New Brew

[lukehgriffiths]

I made some booze tonight!

Porter... here are the headlines.
10 varieties grain bill :)
3kg Maris Otter
400g Crystal
250g Amber
200g Biscuit
200g Toasted Oats
200g Toasted Flaked Barley
200g Chocolate
200g Wheat
100g Black
100g Roasted Barley

Hops
20g Challenger for 60 mins
20g Bramling Cross for 40 mins
15g Bramling Cross for 10 mins
15g Willamette for 10 mins

Yeast will be my now olde faithful Butty Bach reclaimed.

One more bottle of Butty Bach for the bank holiday weekend's yeast and I'll say goodnight.

Cheers all.

 

[johnnyboy1965]

Youve forgot the kitchen sink in your grain bill

 

[beechwood]

would be interested to know hows it turns out. what size brew was it?

 

[lukehgriffiths]

25 litre fell short though just crept over 5 gallons.

I always try a huge grain bill on dark beers since a trip to local breweries revealed they use a lot of grain in their Dark beers.

The balance is the tricky bit still experimenting with it.

Watch this space in 9 weeks or so.

 

[beechwood]

sounds good, good luck with the brew :thumb:

 

[johnnyboy1965]

Please dont get me wrong....But why so many different grains?
Im a firm believer in the principle of.....If you cant taste it, it doesnt need to be there.

 

[lukehgriffiths]

Every grain has its place in the brew.
The crystal, amber, biscuit add that biscuity sweetness.
Chocolate and Black add coffee style richness.
Flaked Barley and oats add grainy smoothness.
Wheat for wheat head factor.
Roasted Barley because I had some!

To be honest I am experimenting a little... based on what I learned from a couple of local micros that their dark beers had masses of different grains. Dark Drake is recognised as one of the best stouts in the UK and has 8. If it doesn't work I'll go back to the pale, wheat, crystal, choc, black method.

 

[lukehgriffiths]

Well the beer has already fermented down to 1011 and sat there for three days. Dropped the test beer in the fridge and it dropped clear... is now outside in the concrete surrounds of the shed to crash cool.

I tasted the tester and it was awesome so in 7 or so weeks once kin the PB and I start drinking it should be brilliant.

 

[lukehgriffiths]

This is well underway now and is lovely... I'll be trying to recreate it I think.

 

[strange-steve]

Wow that is a hell of a grain bill :shock:
Do you think all those grains are necessary?

 

[Soton]

I am loving that grain bill I can almost taste the richness in there, I am very interested in how that turns out, I bet it will just get better with age
Keep us posted, if it turns out as good as it should that might be my Christmas ale

 

[lukehgriffiths]

Wow that is a hell of a grain bill :shock:
Do you think all those grains are necessary?

As I said in an earlier post it is about broad flavours and a rich result. This is a really, really smooth but incredibly rich dark beer.

There are crossovers in taste with some of the grain types but a lot are unique in exactly what you get from them... if you like dark beers try having a nice huge grain bill it really does give great results.

Having learned of commercial breweries doing the same I thought I'd try it. My first experiments were with fairly equal measures of each and the result was a little too heavy on the roasted flavour so this was rectified by reducing some of the very dark grains and upping the crystal count.

 

[strange-steve]

I think you'd be surprised at the simplicity of the recipes of some of the world's best beers, more isn't always better.
That being said, we brew for ourselves so if it works for you then great :thumb:

 

[Slid]

I think you'd be surprised at the simplicity of the recipes of some of the world's best beers, more isn't always better.
That being said, we brew for ourselves so if it works for you then great :thumb:

Profound observation. The often quoted Greg Hughes book recipes are essentially very "stripped down" to what is actually going on in the brew, Most especially you see this with the English style recipes he perhaps knows best, presumably by practice.

Most English bitters, for example, are very simple. Base malt, maybe some crystal, then cheapest local hop. That simple formula probably accounts for a large proportion of beer drunk in the UK. Certainly since circa 200 years ago?