toffee flavour

delboy · Post by **delboy** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 12:28 pm

Had a bottle of london pride last night was very impressed with the malty toffee flavour in this beer. I've had several other beers such as brooklyn lager and a few others that have this same taste.

So far i haven't achevied the same taste yet in my beers despite adding crystal, munch, vienna etc, whats the secret.

Is it aromatic malt, the yeast (i tend to use clean good attenuating yeast ie nottingham and US05) or is it the mashing temp (i use 66-65 C).

Cheers

Gurgeh · Post by **Gurgeh** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 2:49 pm

I did GW's clone of it and jonnybeer will testify that my attempt was very similar to the original - it certainly had that deep caramel maltiness...

i used nottingham yeast and mashed at 66C. my brewhouse efficiency is 65% so i made the grain bill (for 5gallons) up to a 6KG total. I think that this may account for it after reading Ray's thoughts on 'reduced sparge' on UKHB (and hearing them at a CBA meeting in July)

iowalad · Post by **iowalad** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 2:49 pm

Lovely beer

I think their magic ingredients are pale malt, crystal and flaked maize plus the famous Fullers yeast. The low attenuating yeast helps give some malt flavor and crystal will help with the malt flavor.

I still haven't gotten a recipe sorted - Graham's seems to be in the ballpark (although I have never followed it to the letter).

The bottled stuff over here is always a disappointment. The kegged stuff probably a little better (ironically) both a mere shadow of Pride on cask.

RabMaxwell · Post by **RabMaxwell** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 3:04 pm

Hello Delboy i have 2 different ales at the moment Borve Scottish ale & Bluebird Bitter both excellent brews. But the Bluebird has a very good dose of this toffee maltiness flavour that you are after. The funny thing is the Bluebird has more toffee maltiness than the scottish ale with 2% Melanoidin malt addition. It might have something to do with my resent experiments with water treatment. My scottish ale had a profile for edinburgh Bluebird had Murphy's Profile for bitter Ca /170 Mg /15 Na / 77 S04 /400 CL / 200 Carbonate / 25. Murphy's don't seem to list anything for Na my slightly high addition has probably helped the malt flavour to. Mashed 66-67oc used US56 yeast

iowalad · Post by **iowalad** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 3:39 pm

I meant the crystal will help with the toffee!

Rab may be on to something with water treatment - a black art that continues to elude me.

Dan · Post by **Dan** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 4:48 pm

its the diacetal. its a characteristic of london pride. the yeast strain will help with this.

delboy · Post by **delboy** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 5:17 pm

Dan wrote:its the diacetal. its a characteristic of london pride. the yeast strain will help with this.

so the diacetal can be likened to a toffee taste as well as a buttery one?

If thats the case i might look into getting some yeast strains that produce a reasonable amount of it.

RabMaxwell · Post by **RabMaxwell** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 5:34 pm

Dan wrote:its the diacetal. its a characteristic of london pride. the yeast strain will help with this.

You got me thinking about diacetyl i fined the Bluebird in the primary & moved it of the yeast pretty fast so it probably didn't have time to mop up much diacetyl used 5.4 % Dark Crystal

Vossy1 · Post by **Vossy1** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 5:39 pm

If thats the case i might look into getting some yeast strains that produce a reasonable amount of it.

S04 is well known for it. To increase the toffee/butterscotch flavour simply rack off the yeast as soon as FG is reached, which may be as little as 3 days

RabMaxwell · Post by **RabMaxwell** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 5:40 pm

If you have temperature control try crash cooling right at the end of fermentation also fine with issinglass transfer of the yeast to prevent it cleaning up Diacetyl worth a try

Dan · Post by **Dan** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 5:40 pm

excerpt from brewing techniques

The presence of diacetyl is usually indicated by a buttery or butterscotch tone. In fresh beer the flavor can be confused with that of caramel malts. Given time it is easy to distinguish the two; diacetyl tends to be unstable in most beers and can take on raunchy notes. The flavoring imparted by caramel malts, on the other hand, tends to be stable

hope this helps

oblivious · Post by **oblivious** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 6:04 pm

My First gold ale used WLP002 and has a similary flavor, but i dont think S-04 is similar

delboy · Post by **delboy** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 8:03 pm

oblivious wrote:My First gold ale used WLP002 and has a similary flavor, but i dont think S-04 is similar

looks like im going to have to get some of that WLP002

Vossy1 · Post by **Vossy1** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 8:34 pm

I recently did 2 brews that were laced with toffee and butterscotch using S04.
I don't know why as I use S04 regularly and don't get the same intensity that these 2 brews exhibited. It took a full 2 weeks in secondary to get rid of it.

toplad · Post by **toplad** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 10:48 am

in norman recipes , smaual smiths take some wort and boils it into a syrup and then adds back into the boil to achive a good toffee like flavor.

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toffee flavour

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