Homebrew Club Recipes - October-December 2022

An important part of WIB since its inception has been our homebrewing community. We never cease to be amazed by the creativity, talent and sometimes utterly bizarre creations they come up with, using the ingredients from our shelves. We've often said we wish we could share the brews that make it to our monthly homebrew club with the rest of the world, so now we are!

This is a round up of our favourite beers (which we received recipes for!) from October, November and December 2022.

For October we set a challenge of ‘German’. Dale brought in a brilliant doppelbock, it was based on a recipe from the https://friediesbrauhaus.blog/doppelbock/ blog!

 

Batch Size 20 L

Boil Time 90 mins

Mash Efficiency 80%

Mash Volume 21.73 L

Sparge Volume 10.18 L

OG (SG) 1.077

FG (SG) 1.013

IBU 33.1

Colour (EBC) 58.7

ABV 8.41%

Fermentables 

Munich II 3.90 kg (58%)

Munich I 1.25 kg (19%)

Pilsner 1.00 kg (15%)

Carafa Special II 0.50 kg (7%) 

Caraaroma 0.10 kg (1%) 

Mash In 55 °C 10 min

Mash Step 1 63 °C 30 min

Mash Step 2 72 °C 15 min

Mash Step 3 95 °C 10 min

Mash Step 4 72 °C 30 min

Mash Step 5 78 °C 10 min

Hops 

Perle (IBU: 13.8) 16.00 g (33%) Pellet Boil 90 min 8.3AA

Hallertauer Mittelfruh (IBU: 6.6) 15.00 g (31%) Pellet Boil 90 min 4.25AA

Perle (IBU: 10.7) 13.00 g (27%) Pellet Boil 60 min 8.3AA

Hallertauer Mittelfruh (IBU: 2.0) 5.00 g (10%) Pellet Boil 50 min 4.25AA

Yeast 

German Bock Lager

Product Code: WLP833 1 packet

Extras Amount Usage Time

Protafloc 1 each Boil 15 min

Fermentation 8 °C for 100 days

NOTES

Mash with 19 liters of water at 55°C for 10 Minutes.

Heat it up to 63°C and hold it for 30 minutes. Remove 5.5 liters of the thick mash.

Heat the thick mash to 72°C for 15 minutes and then heat and boil it for 10 more minutes.

Recombine mash and boiled mash. You should end up at 72°C. Hold it then again for 30 minutes and heat it up to 78°C. Then mash it out.

A wild decoction mash... I don't think this is entirely necessary with modern malts and machinery.

But this recipe came in a recipe pack (WIB can make it up for you)!

It should age very well for years!

Also I pressure fermented at 21 C, keeping the esters away, ideally ferment at lager temperatures!

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For November we set a challenge of aged beers- beers over a year old. Matt Meynell brought in an amazing bretted old ale

Bretted Old Ale

Brewed August 2019

 

Malt

6kg Golden Promise

0.15kg chocolate

0.3kg crystal 60

0.3kg biscuit

0.45kg brown

 

Hops

50g Challenger – 60 mins

35g EKG – 10 mins

40g first gold – 0 mins

 

Yeast

2xNottingham

1 packet Brett Claussennii WLP645 (added after three or four weeks)

 

Oak cubes (added after three or four weeks)

 

This beer was never intended to be a Brett beer. I wanted an Old Ale and it would have come in at around 8.5% with a high final gravity, according to Beersmith, of 1.020. And indeed that is what came to pass. I hit the starting and final gravities as planned. However, on trying a sample at maybe three weeks, it just tasted too malty and sweet for me. I think with a bit of age it would have been a fine Old Ale and very much in line with the style. But I felt a bit disappointed. 40 bottles of strong, sweetish, malty beer – felt like the kind of beer hobbits might enjoy. Not sure why I associate sweet, malty beer with hobbits and probably best not to dwell on that. However, it wasn't for me but what to do? Shove in some Brett and age it for six months on oak cubes felt the only sensible way forward. I bought some Brett C thinking that it was on the milder end of Brett, stuck it all in a 20 litre carboy and left it alone in a cellar. What surprised my on taking a sample six months later was that it had gone down to an FG of 1.001 and tasted incredibly pineapply, among many other flavours. This puts the ABV at around 10.5%. I'd still argue that it's an old ale rather than barley wine but that probably doesn't matter very much.

 

It's gone through phases – it was lovely after about 3 months in the bottle.  18 months in I found it a bit sludgy and it seemed cloudier (though maybe that was just the couple of bottles I tried). It seems right back on song and I really like it. Makes me wonder why I don't brett everything (impatience). I drank it with a friend alongside Marble's barrel aged old ale a year ago. Marble's was great, maybe a bit more acidic and slightly more challenging . So mine stood up well against one of my favourite breweries. Which was nice.

 

Plenty left and I'll see how it is in a year…

 

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Alban brought in a Midas Touch (from Dogfish Head) clone, which is a great example of how a beer can develop and improve over time.

 

Midas Touch Clone

 

This was an attempt at a clone of a beer I have never actually tasted.  However, the recipe I found did suggest my favourite Abbey yeast, a ton of honey and some grape juice concentrate so it just had to be done.

