First brew advise

[Damfoose]

Well after my very informative brewday with Aleman and the accusition of 2 electric boilers Sunday is going to be my first bash.

I would like to brew something that wont take months to mature nor be overly hoppy as SWMBO will be participating and would like to drink it. Ideas appreciated.

[adm]

How about a nice simple bitter - something like Hog's Back T.E.A.?

I made this on 7th Sept and am just having the first pint of it now. It's really nice - smooth, with a good maltiness and well balanced hops. Not a hop monster like most of my brews. I used the yeast from the brewery, but I suspect S-40 would be just as good. It's also ideal for drinking now, whereas the hop monsters seem to be better a bit later...maybe 6 weeks instead of 4.


Fermentables
UK Pale Ale Malt 4.500 kg
UK Medium Crystal 0.360 kg

Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU When
UK Golding 5.5 % 35 g 20.5 90 Min
UK Fuggle 4.5 % 35 g 16.7 90 Min From End
UK Golding 5.5 % 10 g 2.7 15 Min From End

[adm]

How about a nice simple bitter - something like Hog's Back T.E.A.?

I made this on 7th Sept and am just having the first pint of it now. It's really nice - smooth, with a good maltiness and well balanced hops. Not a hop monster like most of my brews. I used the yeast from the brewery, but I suspect S-40 would be just as good. It's also ideal for drinking now, whereas the hop monsters seem to be better a bit later...maybe 6 weeks instead of 4.


Fermentables
UK Pale Ale Malt 4.500 kg
UK Medium Crystal 0.360 kg

Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU When
UK Golding 5.5 % 35 g 20.5 90 Min
UK Fuggle 4.5 % 35 g 16.7 90 Min From End
UK Golding 5.5 % 10 g 2.7 15 Min From End

[Damfoose]

Perfect adm thanks.
TEA it shall be

[adm]

Ooops - sorry about the double post....and S-40 should read S-04....

I might have had a few to many to post properly...I'm sitting here doing a side by side comparison of my version version the brewery's version and it's pretty close ( the only problem is that you have to drink two beers at once)


Mine's on the right, the real one is on the left

Next time, I think I'd up the crystal on this to 500g instead of 360. The colour of my one is pretty good, the mouthfeel is excellent, maltiness and hoppiness about the same - although the brewery TEA tastes a bit sweeter and more caramelly. I think they might add a bit of brewer's caramel, which some additional crystal might mimic.

[Parva]

Adm's brew looks good and it's certainly something I'd be happy to go at. However, what grains and hops do you have at hand? Easier to make a brew from known ingredients.

[Aleman]

Well after my very informative brewday with Aleman and the accusition of 2 electric boilers Sunday is going to be my first bash.

Excellent, be glad to see those boilers going (again) . . . . I may very well be trapped in our data center, so phone contact could be sporadic, but you have my number if you need it. . . . good luck

[adm]

Adm's brew looks good and it's certainly something I'd be happy to go at. However, what grains and hops do you have at hand? Easier to make a brew from known ingredients.

I've got to agree with Parva - the easiest brew to make will be one that you've already got the ingredients for!

[Damfoose]

Have new mashtun and grain will post pics and how it goes tomorrow night after the day is done.

Aleman thanks for the offer if I get stuck you may just get a call hopefully not though during the day will let you know how it went after its all over thouh

[Kristoff]

Hog's Back T.E.A.
Fermentables
UK Pale Ale Malt 4.500 kg
UK Medium Crystal 0.360 kg
Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU When
UK Golding 5.5 % 35 g 20.5 90 Min
UK Fuggle 4.5 % 35 g 16.7 90 Min From End
UK Golding 5.5 % 10 g 2.7 15 Min From End

Hi ADM, i'm going to hijack your suggestion for this recipie for my first AG tomorrow,
but just wanted to clarify a few things...
Am I lookng at standard mash time, water and temperature?
And and i'm presuming a 90 min boil?

[adm]

Well....that's pretty much what I did for mine.....

From my notes, I planned a 90 min mash (but it ended up being 2 hours 20 mins as I had to pick up kids from school), 90 min boil, no water treatment other that a bit of sodium metabisulphite (camden tablet). Mash temp was 66.9 at the start and 65.6 at the end.

If i do this again, I'll probably take 2 litres of the first runnings and boil down to 1 litre to get a more caramelly flavour - but even without it's a good beer. Good smooth malt, lightly hopped.

Good luck!

[Kristoff]

That's great, will give it a whirl tomorrow- thanks

[Parva]

My first brew recipe was suggested by IanB and went well. Every single brew I've made since (done 6 so far) have been total experimentation and not followed any recipe whatsoever. I've yet to make a bad one! I tend to chuck 30-50Gms of whatever I have at hand at boil and maybe 20Gms each of two different hops at 15 minutes and 15Gms of one of the two that I added at the 15 minute stage at 1 minute prior to the boil finishing. I haven't researched what any particular hop does, I've just worked with what I have in stock and formulated a recipe and gone with it. All have been great so far.

[delboy]

Ooops - sorry about the double post....and S-40 should read S-04....

Next time, I think I'd up the crystal on this to 500g instead of 360. The colour of my one is pretty good, the mouthfeel is excellent, maltiness and hoppiness about the same - although the brewery TEA tastes a bit sweeter and more caramelly. I think they might add a bit of brewer's caramel, which some additional crystal might mimic.

It might well be that the yeast the brewery uses throws a little more (than S04) diacetyl which when mixed with caramel malts actually gives you a caramelly flavour. When i tasted this at the BBF last year that was my take on the flavour.

[adm]

Ooops - sorry about the double post....and S-40 should read S-04....

Next time, I think I'd up the crystal on this to 500g instead of 360. The colour of my one is pretty good, the mouthfeel is excellent, maltiness and hoppiness about the same - although the brewery TEA tastes a bit sweeter and more caramelly. I think they might add a bit of brewer's caramel, which some additional crystal might mimic.

It might well be that the yeast the brewery uses throws a little more (than S04) diacetyl which when mixed with caramel malts actually gives you a caramelly flavour. When i tasted this at the BBF last year that was my take on the flavour.

Aha.......you see I did use the Hog's Back Brewery yeast for that brew! i was commenting that I don't think it would be much different with SO4.

THE HBB yeast was a monster.....it was extremely gooey and crept it's way out of the fermented unaided. To be honest though, I don't notice much taste difference between that and similar beer brewed with SO4. Maybe it's that they just use a higher percentage of crystal.