciated. I'm guessing Peterfile is out winter climbing!

Normal practice is to rack it out of the secondary fermenter, once the dry hopping period is finished, into a bottling bucket containing your sugar solution and bottle from there.

It's true that there's very little detritus in the secondary, so I think it would prob be fine to bottle direct, in principle. You would need to take care with adding the sugar solution, though - that would take a very long time to mix thoroughly with the bulk beer just on standing, and trying to stir it in is something to be avoided. So I'd prob prime each bottle individually if I wanted to do this.

ah. So I could just stick a hop bag into the primary bucket and leave for a period of time (once primary fermentation has finsihed)? Then proceed as normal: racking into the bottling bucket ontop of the sugar solution?

Think I will go with 40g of Williamette for 3 days.

Does that sound o.k?

You could do that yeah - dry hopping the primary is a well known technique. Remember to sterilise the hop bag if you're using one.

Depends on what you think of the whole secondary fermenter idea in the first place. Helps to clarify the ale, and is claimed to benefit taste by getting shut of the yeast trub and associated break-down products. Some folk think that's bobbins, though, and never bother with them. Only way to know is to brew it yourself and draw your own conclusios.

Was at Brew dog's brewery yesterday, very impressive!
Luckily I was working, so now have money to spend on brew gear.
Guys there advised me about plastic pressure kegs, gonna try that put.

Getting a new central heating system next weekend, so emptying a cupboard currently taken up with water tanks so gonna build a brewery in there.

Hello Brewerists!

I got a few bits of gear and a Coopers IPA kit for my birthday. Got it all mixed and fermenting earlier this week and I'm now just waiting for the gravity to stabilise.

I work for a malt distilling company so I'm pretty knowledgable on the science of what's going on but need to learn the skills of doing it with home kit and also what boiling and hops is all about?!

Two questions from me:

1. I have a 23 litre fermenter but have just bought kit to do an all grain recipe and I'd like to keep it to 10 litres so I can experiment. Is it an issue NOT to fill the fermenter to the top? My logic - CO2 is more dense than air so will quickly displace the air and will perform as normal . . . thoughts?

2. How long do most people wait between mashing in and boiling? My logic would say that by boiling all of your first wort (or all your wort if not sparging) you'll be killing the enzymes and won't be converting all your carbohydrates, particularly dextrins so you're missing out on sugars. Maybe efficiency at this level isn't an issue in home brew?

Thanks and I'll keep you posted on my bottling and maturation of the Coopers kit . . . not expecting too much 😉 Just order ingredients for a St Austell Tribute 🙂

welcome to the fold teacake!

1. sticking 10 litres into a 23 litre FV for primary won't be too problematic since as you've said the Co2 will blanket the beer. Bigger problem if you were transferring it into an FV with loads of headspace for secondary etc. I wouldn't worry.

2. mash for an hour (although, I've read that conversion actually takes place in the first few minutes, so not quite sure why we mash for a whole hour, but it's pretty standard to do so). Then go straight from the end of your mash/sparge to boil temp. Even with no attempt to improve efficiency, it's easy enough to hit upwards of 70% efficiency using even BIAB, so at this level we're talking the difference of a few pence for each jump up in overall efficiency. I never worry about it.

Had the boiler in my flat replaced today.
Now have a whole new, empty cupboard where my water tanks used to be.
The copper hot water tank would actually have made a really good kettle!
Too big to handle brewing like that in a flat.

Plan is to make it into a brewery.
End goal is to have pressurised kegs in fridges feeding taps through the wall on the right (which is my kitchen)

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Well after a few kits since Christmas I did my first all grain brew yesterday.

The whole thing has escalated very quickly and thanks to the joy of Ebay "Collection Only" bargains I have far too many barrels and FV's already!

I picked my full AG kit for £70, only been used a couple of times and in excellent condition.

I got this recipe off the interweb, it's a St Peters Golden Ale clone, one of my favorites, so I hope it works out well.

Pale malt 4000g
Wheat malt 100g
Crystal malt 220g

Challenger hops 7.6%AA 34g @ 90 mins
Golding hops 4.6%AA 20g @ 10 mins
Golding hops 20g @ 0 mins

OG 1.048
Estimated FG: 1.011
Estimated ABV: 4.7%
Colour: 18 EBC
Bitterness: 30 IBU
Final Volume 23l

I came up a bit short with 20l at a OG 1046 so I need to tweak a few things.

It's hard work compared to using kits mind!

The beautiful smelling hops just before they went in the boiler.

