Graham Wheelers recipes and their colour ratings

[mak]

Quite excited to have received his book "Brew your own Real Ale" (3rd edition) and I'm planning a list of AG brews in BeerSmith...

Run into a bit of a problem though, as none of the recipes look correct. For example his guiness clone states an EBC of 203 but in BeerSmith it's coming out at 40.6 - obviously a huge difference and looks more like timothy taylors landlord than guiness....

Are his recipes no good? The ingredients for the guiness clone are:
Pale malt 2590
Flaked barley 740
Roasted barley 370

Target hops 29

This is quite consistent with the other recipes I've entered, they all seem to be coming out alarmingly light!??? Have I missed something simple and being a numpty? :whistle:

 

[Dr Mike]

Does the OG come out right ?

Everything I've read says colour is an inexact science but that grain bill certainly looks like a dark beer, assuming it's for 5 gallons.

 

[calumscott]

Can't be sure as I've only done his hooky but it came out looking exactly like hooky!

Check at the front for the colour ratings he's used and make sure they tally to what beersmith has and also your supplier.

 

[mak]

Does the OG come out right ?

Everything I've read says colour is an inexact science but that grain bill certainly looks like a dark beer, assuming it's for 5 gallons.

The OG is 4 higher in beersmith. Not complaining though as the recipe says it'll be 3.8% - personally, any beer under 4% offends me... calories with little affect

Can't be sure as I've only done his hooky but it came out looking exactly like hooky!

Check at the front for the colour ratings he's used and make sure they tally to what beersmith has and also your supplier.

Embarressing... looked through it twice for those, 3rd time noticed they're on page 8 I'll compare and see if it helps.

Thanks!

 

[artyb]

why does he add sugar to his ag brews.... :?

 

[mak]

Spot on... my roasted barley is 594 EBC whereas his is 1350...

Is it ok to increase the amount of this to acheive the correct colour, and do I have to decrease something else to make it balance out?

 

[mak]

why does he add sugar to his ag brews.... :?

This really worried me when I first opened the book... I've avoided recipes with sugar in them so far as I'm dubious - does anyone else add sugar to AG brews?

 

[calumscott]

I think someone told me that:

a) some recipes actually do use a bit of sugar as part of the profile and
b) where the recipe put forward by the brewery didn't stack up ABV-wise the gap has been closed with sugar

 

[mak]

That seems fair enough, any idea on my other question Calum?

Spot on... my roasted barley is 594 EBC whereas his is 1350...

Is it ok to increase the amount of this to acheive the correct colour, and do I have to decrease something else to make it balance out?

 

[PD]

sorry its very early morning and me eyes aren't really open yet.
But regarding the variables ( colour ) for fermentable Malts. I enter the figures of the Malts I've purchased into their respective box via the EDIT fermentable menu button on my brewing soft wear ( Brew Mate ) The numbers are shown on each packet of ingredient you buy from THE Malt Miller.
For example my roasted barley has EBC for colour of 660 ( GW uses range of 1000-1400 EBC)
However the few brews I've done from his book have come out perfect and as exactly as predicted.

 

[Green Ninja]

I did the Guinness clone from this book and it's perfect.

Really dark.

I wouldn't add any more roasted barley, it would taste too burnt.

Trust the recipes. Everyone else follows them and has good things to say about the results.

 

[PD]

yep I agree...put your trust in Mr Wheeler, just add your own figures for EBC, alpha acid for hops etc

 

[calumscott]

Hey mak, sorry, went to bed, but I see a couple of very sensible answers there!

That's the trouble/joy of brewing, the ingredients aren't standardised (well, they're not this side of the pond...) and so it becomes very difficult to produce an accurate "follow me" recipe, hence Graham's notes in the start of the book - his given colours are (IIRC) from the mid point value where a range of possible colours for a grain is given.

Whack the real EBC values for your grain into beersmith and see how close you get... There are ways to tweak colour without changing the flavour profile too much but I haven't got anywhere near enough experience or knowledge to help with that!

If it were me, I'd brew to the recipe (except I'd likely replace the sugar with more pale - but maybe for Guinness you need the sugar as part of the profile... :hmm: ) and see how it goes, if it comes out wrong THEN think about changing it for your next one. You'll still get drinkable tasty beer, it might just not be quite what you expected first time.

This is the best way to learn IMO. :thumb:

 

[mak]

Thanks all, I'll be giving this a go soon then :)

Another book has arrived, so expect more ******* questions soon

 

[TRXnMe]

When I was in school, back in the 1970s, my art teacher once told me to always let the accident rule the day, I follow this advice, within reason, as far as brewing is concerened, if it doesn't quite come out as I'd hoped I'm still happy as long as it's drinkable, you never know, I might create a humdinger of a brew by accident :)