 

Mashed grain in 11L of PH-adjusted water for 45 mins at 68C. Sparged with water at 80C taking mash to approx 74C, and collected approx 30L wort.  It got a long boil of just over 2 hours to concentrate the flavours.  I collected 20L which swelled to 21L in the fermentor once the grape juice had been added.

 

Fermentables:

4.3kg Extra Pale Maris Otter

1.5kg organic wildflower honey

1L white grape concentrate

 

Hop / Additions schedule:

25g Styrian Goldings at 30 mins in to the boil

17g Styrian Goldings 15 mins before the end

0.5g saffron  15 mins before the end

Irish Moss  15 mins before the end

The honey added to the wort while it was cooling

The white grape concentrate was added after wort had cooled to 25C

 

OG 1.082

 

Yeast was WLP500 which I’d harvested from a dubbel I’d recently made.

 

Finally bottled after 7 weeks of fermentation at 1.004, giving an estimated ABV of 10.24 before priming. 

 

This all happened over 2 years ago and the beer has had several outings at the brew club, but over time the honey and the grape have settled down leaving me with what can only be described as a pretty alcoholic desert beer. Fortunately I still have several bottles left.

 

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New to homebrew club this month was Doug, who blew us all away with a Nectarine lambic, check the recipe out below!

Pound a Bowl Nectine Lambic

I brewed this as an entry for a home brew / pickling contest I run with my friends in my back garden called the Quaggy Cup. Despite hosting it I never win...

Made 23 litres

ABV 7.3%

OG 1060

FG 1005

Mash

Pale Malt 4.5kg

Wheat malt 1.5kg

Liquor 17.5 litres

Mash 1hr at 65C

For the boil

27 litres

Challenger 30g at start

Fermentation

This recipe was originally for a cherry beer, but I like doing it with the available fruit from Lewisham market so I picked up nectarines this time.

I fermented it with Safbrew WB-06 for four days before adding the fruit. At this point I put 5kg of unripe nectarines in a Nylon Mashing Bag in the fermenter, which were a mix of halved, quartered and chipped up in the food processor.

After two weeks I added Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend Yeast along with the remaining 2kg of now ripe nectarines which I cut up into chunks. I then left this for another four weeks.

I bottled 6 litres into a Methuselah size bottle for the party (four weeks of conditioning) and the rest into normal bottles. The beer had been in the bottle for 6 months by the time I took it to the home brew club.

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For December the challenge was collaboration - earlier in the year we drew names out of a hat and paired brewers together to come up with a beer together.

Dan Briant and Sam got together to brew a really good brown ale - an excellent example of the style.

Brown Ale

Batch Size 23 L

Boil Time 60 mins

Mash Efficiency 90%

Mash Volume 16.01 L

Sparge Volume 16.70 L

OG (SG) 1.048

FG (SG) 1.012

IBU 21.1

Colour (EBC) 15.3

ABV 4.73%

Fermentables 

Maris Otter 4 kg (86%)

Crystal 240 0.5 kg (11%)

Chocolate 0.13 kg (3%)

Mash Step 1 65 °C 60 min

Mash Step 2 75 °C 10 min

Hops 

Magnum (IBU: 10.3) 15.00 g (27%) Leaf Boil 30 min 9.9AA

East Kent Goldings (IBU: 10.8) 40.00 g (73%) Pellet Boil 15 min 5.5AA

Fermentation 18 °C for 10 days

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Tim and Yann got together to brew a delicous brut IPA, check out the recipe.

Brut IPA with Citra & Sabro

This beer is very light and refreshing, subtle bitterness with a nice amount of hop character that isn't over powering.

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As a non challenge beer Yann brought in a Pina Colada Gose - his first attempt at a sour, and a roaring success!

Pina Colada Gose

 

There was this beer made by Brew By Numbers of the same name, which I absolutely adored. This fruity, sour, creamy and refreshing beer was perfect for those summer days. Sadly they stopped producing it, so I took it one myself to research the style and try to clone it as best as I could. This was also my first ever foray into brewing a sour beer. I don’t have the kit to spare for making only sours, so fell back on the relatively new but popular Philly Sour yeast strain which acts like a regular ale yeast but also has the added benefit of souring the wort without contaminating the equipment for future brews!

21 L batch

OG: 1.055

FG: 1.008

ABV: ~ 6% (+/- 0.5% for the fruit additions)

IBU: 6.8

EBC: 6 (only grain) but 12 (with fruit additions)

Grain bill:

3.26 kg Europils Malt (Crisp) (3.0 EBC) 65.0 %

1.50 kg Wheat Malt (Crisp) (3.5 EBC) 30 %

0.25 kg Flaked Torrefied Oats (Crisp) (2.0 EBC) 5 %

Mash at 67C for 60min

60min boil

60min: 6.8IBU of Saaz (5.9AA) 

15min: 15g Sea Salt

Yeast: 2pkg Lallemand WildBrew™ Philly Sour Yeast @25C

After 3 days

2kg fresh Pineapple Puree

500g Coconut chips (toasted 15 mins)

250g Lime peel

1 Vanilla pod

Leave for 7-10 days

waterintobeer homebrew club takes place on the first Sunday of every month, from 2pm.