Everyone Should Make This

[4bc]

Hi All

Wonderful thread this one, and im going to hopefully put this one down this weekend.Thanks for getting this discussion going Neill! Just wanted to know any thoughts on the (lack of) hops i currently have available. I have everything else the recipe requires, including the Crystal Grain.

I have purchased 2 x Amarillo "Brewcraft" finishing hops @ 15gms a bag, just realised that the original recipe asks for 2x 40gms. Can i use what i have and boil for longer to compensate or hold off and get more hops?

Also my local HBS doesnt have Centennial hops, but i have 15gms bag or Saaz (3.4%) or 50g of Fuggles, but dont know if either of them will suit/compliment the Amarillo.

What are your thoughts?

 

[jbowers]

Hi All

Wonderful thread this one, and im going to hopefully put this one down this weekend.Thanks for getting this discussion going Neill! Just wanted to know any thoughts on the (lack of) hops i currently have available. I have everything else the recipe requires, including the Crystal Grain.

I have purchased 2 x Amarillo "Brewcraft" finishing hops @ 15gms a bag, just realised that the original recipe asks for 2x 40gms. Can i use what i have and boil for longer to compensate or hold off and get more hops?

Also my local HBS doesnt have Centennial hops, but i have 15gms bag or Saaz (3.4%) or 50g of Fuggles, but dont know if either of them will suit/compliment the Amarillo.

What are your thoughts?

Take a look at craftbrewer.com.au for next time you are buying hops. Even with shipping, it will be much cheaper than buying in such small quantities from brewcraft who tend to overcharge pretty badly. saaz and fuggles are nothing like centennial and both will change the hop profile drastically.

 

[Neill]

+1

you really need fresh hop pellets for this one, in the amounts specified, results cannot be guaranteed! I would purchase some fresh hops and do it next weekend instead :beer:

 

[[email protected]]

Damn, i have finally put all the 'correct' ingredients together for this but the last post has thrown me slightly. i have 100g of amarillo pellets but they are about three weeks old at this stage. Their saving grace might be that they've been kept in the fridge the whole time as when i bought them out of LHBS they were refridgerated. Should these be ok?
Cheers,
Rob

 

[bum]

They'll be fine, bloke. Freezer is a better place for them but your fridge is a much better place than in a teabag on a shelf in a LHBS (which is what I suspect Neill is advising against). Assuming your supplier has good stock there is no way 3 weeks would be considered old.

 

[jbowers]

Damn, i have finally put all the 'correct' ingredients together for this but the last post has thrown me slightly. i have 100g of amarillo pellets but they are about three weeks old at this stage. Their saving grace might be that they've been kept in the fridge the whole time as when i bought them out of LHBS they were refridgerated. Should these be ok?
Cheers,
Rob

Hahaha, that's fine. They are probably several months old. As long as they are refrigerated then all will be well. You are never going to get hops fresher than 3 weeks old unless you are picking em yourself.

Edit: bum beat me to it.

 

[[email protected]]

Edit: bum beat me to it.

Hehe, quick off the draw that bum!
Cheery boys,
Rob

 

[Neill]

i've kept hops in the fridge for over 6 months without noticeable loss of flavour! go for it mate :beer:

 

[robv]

Hi Neill
I put this on tap on Saturday(done to your original recipe), of the 4 kegs on tap it was by far the most popular and has nearly all gone. Putting another one down this week, and will also be putting your hallertau bomb down.

Cheers
Rob

 

[kelbygreen]

mines been 8 days in bottle. might crack one tomorrow to see how it is coming along but i could of drunk it straight from the fermenter on bottling day. I just have to hold back till its really good going to be hard

 

[Florian]

Am very keen to try this one out myself, am about to order the hops from craftbrewer.

But my only issue is: where do I get Coopers LME from in Brisbane? I know I can order online, but the shipping is outrages for two cans. Have checked my local HBS and supermarkets, and googled for ages. Surely it must be available in shops that I haven't considered yet?

 

[bum]

Dude, use any LME. Or convert it to dry. I'd be really surprise if anyone could split the difference.

Hell, get crazy and add some spec grains! You'll be making interesting beer in no time!

 

[Florian]

Dude, use any LME. Or convert it to dry. I'd be really surprise if anyone could split the difference.

Hell, get crazy and add some spec grains! You'll be making interesting beer in no time!

