Disappointing AG Boddingtons clone

shop deals on amazon
Advertise with us
Shop deals on ebay
The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
keat64

keat64

Landlord.
Joined
Nov 4, 2015
Messages
518
Reaction score
150
I've just recently bottled and kegged a Boddingtons clone taken from Graham Wheelers book.
It's only been bottled about 10 days, so it has time to mature I guess, but I can already tell that I'm not going to like it.
Even to the point, that I'll not be sharing any for fear of ruining my early reputation.

It has a very distinct home brew taste.

I had two bottles last night and also got a headache, but this could have been anything I suppose.
More scientific testing required on the headache front.
 
10 days is a bit early. It is probably still undergoing a degree of secondary fermentation that will throw up a few different flavours. Leave a few more weeks then give it another try and fingers crossed.
 
The original is disappointing enough, file alongside tetley's smooth
 
If it gives you a headache that suggests a large amount of fussel alcohols, usually caused by fermenting too hot I think. That would impact the flavour too so it may not be that the recipe is bad. As dads_ale said tho, leave it longer, time is a great healer.
 
The recipe did call from a small amount of sugar.
Could the sugar have imparted the home brew flavour.

As for brewing at too high a temperature, I'm not so sure. It's been very dull and overcast in Yorkshire. It was brewing in the spare room with no heating on, so I'd say 18-20 degrees at best.
 
keat64 said:
The recipe did call from a small amount of sugar.
Could the sugar have imparted the home brew flavour.

As for brewing at too high a temperature, I'm not so sure. It's been very dull and overcast in Yorkshire. It was brewing in the spare room with no heating on, so I'd say 18-20 degrees at best.
Click to expand...

I don't know the clone recipe but I am guessing it suggests something like Wyeast London Ale III? (Boddingtons strain) I think thats okay up to 22 but you ideally want to keep it lower than that... I would leave it to see how it settles.
 
keat64 said:
The recipe did call from a small amount of sugar.
Could the sugar have imparted the home brew flavour.
Click to expand...

Don't be afraid of using sugar in your brewing. I think this is a hangover (pun intended) from the days of bad kit brewing when kilos of sugar were dumped into poor quality kits.
With AG brewing, as long as your yeast health and fermentation are good, using sugar isn't a problem.
Look at the Belgian masters, they use a lot of simple sugar.
I recently won a gold medal for a brew that was 16% table sugar, a full kg in a 20L batch.
 
strange-steve said:
Don't be afraid of using sugar in your brewing. I think this is a hangover (pun intended) from the days of bad kit brewing when kilos of sugar were dumped into poor quality kits.
With AG brewing, as long as your yeast health and fermentation are good, using sugar isn't a problem.
Look at the Belgian masters, they use a lot of simple sugar.
I recently won a gold medal for a brew that was 16% table sugar, a full kg in a 20L batch.
Click to expand...

What comps do you enter out of interest?
 
keat64 said:
The recipe did call from a small amount of sugar.
Could the sugar have imparted the home brew flavour.

As for brewing at too high a temperature, I'm not so sure. It's been very dull and overcast in Yorkshire. It was brewing in the spare room with no heating on, so I'd say 18-20 degrees at best.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't use more than 500g. I have a recipe for an Adnams Ghost Ship clone that came out very close to the original in taste and that called for 500g of sugar. First time I did it my efficiency was way higher than expected and it came out at 6% instead of the originals 4.5%ABV. Second time I skipped the sugar and that time my efficiency was rubbish so I ended up having to add the sugar into the FV anyway to get it up to 4.5%. Both brews tasted exactly the same though.
I'd give your brew a good few weeks conditioning - it'll probably make a big difference.
 
Cwrw666 said:
I wouldn't use more than 500g. I have a recipe for an Adnams Ghost Ship clone that came out very close to the original in taste and that called for 500g of sugar. First time I did it my efficiency was way higher than expected and it came out at 6% instead of the originals 4.5%ABV. Second time I skipped the sugar and that time my efficiency was rubbish so I ended up having to add the sugar into the FV anyway to get it up to 4.5%. Both brews tasted exactly the same though.
I'd give your brew a good few weeks conditioning - it'll probably make a big difference.
Click to expand...

I watched lakey bloke on YouTube do this kit. is this possibly the hoppiest easy to get your hands on beer there is?
 
I bottled about a dozen pints. Re-used one of those mini kegs for 8 and the rest (about 25 pints) went in a standard keg.
If the standard keg is the same then I wouldn't mind adding more hops and reprimeing. If I went down this route then I guess a sugary hop tea would be the way to go..

Any thoughts ??
 
Two weeks later, and it's turned out to be a decent pint in the end.
 

Similar threads

Northern_Brewer
  • Sticky
SMASH
Replies
5
Views
4K
Sadfield
Sadfield
Dr. Dirk
dry hop methods & oxidation
Replies
1
Views
2K
Dr. Dirk
Dr. Dirk
CEO Keg King
  • Locked
Keg King's Round Table
9 10 11
Replies
218
Views
28K
THBF
THBF
dhendy91
Return to the Darside. AG#1 (kindoff)
Replies
10
Views
1K
dhendy91
dhendy91
SGBrewing
Helles Brewed With Lager Yeast At 18C - Success!
Replies
2
Views
763
Guybrush Threepwood
Guybrush Threepwood

Latest posts

Back
Top