Brewdog Hop Fiction Clone

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Hilly_2017

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Hi gang!

Firstly - thank you to everybody on the General Discussion forum that has given me countless bits of advice about getting started in home brewing! As such, rather than taking a leap into full on All Grain brewing, I'm deciding to give BIAB brewing a go first.

With this in mind, I'm determined that my first recipe be a clone of Brewdog's Hop Fiction and of course thanks to the nice guys over at Brewdog we have a nice recipe sheet!

Brewdog Hop Fiction Recipe

Before I go and buy anything, I'm planning out my recipe using the above recipe and BeerSmith.

My question is: What should I stick to? The Brewdog Recipe or BeerSmith?

Most of the variables that come out of BeerSmith are very similar but the two that seem way off are IBU and SRM.

In BeerSmith, the IBU comes out at 19.6, whereas it should be 40 (!) and the SRM comes out as 4.3, whereas on the sheet it says it should be 6.5.

If I change this to the required IBU, the amount of hops goes up and I need to add some darker malt other than Maris Otter Pale Ale, to get the SRM up.

Given that this is my first brew, I'm determined to plan things out as much as possible, to avoid any beginner mistakes! :lol:
 
I just ran this through Brewmate and using the default AA for the hops it came out at 48 IBU for me (chinook 60 min addition and the rest at 5 mins), not sure why it's came out so low for you?

You could add a little crystal malt to darken it if you wish, maybe 100g or so of crystal 40.
 
I just ran this through Brewmate and using the default AA for the hops it came out at 48 IBU for me (chinook 60 min addition and the rest at 5 mins), not sure why it's came out so low for you?

You could add a little crystal malt to darken it if you wish, maybe 100g or so of crystal 40.

Think it might be because I had them all set at "Boil @ 0 min" in BeerSmith i.e. Steep.

Because Brewdog are quite vague with their timings (Start / Middle /End) I wasn't overly sure what to use within BeerSmith.

Changing the timings to put them in with 5 minutes left of the boil does make a hell of a difference and it's put it up to 46.8 which is a lot more like it!

I'm presuming if I reduce that to say 4 minutes etc... I could bring it closer to the 40 that is mentioned in the recipe.

EDIT: Putting them in at 4 minutes, drops it to 41.7 which is a lot more like it.
 
Good luck on your brewday, it looks a tasty beer and a nice simple single grain brew. I'd go with the 60 min early addition of the Chinook and then 5 minutes for the 'end' hops as badseed suggests. The dry hop I would do when the krausen has dropped after about a week and the ferment is pretty much finished and give them a week in there.
You could use beer smith to vary the 5 minute quantities to match the expected ibu or drop it to 4 minutes and see what happens. It's often good to repeat the same brew to see if you can make improvements. I made a few versions of the Trashy Blonde in a row and they get better each time.

Cheers, Dave
 
Think it might be because I had them all set at "Boil @ 0 min" in BeerSmith i.e. Steep.

Because Brewdog are quite vague with their timings (Start / Middle /End) I wasn't overly sure what to use within BeerSmith.

Changing the timings to put them in with 5 minutes left of the boil does make a hell of a difference and it's put it up to 46.8 which is a lot more like it!

I'm presuming if I reduce that to say 4 minutes etc... I could bring it closer to the 40 that is mentioned in the recipe.

EDIT: Putting them in at 4 minutes, drops it to 41.7 which is a lot more like it.
You may have to adjust your recipe once you acquire your ingredients depending on the. AA and harvest year of your hops when bought as these will vary with different suppliers.

Gerry
 
You may have to adjust your recipe once you acquire your ingredients depending on the. AA and harvest year of your hops when bought as these will vary with different suppliers.

Gerry
Really? I wouldn't even know where to begin with putting that sort of information into BeerSmith! I just select the hops from the list and hope for the best!
 
Really? I wouldn't even know where to begin with putting that sort of information into BeerSmith! I just select the hops from the list and hope for the best!

If you post the AA of the hops you're buying then someone here can help you with any quantity adjustments that are needed :)
 
Really? I wouldn't even know where to begin with putting that sort of information into BeerSmith! I just select the hops from the list and hope for the best!

If you look at the screenshots below you can see after selecting your hops you will see a generic percentage applied by beersmith.Highlight the % and enter the current percentage on your hops if they are not the same value.As you can see I've selected cascade and when changing the value take not of the IBU's and the value shall change.
If you have a lower or higher value just adjust the amount of hops to suit.

Screenshot_2017-06-25-13-08-30.png


Screenshot_2017-06-25-13-08-45.png


Screenshot_2017-06-25-13-09-13.png


Screenshot_2017-06-25-13-09-34.png


Screenshot_2017-06-25-13-09-47.png


Screenshot_2017-06-25-13-10-10.png


Screenshot_2017-06-25-13-10-21.png


Screenshot_2017-06-25-13-10-42.png
 
Really? I wouldn't even know where to begin with putting that sort of information into BeerSmith! I just select the hops from the list and hope for the best!

Hi,
I just stumbled on this post as a new user of BeerSmith, looking for a Hop Fiction recipe. Can you tell me, did you have success and have you by any chance saved the recipe in BeerSmith for other hopefuls to have a go?
 
Google DIYdog. You'll get all BrewDog recipes. Play about in Beersmith to get IBUs etc to match. Will be a good way to learn your way about Beersmith too, because it can be quite a steep learning curve. I wouldn't be without it now though.
 
I haven't looked at the latest DIY Dog so I'm not sure whether it gives 2 recipes for Hop Fiction or not. The version of Hop Fiction available in supermarkets now has a slightly different combination of hops to the seasonal one from 3 or 4 years ago.
 
Here's my version that turned out to be a decent pint:

4.5kg golden promise
0.25kg torrified wheat
0.3kg munich malt (mainly to bump up the colour and I'd run out of crystal malt)

14g Chinook @60mins
20g Chinook 20 min whirlpool @80degC
40g Amarillo 20 min whirlpool @80degC
40g Mosaic 20 min whirlpool @80degC

50g Chinook d/h 4 days
60g Amarillo d/h 4 days
60g Mosaic d/h 4 days

Yeast: Safale US-05

IBU 40
OG 1.045
FG 1.008
ABV 4.8% (I prefer to keep beers below 5% personally)

I also went with a reasonably high SO4:Cl ratio of 3.8 through Epsom and Gypsum additions
 
I haven't looked at the latest DIY Dog so I'm not sure whether it gives 2 recipes for Hop Fiction or not. The version of Hop Fiction available in supermarkets now has a slightly different combination of hops to the seasonal one from 3 or 4 years ago.
Yep, there's 2 different versions on there...the prototype at 5.2% and the 2019 version at 4.2%
 
If you want to avoid typing the recipes into beersmith yourself, someone has very helpfully converted the pdf into a searchable website, and included BeerXML files that you can download and import into beersmith. Then you just need to click on scale and choose your equipment profile and it should do all of the adjustments for you.

https://brewdogrecipes.com/
 
If you want to avoid typing the recipes into beersmith yourself, someone has very helpfully converted the pdf into a searchable website, and included BeerXML files that you can download and import into beersmith. Then you just need to click on scale and choose your equipment profile and it should do all of the adjustments for you.

https://brewdogrecipes.com/

That's pretty awesome.
 
Brewing my version of this just now
 

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  • Hop Fiction.pdf
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