Robinson's Old Tom

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Horners

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Morning campers

Was considering doing this today from Wheeler. Just started to play around with the quantities on Brewers Friend and recipe seems to come out nowhere near dark enough.

GW has it at 99 EBC whereas BF suggests under 30. The only obvious variable is the crystal to be used.

Has anyone done this recipe? Any suggestions?

Cheers Horners
 
Morning campers

Was considering doing this today from Wheeler. Just started to play around with the quantities on Brewers Friend and recipe seems to come out nowhere near dark enough.

GW has it at 99 EBC whereas BF suggests under 30. The only obvious variable is the crystal to be used.

Has anyone done this recipe? Any suggestions?

Cheers Horners
Found this on quite a few of Graham wheelers recipes some bitters look like pale ales etc just adjust with some darker malts or live with them as long as they taste right
 
Thanks @the baron just dont think I can get it anywhere near 99. Looking through inventory I have a bag of Carafa 3 - I wonder if say 10% of this in Bill will change taste too much. I am yet to use Carafa.
 
Thanks @the baron just dont think I can get it anywhere near 99. Looking through inventory I have a bag of Carafa 3 - I wonder if say 10% of this in Bill will change taste too much. I am yet to use Carafa.
I think it must be a missprint as 99 is extremely dark 35 is quite a .medium bitter colour as re using carafe 3 is that the special that does not impart too much bitterness if so use some to darken but it will alter the flavour to more malty/toasty I do think some of his recipes are quite old and need to be used as a base and adapt using your knowledge or what you can glean from the internet. I think from memory Cheshire homebrew did it on YouTube and he is also a member on here pm him and ask for his recipe I am sure dave will oblige
 
Thanks - going to go with 1.4% Special III which will give me c40 EBC
 
99ebc seems a bit high, although I'm suprised your only getting 30ebc with c2.5% Chocolate Malt in the recipe. I think you are right that the crystal malt choice is going to play a part here, the dark stone fruit flavours in Old Tom suggest they've used very dark crystal malts, possibly a double roasted type.

10% Carafa 3 (essentially Black Malt with the bitter husk removed) would put you firmly in Stout/porter territory. It's de-bittered, but still very roasty.
 
Great observation @Sadfield - there seems to have been some glitch on BF such that it had the chocolate in at a much lower colour than the bag I have.

I have some 200 EBC crystal so gonna use that and just chuck in 0.8% of Carafa 3 to take me just over 50.

Thanks for input.
 
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I used 200g Choc and 800g of crystal that may have been quite dark - the Worcester Hop Shop Crystal does seem darker than most. To get the high OG @ 25L in FV, I used a Coopers kit.

Also I added some blackberries (it was the very end of Sept 2017), which may have darkened it slightly, but iirc, this was not really that dark a beer - nowhere near a Stout, more of a Brown Ale sort of a beer colour-wise. The picture in Wheeler's book seems darker than mine turned out, for instance.

Came out around 9%, which takes some time to age. The blackberries, BTW, were more trouble than they were worth picking and storing.
 
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Waiting for it to cool the last few points in the freezer ahead of pitching 2 packs of Wilkos finest.

Shocking brew day which I will document at some point in brew day thread. For what it's worth, my final recipe tweaked for actual numbers.

HOME BREW RECIPE: Title: Old Tom Author: GW Brew Method: All Grain Style Name: Old Ale Boil Time: 60 min Batch Size: 21 liters (fermentor volume) Efficiency: 67% (brew house)
STATS: Original Gravity: 1.076 Final Gravity: 1.014 ABV (standard):
8.16% IBU (tinseth): 38.78
SRM (ebcmorey): 47.84

FERMENTABLES:
4000 g - United Kingdom - Maris Otter Pale (55.4%)
2000 g - United Kingdom - Lager (27.7%)
500 g - Dark Crystal 80L (6.9%)
500 g - Cane Sugar (6.9%)
165 g - Chocolate (2.3%)
50 g - Carafa III (0.7%,)

HOPS:
36 g - Whitbread Golding, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 7.04, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 26.35
23 g - East Kent Goldings, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 4, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 9.57
19 g -East Kent Goldings, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 4, Use: Boil for 10 min, IBU: 2.87
 
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Got a feeling should have put a blow off in but Im knackered.
 
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Update on this - 9 days in primary and its down to 1.012 - no doubt the fact that I messed up the mash such that half the grain only mashed at 61C is a factor here. Sample jar tastes lovely although I fear it may be lacking a bit in body ultimately. long way to go of course.
 
Finally kegged this tonight after 3 and a half weeks in primary. Finished at 1.012 for around 8.5 %. Tastes pretty special and not too boozy. Going to force carb to about 1.9 volumes and leave to bulk condition before transferring to bottles if I can ever get the hang of the bleeding beer gun - that is another story....
 
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