Newbie with some questions

[Paulchef]

Hi everyone, I’ve done a little brewing using kits back in the tom Caxton days and dabbled with Home made wines. At the moment I’m reading and learning what I can from the forum and YouTube on grain brewing, Guinness is my preferred drink and have found this clone
Which I would like to try, but I’m a little confused by the brewers code lol. What does 3.0 SRM 1.7 SRM mean and 60 min hops 31.2ibu

I would have to scale this down initially and make a small batch as I don’t have any large equipment but working on SWMBO to allow the needed purchases, that’s going to take time as I’ve already spent out on materials to extend my 13’x6’ shed into a 13’x12’ man cave.
Thanks in advance
Paul

Ingredient
------------
11.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) 63.8 %
4.25 lb Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) 24.6 %
1.75 lb Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) 10.1 %
0.25 lb Acid Malt (3.0 SRM) 1.4 %

3.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00%] (60 min) Hops 31.2 IBU

1 Pkgs Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004)
------------
Mash Schedule: Single Infusion Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 17.25 lb

 

[Hoppyland]

SRM is an American colour system for measuring how pale or dark beer is, and can also applied to the malt before the beer is made so you can predict what the final colour is likely to be. In the UK, you'll buy malt that is colour-classified by EBC (which stands for European Brewing Convention). In both systems, the lower the number then the paler the malt. In your recipe, the pale malt has a reference colour of 3 SRM - and will add little colour to the beer (think lager). The roasted barley, at 300 SRM will add lots of dark colour (think brown ale or stout). To convert SRM to EBC, multiply the value by 2 (actually 1.97 but that won't make any detectable difference!). So, for your recipe, you're looking for a pale malt of about 6 EBC, a roasted barley of about 600 EBC, flaked barley at about 3-4 EBC, and an acidulated malt around 6 EBC.
IBU is a measure of how bitter the beer is. 31 IBU would indicate a beer with some detectable bitterness, but definitely not very bitter. Don't worry too much about this, IBUs are not something you can measure yourself. Your recipe calls for 3oz of East Kent Goldings hops, and the recipe is basically telling you that these will produce a beer with around 31 IBU. The bit you might need to look at is the alpha-acid content of the hops. These are the components of the hop that produce bitterness, and when you buy hops the alpha-acid content should be listed on the packet. In your recipe, it calls for Goldings hops with an alpha-acid (or AA) rating of 5%. If you use Goldings, then the precise AA content shouldn't be too critical, as they're typically around 4-7% AA. However, if you decided to use a different hop then you might need to adjust quantities. For instance, Challenger is another typical British hop, but can have an AA as much as 9%, which would produce a very bitter beer if you used the same quantities as for Goldings.

Finally, I'd check your recipe regarding the roast barley. The roast barley I use is around 1200-1300 EBC, and I'd have thought that 600 EBC is more typical for something like chocolate malt

 

[Paulchef]

Many thanks for taking the time to reply hoppyland, I guess I have a lot more reading to do to get an insight to grain brewing

 

[Hoppyland]

Not really - it depends upon how deeply you want to dive in! It is perfectly possible to make excellent beers without any in-depth knowledge of the exact processes going on. Take any 20 brewers, and you'll get 20 different ways to brew. Some very similar, of course, but some pretty different. It is as much an art as a science, and the beautiful thing is that you can develop a process that suits your own personality. Want to take precise pH measurements of the mash as it progresses, and then plot the temperature as your fermentation progresses? Fine - if that's your thing then that could be fun. Totally turned off by numbers and graphs - equally fine, maybe better: treat brewing much like cooking, and develop a "feel" for it.

Most importantly, don't be put off. It certainly is not brain surgery! People have been brewing for hundreds of years, long before anyone even knew what "yeast" was, never mind EBCs or IBUs! Have a go at a basic recipe, try it again a few times maybe altering slightly the malt profile & the hops, or possibly the type of yeast, and see where it takes you.

My two tips for brewing good quality beer with reasonable repeatability would be:
1. Control your fermentation temperature. For an "English" style beer yeast (including Stout) this will probably be best between 18° - 20°C. Below this, and the fermentation might be erratic, or stop altogether. Above this, and you might get odd flavours from the yeast.
2. Once fermentation starts dying down, air is your mortal enemy. Try to keep a blanket headspace of CO2 in your fermenter, and when you transfer or bottle/keg your beer try to keep air exposure to the absolute minimum.
Oh, and maybe splash some cash and buy John Palmer's book "How to Brew". It'll probably cost you £20 from, say, Book Depository or Wordery, but I reckon it will be well worth it.

Hey, just realised that little of the above is specific to all-grain brewing, but mostly applies equally to extract beers!
Seriously, do not be intimidated by AG. It isn't that much more complicated but, for me at least, it offers a way forward to better-quality beers that can have their recipes tweaked to totally suit your own tastes.
Happy brewing and good luck!

 

[Drunkula]

http://howtobrew.com/
Great advice above. Before I did my first all grain I'd got an idea of mashing and all that but hadn't written down the details and I got a sack of grain and genuinely was looking everything up as I was doing it. It was a shambles, took forever and weeks later when we opened the first bottle I really was nervous and it was wow, 8/10 and without bias.

Extra equipment I'd bought for doing all grain: none. As long as you've got something to heat up water that's pretty much all you need.

 

[prog99]

Is that the export stout recipe?

 

[Paulchef]

Thanks guys, I’ve watched a few more videos and read a lot more, need to crack on with my man cave to give me away space from SWMBO . Those automated brewing things like Brewmeister and grainfather are very impressive though, but out of my budget unless mr lotto comes knocking . I’ve got a few large saucepans tucked away (chef by trade) and have seen a basket on AliExpress that will fit in two of my pans, have the rest of my basics from wine making and tom carton days

Is that the export stout recipe?

I found the recipe through a link on here to a sister site, I was looking for a Guinness Clone to try, I’m a good way away from doing my first AG brew though

 

[An Ankoù]

Hi everyone, I’ve done a little brewing using kits back in the tom Caxton days and dabbled with Home made wines. At the moment I’m reading and learning what I can from the forum and YouTube on grain brewing, Guinness is my preferred drink and have found this clone
Which I would like to try, but I’m a little confused by the brewers code lol. What does 3.0 SRM 1.7 SRM mean and 60 min hops 31.2ibu

I would have to scale this down initially and make a small batch as I don’t have any large equipment but working on SWMBO to allow the needed purchases, that’s going to take time as I’ve already spent out on materials to extend my 13’x6’ shed into a 13’x12’ man cave.
Thanks in advance
Paul

Ingredient
------------
11.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) 63.8 %
4.25 lb Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) 24.6 %
1.75 lb Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) 10.1 %
0.25 lb Acid Malt (3.0 SRM) 1.4 %

3.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00%] (60 min) Hops 31.2 IBU

1 Pkgs Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004)
------------
Mash Schedule: Single Infusion Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 17.25 lb

That's a great recipe although you could use any other other trad English hop with a higher alpha acid content if you wanted to save your goldings. I think Guinness used Bullion, but I not sure these are still around. The acid malt addition is essential, not for lowering the pH- the dark malts will take care of that- but for slightly souring the beer, which is a characteristic of Guinness. By the way, I came across a crate of my own, of a very similar recipe, which had been in the bottle for 7 months and it had improved massively.
Don't worry about SRM in such a dark beer.

 

[Rodcx500z]

A chef by trade what are you waiting for, you will already know the basics base grains as in sauce then bits for balance brewing is very close to cooking, i do biab and make good ale, keep us posted and good luck