Carlton Draught Style Recipe

[rysa555]

Anyone got close to replicating this beer?
Would appreciate a recipe if anyone has a good one.
Cheers

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Sorry I cant help you with personal experience mate - but the following is a link to Grain & Grape's kit beer recipe page. The G&G recipe is really just relying on the Coopers tin for flavour and reducing a bit of the "kit beer" characteristic by replacing some of the normal cane sugar with malt extract.

It looks pretty right to me. Carlton Draught is a very simple tasting beer. It has no hop character and no really outstanding malt features. So there really isn't much you can do to "add" flavours - anything you add wouldn't be in the original beer anyway.

If you can manage it, ferment the beer at the lowest end of its recommended temperature range, even a degree or two lower - CD has none of the esters you will get from fermenting at the higher temperatures

http://www.grainandgrape.com.au/gg_kit_recipes.htm

TB

 

[discoloop]

Mate, I'd say the closest you'll get is something like the Morgan's Blue Mtns lager kit plus a 1kg BE2 mix or similar. Ideally, you'll need to ferment with a lager yeast at lager temps. Failing that, I've heard good things about the yeast that comes with the abovementioned kit, but have never tried it so can't comment.

I've used the Blue Mtns kit adding nothing more than a kilo of malt. It's the only true Kit plus Kilo plus nothing else brew I've done and I was pleasantly surprised with the results. (Although I did use a proper lager yeast.)

 

[jonocarroll]

It looks pretty right to me. Carlton Draught is a very simple tasting beer. It has no hop character and no really outstanding malt features. So there really isn't much you can do to "add" flavours - anything you add wouldn't be in the original beer anyway.

preface: this isn't a 'bag-the-commercial-brew' post.

It's been a few months since I tried one, but I always thought CD had a bit of malt flavour - not a deep malt flavour, but some sort of pale malt characteristic that stood out. Admittedly, there's not much flavour there of any kind (especially once you become a hop-head, as I seem to have).

Perhaps my memory is inserting the wonderful tastes I now know.

@rysa: You'll find it's pretty hard to find clones of big brewery beers - they put a lot of effort into cleaning up those beers and a lot of what makes these beers taste the way they do comes from this precision. You're better off finding out what it is you like in CD (the bitterness, the mouthfeel, etc) and finding out how to get those features into a brew. Otherwise if it's just the general 'vibe' of the beer, any pale lager kit should get you part of the way there. As above, ferment cool, probably use finings.


Cheers & Beers! :icon_cheers:

 

[manticle]

Useful hints though might include:

Using a lager yeast at appropriate temps
Using pale and golden coloured malts
Using pride of ringwood hops.
Using some cane sugar in the brew

Carlton is a big brewery with lots of money, knowledge, time and expensive equipment, you are (presumably) a backyard brewer with a plastic tub and an idea so don't expect a clone.

I think Bribie G has had some success with replicating elements of well known Australian Lagers.

 

[Bribie G]

I've got onto a very close approximation of Fosters / Carlton beer using a mashed grain recipe (Notice I didn't say All Grain because it's got a fair whack of sugar in ). If you are doing AG I can send you the recipe but I note you have posted in the kits and extracts area.

The previous posters are on the money because the isohop you get in Coopers Lager kits is probably similar to the isohop in Carlton, made from Pride of Ringwood / Superpride hops, and by replacing half the sugar with light dried malt extract you are getting close to the amount of sugar that they put in Carlton.

What you could easily do to 'clean up' the flavour of the Coopers kit, is to throw away the yeast under the lid, which is actually an ale yeast not a lager, and replace it with a dried lager yeast such as Fermentis w-34/70 and ferment at around 13 degrees for a couple of weeks. Alternatively (and cheaper) use Morgans Lager yeast which is only about a dollar a pack and can be fermented a bit higher and quicker, say 17 degrees, and will give a cleaner tasting beer.

 

[discoloop]

Bribie, out of interest, would you be able to post the recipe, OG & FG?

I'm guessing there was a single pale malt, 30% sugar (cane?), a single POR addition and some sort of lager yeast fermented a little on the warm side?

 

[rysa555]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I actually have a Morgans blue mountain lager in the fermenter with some light dry malt extract and dextrose brewing with a true lager yeast at the moment, so it will be interesting to see how that turns out.

 

[discoloop]

You should end up with a pretty nice drop, rysa. I never 'lagered' mine. Just bottle conditioned for about three months before drinking. I haven't used that kit in a while, but it's a great base kit for lagers.

 

[Bribie G]

Bribie, out of interest, would you be able to post the recipe, OG & FG?

I'm guessing there was a single pale malt, 30% sugar (cane?), a single POR addition and some sort of lager yeast fermented a little on the warm side?

Yes Galaxy 4000g, rice 500 (for a bit of smoothness and 'fullness', I know the breweries don't use it here) Sugar 500 and Superpride 20g for 90 minutes. I'm experimenting with the yeasts, to strike a balance between quick and nasty or months in lagering which is OTT for a house draught IMHO. So far W-34/70 and Morgans Lager, with Californian Lager and dried Swiss Lager (Hurlimann) in the pipeline. The fgs have varied from 1008 to 1015 so far but the W-34/70 just kept on going and going in the bottle and has ended up way too overcarbed so I obviously put it in lagering too soon.

Saturday week I'm doing a brew day with just a couple of local members here and I'll post a thread as I know there are brewers on the forum who wouldn't mind a crack at a commercial style, so I'll log the temperatures and gravities as it ferments out.

 

[sudsmcduff]

hey rysa let us know how that went i myself have been trying to do the same thing but so far no luck chees

 

[Fourstar]

Ive got a few rampant bottle of CD floating around in my fridge, tonight i will measure the FG and calculate the OG with my refrac and hyrdo sample. should give you all a rough idea of the OG and the amount of raw sugaz you need to add to get it that low/reduce the malt flavour.

If anything a kit is probably the best bet, UBER low ferment temps and dex/invert sugar to the extreme.

Cheers!

 

[roverfj1200]

This close or even better..

Morgans Aussie draught goo
1 kg ldme
300g dex
s-23
Ferment at 12deg.

For a K&K its ok

Some Hops boiled in would help..

 

[mckenry]

Anyone got close to replicating this beer?
Would appreciate a recipe if anyone has a good one.
Cheers

Mate, please dont take this the wrong way. I dont want to come across as a beer snob. BUT (and this is the truth) once you've tried an outstanding homebrew with real flavour, mouthfeel and a nose full of hops, you'll wonder what you ever saw in CD. I started out trying to brew a Tooheys new style beer. I dont like it at all now. CD, tooheys etc brew the least offensive beer to the masses as possible. You will make better beer than CD.

 

[Fourstar]

Ok before pouring my bottle of CD into a pint glass and topped up with 1/2 dry stout 1/2 AAA i took a hydro sample and a refrac sample.

Hydro rang in @ 1.007~, the refrac @ 5 Brix/plato

That gives us:

OG 1.041
FG 1.007
ABV 4.4%

ok i know, CD is 4.6% but excise law states they can be within a .2% threshold (from memory).

Enjoy trying to clone.. atleast you have a gravity starting point!

 

[adam]

The 3kg can of ESB Australian draught is in the ball park of what you are after.

Cheers, Adam

 

[foxy]

mate i done this recipe, i reckon she's on the money...

Coopers APA tin
500g LDME
250 g corn
tin yeast
25g golden cluster hops

only method being the hops. i toss the hops in a stocking, tie a knot, (hop tea bag) boil em up for 20 mins with the malt in 2 litres of water. discard the the hop bag, and pour boil into fermenter on top of your other ingredients. brew as close to 20 degress C as u can.

quite bitter to start but after 2 months - PERFECT!

have a go