Cool, will just stick to dry malt extract then, that's the easiest to get hold of. Just thought I"ll try to get coopers LME to stick 100% to Neill's recommendation. But if you say there won't be any difference than I'll take your word.
With the grains, do I just replace some of the malt with them (sorry, newbie...) ?

Thanks

 

[bum]

I don't mean to be patronising but I should stress the word 'convert' from my earlier post just in case. You might already know that you can't just swap liquid amounts for dry amounts. If I remember correctly liquid has 80% of the malt content of dry extract. If you use Beersmith or similar it should be pretty easy for you to work out how much you need. Close enough anyway.

If you do use some spec grain I wouldn't change the malt - it isn't going to make a significant difference in terms of alcohol (unless of course you have a specific reason to be keeping a close eye on that then be sure to run the numbers properly or ask someone here). You wouldn't really be using enough to offset the malt already there - just enough to put some complexity under everything. Depending on how much you do use you might need to think about upping the bittering addition ever so slightly but I think that maybe the dex in the recipe might get you through on that front. I'd be thinking about adding some regardless if I were to make this. But I dunno, everyone seems to like this one a lot so maybe it isn't required. Two cents and all that.

 

[Neill]

Good stuff Rob, it's a winner for sure! i can't believe this random recipe i made up has turned out so well, awesome result


Oh also;

I can definately tell the difference between a beer made with LME and a beer made with DME. maybe it's just me, but i found the DME to produce a less robust body in the beer and a much thinner mouthfeel. Hence i always fork out a little more for LME these days :beer:

 

[bum]

You can tell that with the same recipe made to the same grav? Impressive. I withdraw the statement above.

 

[Florian]

Thanks for your advice, Bum and Neill. I was aware that I would have to convert the proportions when using DME, but am sure that others will be glad to read this. Thanks also for the spec grain suggestion, will not try it for this brew, but have it already on the list for a pilsener which I'll do after that.

Went to my HBS to get LME, and wanted to grab 'morgans master blend lager malt' (as it said 'pale'), but somehow ended up with the 'master blend beer enhancer' in my basket. Would this be comparable to the suggested coopers LME pale or is it too far off the scale? This is my first extract so please excuse my ignorance.

Also, I assume you are not using hop bags when adding the hops, but rather just chuck straight into the boil? Do you need to use a strainer when transferring to the fermenter or could you just transfer with all the bits and pieces?

 

[4bc]

Ok, my patience has succeeded and i ordered some more amarillo and centenial from Craftbrewer!

I also got some crystal grain, but im a bit confused as to how to put all of this together.

Correct me if i am wrong, from my reading here i boil the crystal first (anyone suggest a time - 30min perhaps), then add that water to another pot. Rinse crystal and add that water to pot.

Then using the 6L of "crystal water" add the 600g of LME and first stage of hops. Then as time goes on add the remainder of the hops schedule and then strain into fermentor and top up to 23L.

Hope ive got my head around this, thanks for you help guys, just want to make sure i get it right and appreciate the recipe properly!!

 

[Pennywise]

No you steep the grain in water at about 65-70 degrees then rinse the grain with more water at same or a bit higher temp, then boil the resulting licquor. Don't boil the actual grain itself. A grain bag makes this job alot easier, but you can just use a kitchen sieve if you don't have a grain bag.

 

[Neill]

florian; yep straight into the boil, no bags. i use a conventional strainer to keep most of the hop gunk out of the fermenter as i find it clogs the taps, but you don't have to.

4bc; absolutely not! measure 200-300g of crystal grains, then crack them (don't whizz them in a blender or anything, you just need to crack the grains open to release the goodness. I use small amounts (100g at a time or so) in a mortar and pestle, takes 5 min to do. otherwise a flat bench and a chopping board will do it, just crush the grains between the two surfaces. bear in mind they may already be cracked by the supplier, i'm not sure but it's easy to see. then boil 5L of water, let it cool with the lid off for 5 min then throw the cracked grains into a muslin bag (available from LHBS) or a PRE-BOILED stocking. put the bag in the 60-70 degree water and move it around, you will see the brown stuff leaching out of the grains. let them sit with the lid on the pot (do NOT boil) for 20-30 mins. remove bag, throw away used grains, re-use bag later for next batch.

now you have 5L of flavoursome liquid. bring it to the boil, add 500g of LME or DME and throw the hop additions in as described. you do NOT boil the grains themselves, but you are free to boil the liquid that they produce.

hope that helps.