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Sacling question: I have a recipe I want to do (Abbeydale Moonshine), but using the Massive Brewery kit. The recipe I have is for nearly 22l so I need to scale it down. How do I do this? Is it jsut scaling all ingredients down realtively? Or is it not (as I think it might well be)?

Recipe is:
Type: All Grain

Date: 23/12/2007
Batch Size: 19.00 L

Brewer: Troy H
Boil Size: 21.75 L
Boil Time: 60 min
E Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00
Ingredients
Amount Item Type % or IBU
3.50 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (Thomas Fawcett) (5.9 EBC) Grain 100.00 %
16.00 gm Williamette [5.50 %] (Dry Hop 3 days)
16.00 gm Williamette [5.50 %] (30 min) Hops 9.1 IBU
16.00 gm Williamette [5.50 %] (25 min) Hops 8.2 IBU
16.00 gm Williamette [5.50 %] (20 min) Hops 7.2 IBU 1

Pkgs American Ale II (Wyeast Labs #1272) [Starter 2 L] Yeast-Ale

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.044 SG

Measured Original Gravity: 1.010 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.011 SG

Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.26 %
Bitterness: 24.5 IBU Calories: 90 cal/l
Est Color: 8.4 EBC
Color: Color
Mash ProfileCarbonation and Storage

Carbonation Type: Kegged (Corn Sugar)
Volumes of CO2: 1.8
Pressure/Weight: 30.9 gm
Carbonation Used: - Keg/Bottling
Temperature: 15.6 C
Age for: 28.0 days
Storage Temperature: 11.1 C

I came up a bit short with 20l at a OG 1046 so I need to tweak a few things.

does your boiler have a tap? how much liquid does it take before starting to come out of the tap? work that out and then scale your brews up to include that dead space and then you'll get the amount you're aiming for. Or thereabouts

For example, I know my boiler has 4 litres dead space below the tap so if I want to do a 23L brew, I scale it up to 27L and then at the end of the boil, I [i]should[/i] get 23L in the fermenter.

If I get less but stronger then I know I need to add some water back in - best using bottled water for that. Or I shrug my shoulders and agree to have a bit less but at a stronger ABV

The recipe I have is for nearly 22l so I need to scale it down. How do I do this? Is it jsut scaling all ingredients down realtively?

4L deadspace, all that lovely beer going to waste 🙂 Couldn't be doing with that 🙂

well most of it is goop from the hops, and the hot-break protein, and stuff, so I prefer to leave it where it is 😉

hmm this looks good John. Thanks. Downloaded and playing...but I can't get the IBU anything near. How do I put the hops into the software as per the recipe?

The fermentables go I the top half of the screen, hops in the middle third, and others eg Irish moss at the bottom.
Hops can go in as leaf or pellet - select leaf.
You can set up the AA values of the hops and the sugar content of the grains in the setup section. Also in setup you an choose all grain, extract or BIAB. I use BIAB.
There's a Brew Day tab that tells you how much liquid you'll need. And a Timers tab

There are also loads of recipes on. Brewmate.net. Some duplication though

To play with the OG and IBUs you can toggle Grain Mode iirc. Using my iPad at the mo so I don't have immediate access to Brewmate but I'll update tomorrow at the latest

Thanks John, I can get a IBU of 26.4 (aiming for 24.5). Also colour is out at 10.2 (aiming for 8.4). Wonder if it's the preset alpha of the williamette hops that is causing this difference.

Hello brewers
First brew on the go at the moment just a question about temperature if it's not in correct temp range what actually will or won't happen regarding fermenting? Thanks in advance, brew on the go is a coopers IPA!

Alpha acid content will vary from one pack of hops to the next. Should be on the label. Won't make any difference to the colour though, that's in your specialty grains.

To modify your IBUs, reduce or increase the quantity of your bittering hop I.e the one that boils the longest. Don't mess with the aroma hops though 🙂
To reduce the colour, reduce the quantity of the darker grains and increase the quantity of the paler grains to match, or vice versa to darken it

You should be able to modify alpha acids, colours and sugar content in the Settings tab.

remember Brewmate is a US program so their defaults may differ from ours, so to be as accurate as possible, try to update the grain and hop settings for each pack. If you can be bothered 😉

brocks, re temperature- if it's lower than recommended it will still ferment, just not as fast. If it's above recommended, you could get some 'off' flavours e.g Apple, banana. Better a bit too cool than a bit too warm

Word of warning re the coopers IPA - it takes about three months of bottle conditioning to begin to be anywhere near its best.

