Furphy Clone

[hoppinmad]

Ok so made my 1st attempt at a furphy clone today. I changed my recipe a little based on a more "judgemental" tasting session and came up with the following:

93% JW Pils
5% JW Vienna
2% Caramunich II

now the Cara II was made simply as a colouring addition so whilst this is obviously not going to be in their recipe I find it unlikely that it will have any impact on flavour

My hop additions for the 43L batch were as follows-

50 g Topaz 15min
50 g Vic Secret (added during whirlpool at approx 70C)


First impressions- probably too light in colour. Next time might up the crystal and Vienna slightly.

Hop profile and general malt character... At wort stage it is scarily similar! Getting the same stone fruit and tropical flavours I detect in a fresh example of furphy. Perhaps a slight more bitterness, but I expect the yeast will absorb some of that. Half the batch will be fermented using MJ Westcoast Ale, the other half will be fermented with wyeast 2565 Kolsch.

Will let you know the result in a couple of weeks.

Cheers

 

[hoppinmad]

Ok so an update on my attempt at a furphy clone using WY2565.

Real Furphy on left, my attempt on the right. My clone at time of tasting- 1 month in keg.

Head retention pretty poor on both beers, however I would probably rate the commercial version slightly better with a tighter creamier head... albeit a very brief head

Appearance. Obviously completely different. Furphy is a pale amber/orange colour whilst my beer turned out to be a light straw colour.

Aroma. Hop aroma quite subdued in the commercial sample. Best before date 02/08/16- so I would assume pretty fresh. Clone attempt has significantly more fresh hop aroma, although not intense by any means. Commercial example probably has slightly more maltiness than my beer, perhaps indicating higher usage of vienna than in my recipe.

Flavour. Commercial example showed higher malt presence and drier finish than the clone. My beer had a very slight tartness which I don't get in the commercial example and had more hop fruitiness. Overall though I am pretty happy with my first attempt at the clone. I really had to try hard to detect differences between the two beers flavour wise.

A few things I would change-
increase the % of vienna to about 30%
increase crystal by about 3%
reduce overall grain bill to achieve lower F.G

After degassing I measured the F.G. of Furphy to be 1.005.... much lower than I originally thought it would have been. Given the stated alcohol of 4.4%, this means that the O.G. should technically have been 1.038. My beer started at 1.048 and finished at 1.008. So this is massively different... giving an extra 1% alcohol to the beer and higher residual sugar level.

I would almost be tempted to add 5% table sugar to the recipe to get the dryness level correct. The commercial beer is quite a thin beer in reality so it is possible that it could have some adjunct in there. I wouldn't change hopping schedule because I prefer it to the commercial example. If you wanted to achieve something closer to Furphy I would probably reduce the topaz additions and add them earlier in the boil.

I will be attempting this again at some stage in the future. So will keep you informed if I get any closer.

Cheers!

 

[DU99]

Remember according the furphy site it's all Locally sourced product.

 

[hoppinmad]

Yep. The only non-Victorian ingredients I used was the Caramunich. I gathered in such small amounts (2%) flavour contribution would be minimal so used what I had on hand. I guess moving up to 5% you could look at using JW Cara, but I still think in such small amounts the difference would be minimal.

 

[goatchop41]

Considering the original has a greater malt presence, but was thinner, would it be more appropriate to do a long and low mash instead of adding sugar? I would have thought that this could bring the FG down without sacrificing malt characteristics in the way that the sugar might

 

[hoppinmad]

For most beers I do generally aim to mash about 65ish for at least 90 minutes in order to ensure full conversion and eliminate any chance of stuck fermentations. But you are right, a long and low mash with a good % of vienna would definitely produce the maltiness and help with attenuation. That combined with the lower O.G. should get it down to 1.005. Perhaps 63C for 90mins+ might achieve something similar