Theakston old Peculier

[derekp]

As people can see this an attempt to make TOP all grain, the right hand one is original from a couple of bottles I just bought to compare the other is what I brewed on the 10th of may
I followed the recipe from GW book so was a bit confused. Looking at Theakstons web site it says they use caramel in the recipe so maybe that could be it, any ideas ?
og 1058
pale malt 5460
crystal malt 295
chocolate malt 215

[Billy Hunt]

I could be wrong but I think black malt could be used as a caramel substitute.

I like the way both of the glasses are smiling.

[arturobandini]

GW adds Black Malt to his recipes to compensate for Brewers that use Caramel for colouring but nothing seems to be mentioned for this one. What's the taste like? You could try adding 70 - 100g of Black Malt per 23 litre to get the colour right.

[derekp]

thanks, I think I might have a bit of a clue as had to top up fv to 23litres, as the boil was was too strong was boiling its a*%^e of so lost more than 15% evaporation
and diluting the wort might of thinned it.The brew of mine tastes really good but hard to compare as the bottles are carbonated up, it tastes close but is not the real thing.might have to drive to Masham to try the real thing lol

[OldSpeckledBadger]

might have to drive to Masham to try the real thing lol

I'm afraid that that sort of research is one of the unavoidable chores of being a brewer

[OldThumper]

I made this using Graham Wheeler's recipe and mine is jet black, just like TOP. I forgot to dry hop it but it still tastes very good, but not exactly the same as POT.

[SiHoltye]

Perhaps the crystal to be used is a darker shade than you used? Light~60ebc/Med~120ebc/Dark~250ebc. Also choc comes in pale form (500ebc) and standard (800ebc IIRC). Black malt can be used to darken a beer. Add it to your mash when you're sparging, then you get the colour contribution but not the flavour, apparently.

[arturobandini]

I had this lined up and in the light of this I will add some Black Malt to grain bill. Do you reckon 70-100g , what Graham suggests for Adnams Broadside in the book, of Black Malt will add sufficient flavour to alter the taste?

[Philipek]

The brew of mine tastes really good but hard to compare as the bottles are carbonated up, it tastes close but is not the real thing.

That's good enough for me. I used to drink TOP in a Wetherspoons in North London for 1.50 a pint!!! You can't get it in Canada. And you can't get anything in Canada for 1.50 GBP TOP is one of the reasons I got into home brewing.

I'm going to go ahead with the GW recipe.

There's this TOP recipe from the Hop and Grape recipe database

http://www.hopandgrain.com/recipeSearch ... 20Peculier

It calls for Weyerman Carafa Special iii, which, according to my websearching, appears to give colour but not the taste normally associated with the darker roasted grains.

[Parva]

I think he's definitely missed some black malt from that recipe. I brewed up the Exmoor Beast recipe today (from the same book) and from memory TOP is much darker yet the Exmoor Beast uses much more crystal and chocolate malt than the TOP recipe.

I was really surprised at how dark the Exmoor Beast came out, it looked like I'd brewed up 5 gallons of instant gravy in the boiler and if it hits its target FG I'm looking at 6.8% (as opposed to 6.5% in the book) though I did hit 1.066 SG so we'll see. I do remember TOP being a very dark beer though, darker than what I've even got with this recipe for Exmoor Beast so something's amiss.

[chris_reboot]

Nice pic.

What's the taste test like?
I'm waiting a couple more weeks for mine to condition, but it looks darker than yours.
GW recipe too.

When I open a bottle of mine, I'll open the real thing too to compare.
Looking forward to this as its one of my all time fav. beers!

[Graham]

I have just shoved the recipe through BeerEngine and the colour comes out spot on 95 EBC using 1050 chocolate malt. 95 EBC is pretty dark, darker than most milds - bog-standard Guinness is 130 EBC for example. Although the colour of black malt varies considerably between different suppliers, 800 to about 1200, it is not enough to make the sort of difference represented in the picture. The beer on the left is no darker than about 30EBC.

With due respect, are you sure that you remembered the chocolate malt? If you did remember, I would check that your supplier gave you the right stuff. Might be brown or amber malt.

[derekp]

could not really comare the two as one is casked and the other is bottled ?, if I had to do a comparison would say that the bottled ale had more of a liquorice taste and the real ale tasted maltier and sweeter but not a lot of hop presence, not bitter at all, It had a taste of strenght if thats possible. I can remember my first taste of the cask before deciding to buy a bottle and first impression was a nice fruity tang. (from the fuggles I think).
I am going to brew this again on Saturday 12th June,and will take more notes of the process I use to compare

[derekp]

make that Friday the 12th of June, I used youngs chocolate malt so dont know what the colour is as not stated on packet, as I am brewing it tomorrow will make sure i add the chocolate

[chris_reboot]

well a quick draw off tonight shows a much darker colour than yours I'm afraid to say.

Hope Graham is right, as I'm really looking forward to this one!

No pressure GW!