Brocks - John is spot on about banana flavours with high temp fermentation.

I've just started opening my first brew (a Coopers IPA as well!) and while it is fine to drink the banana nose and flavour is, interesting! I'll store them away and hope it improves. 3 months noted on the calendar.

Next up for me is a St Austell Tribute copy. I've been messing with Beersmith - will keep you posted.

Friend of mine from Holland shared a glorious Tripel he home brewed at the end of last year. That'll be my third brew sorted then . . .

Question about BIAB bag - I found some viola (curtain backing material) - do I really need to sew it into a bag or could I just stuff it in the pot and throw the grain inside, then hoof the whole lot out after mashing is complete?

Happy brewing!

Yes you could, but I find a bag keeps it all neat while you run a couple of litres of hot water through it for a final sparge before adding that back into the boil

Goddam predictive text 🙁

First all grain mash done! Lovely smell in the kitchen. Was a little ahead in SG pre-boil but the weakness of my hob meant I ended up a little bit back (I'll need to tweak the equipment profile).

Biggest issue i faced - scaling the grist and water but NOT scaling the hops. Target was 32, Beersmith estimates 65! Waweee!

So now we wait and see what we get out of it. Itching to get going on another mash at the weekend so might get ordering . . .

Little update.

Got a new setup - 24l pot that works on my induction hob.
started mashing in the oven as it has a 65c temperature setting that seems very accurate.

Also shelved out my brewery cupboard:
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Got a couple of batches of Arrogant Bastard on the go in there. One with US-05 yeast and a second with S-04.

Eventually will clear out a little more space in the bottom and put in a keg fridge, some gas and regulators and run 2 lines through the wall into the kitchen and have taps.

Need to perfect my brewing first, hence the small batches. Have enough fermenters to have 5 on the go at once so can keep experimenting.

Hmm silly onedrive pictures

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Has a very steady temperature of 18c in there. No heating and very thick brick walls. Should be good for fermenting.

demo day tomorrow at my LHBS.

Chocolate Stout or Caragold (Citra/Cascade hoppy golden ale) ?

Did my third AG brew yesterday. It was a Brew Dog Punk IPA clone from The Malt Miller.

They do [url= http://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/index.php?_a=viewCat&catId=9 ]AG kits.[/url]Great service from them as well.

The Chinook hops smelt fantastic. Well looking forward to this one.

I've got 3 brews fermenting at the moment.

Might try a single hop/single malt brew next time, this [url= http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/253585/smash-mo-citra-mo-problems ]IPA looks interesting.[/url]

Any Calderdale residents or those passing through Hebden Bridge might be interested to know Drink? - the bottle shop on Market St owned by Hebden Bridge Brew Co/Bridestones is doing a homebrew competition soon where the winner can do a full brew with them at the brewery.

Chocolates stout it was. Took a couple of samples " here are two I made earlier", went down very well

Got a few bottles of my St Austell tribute copy/cock-up (2.5 times to much hops!). It doesn't come across as bonkers bitter as I expected - Beersmith says 65 IBUs. I bottled 2 litres and have dry hopped the remaining 6L with 10g Cascade and will bottle that this weekend.

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It's quite a hazy beer which I guess must be due to the amount of hops I've thrown at this recipe?!

Going to brew on Friday night with the remaining malt I have. I've got a Maris Otter/Munich mix and will add Cascade. Going to try for an American IPA style.

I've now started splitting all batches into 2, so that I can do "experiments" and fine tune beers while being able to do a side by side comparison.

e.g. playing around with different yeasts, dry hopping rates, length of time in primary, secondary v no secondary, spice and other additions etc.

Should be quite fun and really useful being able to open two bottles of beer made from the same wort and pick out the differences that each change makes!

The beer in the fridge is an export india porter. One of my favourite commercial beers is Kernel's EIP, which from a bit of digging around I found out they'd based on Barclay Perkin's recipe from 1855.

I managed to get a look at the original 1855 recipe (see pic below) and after some historical digging around, worked out what the grain bill was. But it didn't seem quite right. I won't write the grain bill here, since it was really fun trying to work it out and I'd hate to spoil the fun for anyone who googles looking for it. If for some reason you do want it, email me!

I emailed Kernel in the hope that they'd be able to cast an eye over my proposed grain bill and let me know if I'd picked it up correctly and the response was utterly brilliant. They gave me a full run down of what they changed in BP's recipe and why and some brilliant advice for putting it together. I didn't think Kernel could go up much higher in my expectations, but they've managed it!

🙂

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Nice work PF