Belgian Strong Red, recipe critique

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Bugger.
The biscuit seems a little lacking in crunchiness. I think I'll pass on it rather than risk a bad malt.

On tasting it compared to Simpsons Amber they're very similar to each other. The Amber has a slightly more toasty element.

Sooooo tempting to sub in Amber.
Must. Resist.

Chucking in another 100g of Pilsner instead.
 
For the record, this was brewed and cubed a month ago.
I finally got around to doing a starter to rev up a vial of 1 year old WLP-550 (freebie from FullPint several months ago. Cheers Cocko!!).
Using the Yeast Forge stir plate (Cheers Michael & Digital Homebrew!! - it's a brilliant piece of gear!) i got it firing after a few days, then pitched into the FV along with the wort of the drained cube.
3 days later, the SG was down to 1.022 - that's 62% attenuation in 72hrs!!
So i chucked the first lot of syrup in last night - ~475g of homemade stuff the ~equivalent of Light Amber.

Oh yeah, tasting awesome by the way.
So far so good.
 
SG down to 1.018 this morning, so i chucked the 2nd lot of syrup in (465g). Shot the SG back up to 1.024. Temp now sitting on 22°C.

Colour does not seem anything like 28 EBC. More like a rich deep golden colour, say ~16-18 EBC i'd guess. My syrup maybe wasn't as dark as i thought it was.

Still tasting awesome.
 
For the record, this was bottled 4-5 weeks ago.
The first 2-3 weeks it was showing potential bit a little rough. It's already starting to mellow nicely after 4-5.
Shows some caramel tones and "belgianesque" tones in aroma and flavour. Probably has a little more sugar to ferment out from the priming, though the slight sweetness still works well.
Very happy with it, even if it's not quite as dark or intense as intended.
ImageUploadedByAussie Home Brewer1466344126.831916.jpg
A fancy bit of under lighting [emoji6]
 

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