Lets talk hops

[Ashley]

@Ashley

I also have GW book and am starting to work my way through the Milds in that section of the book.

If your planning to make a lot of the GW receipes you don't actually need that many types of hops to do most of them: Fuggles and EKG certainly. Challenger, Progress, Styrian Golding, Whitbread Goldings and Target - you'll notice are used for most of the receipes. You'll also notice many receipes say simply Goldings. I've taken this to mean you can use any of the Goldings varieties.

One other tip about GW's book. Some receipes say to use white sugar. I wouldn't do this and just add more pale malt. I made the Directors receipe following the receipe exactly (adding white sugar like it says) and using a high attenuating yeast and It came out super dry.

I've done the gales festival mild, which i'm bottling this weekend. do you replace the sugar with pale malt gram for gram?

i'm planning on doing the ringwood old tom recipe in the next couple of weeks... i think from memory it uses 550g of white sugar. would i just use an extra 550g of pale malt?

 

[mook1979]

I pretty much exclusively brew from GW's book. I made the American IPA, Saaz Single Hop Ale and Amarillo Single Hop Ale for Christmas. Wow, did I have a great time enjoying those three batches over the Christmas break. I had a bottle of the IPA last night and had to pause and utter a couple of ooohs and aaahs.

The series of Single Hop Ales are really good and I'm planning to use the base recipe, but substitute future batches with other hops (calculate the same IBUs) so that I can really get to know the hops. My favourite hops are Saaz, Simcoe & Citra (great combo in that American IPA) and Amarillo. I was blown over by how good the Amarillo ale was.

I have some Nelson Sauvin and Cascade to try in a couple of new batches. The only issue is finding time for brew days. I am also quite eager to get to know UK variates.

 

[Ashley]

The only issue is finding time for brew days. I am also quite eager to get to know UK variates.

I'm quite lucky really. SWMBO bought me my equipment for my birthday, and i don't work weekends so i have been spending every saturday brewing a batch and bottling another. I'm sure this won't be allowed to continue but i pretty much stopped making batches to cover batches that got drunk in october so i almost ran out of stock, and the only way i can control the maturation period is if i brew enough of it quickly enough to cover that time.

so basically she's letting me get on with it for now. if i did the same through february i'm sure she'd have something to say lol

 

[MyQul]

I've done the gales festival mild, which i'm bottling this weekend. do you replace the sugar with pale malt gram for gram?

i'm planning on doing the ringwood old tom recipe in the next couple of weeks... i think from memory it uses 550g of white sugar. would i just use an extra 550g of pale malt?

I'd use some brewing software to do this:

So if 550g of sugar adds X amount of gravity point to reach the target OG just add enough extra base malt to make up to the target gravity.

To find out how many gravity point 550g of sugar adds just put the whole receipe into your brewing software then delete the sugar to see how much the gravity lowers.

Another disadvantage of using sugar I've found is that you can get home brew twang that you sometimes get with kits and takes about 6 weeks conditioning to disappear

 

[Ashley]

I'd use some brewing software to do this:

So if 550g of sugar adds X amount of gravity point to reach the target OG just add enough extra base malt to make up to the target gravity.

To find out how many gravity point 550g of sugar adds just put the whole receipe into your brewing software then delete the sugar to see how much the gravity lowers.

Another disadvantage of using sugar I've found is that you can get home brew twang that you sometimes get with kits and takes about 6 weeks conditioning to disappear

OH NO!!! i used about 200g of sugar in the mild as per instructions :-(

 

[MyQul]

The gales mild has some crystal in it which will have helped retain some sweetness and body as crystal has a large amount of unfermentable sugars in it

 

[Ashley]

The gales mild has some crystal in it which will have helped retain some sweetness and body as crystal has a large amount of unfermentable sugars in it

phew, that's good then :hat:

even if there is a twang it will be a while before i get round to drinking that :drink:

 

[Toffee]

I pretty much exclusively brew from GW's book. I made the American IPA, Saaz Single Hop Ale and Amarillo Single Hop Ale for Christmas. .

I think you mean the GH (Greg Hughes) book, not the GW (Graham Wheeler) book. I don't think there is a single IPA or Amarillo hop in the GW!

GH - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1409331768/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
GW - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1852493194/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[dad_of_jon]

I pretty much exclusively brew from GW's book. I made the American IPA, Saaz Single Hop Ale and Amarillo Single Hop Ale for Christmas. Wow, did I have a great time enjoying those three batches over the Christmas break. I had a bottle of the IPA last night and had to pause and utter a couple of ooohs and aaahs.

My favourite hops are Saaz, Simcoe & Citra (great combo in that American IPA) and Amarillo. I was blown over by how good the Amarillo ale was.

I made a Galaxy hop tea to beef up a tom caxtons ale kit and that was lush.

So I bought more Galaxy and also Citra for the 1st home made from scratch recipe. It smelled lush fermenting. A far to early taste (5 days after bottling) and it was strong 8.14% dry with brutal bittering and a bit of a woody taste. I've noticed that in Citra before (Oakham Citra) so I thought ok Citra's good but not that good.

Well, yesterday evening I had an ipa is dead: Citra at Brewdog Birmingham and it was my best Citra experience yet. Still much prefer Galaxy, and from all the other comments about Amarillo I can't wait to pair it up with Galaxy!

 

[howyoubrewin]

Just ordered some galaxy pellets from my lhbs due to the good reviews its receiving from people on the forum. Plan to use it in a couple of 1gallon AG brews over the next month,one as a single hop and the other paired up with couple different varieties to see how versatile it can be. I will keep you posted on the outcomes.

 

[mook1979]

I made my second one gallon BIAB stove top batch earlier this week and if all goes well, then it should be a great beer. It's an 8.2% Imperial IPA with some Saaz for bittering and Amarillo right at the end. I hope those two varieties blend well.

My next test batches will involve coffee or chocolate, I think.

 

[dad_of_jon]

Just ordered some galaxy pellets from my lhbs due to the good reviews its receiving from people on the forum. Plan to use it in a couple of 1gallon AG brews over the next month,one as a single hop and the other paired up with couple different varieties to see how versatile it can be. I will keep you posted on the outcomes.

can't wait to see how your AG single hop turns out.:drink: