Old Speckled clone brewday.

[TheRedDarren]

Got a few hours spare so I thought I'd do a wee write up of yesterdays brewday, any input on improvements is greatly welcomed please! :wink:

Its the father in laws birthday in October, he's huge OSH fan, so I thought I'd try to knock up a clone(ish) and give him 20 or so bottles. The mother in law will hate me but hey ho!

So, the recipe...
Batch : 23l
Total grain : 5.250kg
Total hops : 140g
OG : 1.054
FG : 1.015
ABV : 5.1%
Colour : 13.2 SRM
IBU : 49 (way too high I know, but wanted it quite bitter)
Brewhouse Eff : 75%
Boil time : 90 mins

Grain Bill
4 kg Maris Otter
600g Pale ale malt (Dingemans)
400 Crystal 150
250g Torrified wheat.

Hop Bill
30g Challenger 6.98% @ 75 mins
40g EKG 5% @ 75 mins
20g EKG 5% @ 15 mins
10g Challenger 6.98% dry hop
40g EKG 5% dry hop.

Sinlge step mash @ 66*c

Yeast
White labs WLP005.

Second job after getting the liquor onto boil is to weigh out the grain.
Mashing in on your own is a lot easier using a plastic container rather than a bag that flops over... :wink:


With my equipment I have to heat the liqour to 75*c strike temperature to get a mash temperature of 66*c, yesterday I got it at 66.4*c of the bat so no need to mess around with any correcting.

After 45 minutes I decided to make an iodine test...


It showed a lot of purple, therefore conversion is not complete. I took the opportunity to stir the mash and check the temperature, which was still at 65/66*c - ideal!

about 30 after the first test I did a second and it was still a bit purple,
10 mins after that a third test showed no colour change, well apart from a small purple fringe...? Any thoughts?


So anyway, on with the sparge. My theory so far, after a heady total of 5 brews, is that the longer you sparge for, the more sugar you will extract. At first I thought this is great, more sugar = more beer, right?
Well it does, but it also means you can throw the recipe way out of balance, so try to stick to a set regime for sparging. What I do at the moment is for a 23l batch, I heat up 35l of liquor. I use 13l to mash (grain bill weight ((5.2kg)) multiplied by 2.5) then use all the other water to sparge with over the course of about an hour, maybe a little more. The first few jugs go back in the mash tun until runnings are nice and clear. I do check runnings by taste and by taking a hydro reading to check that its not turning sour or extracting too many tannins. I stop sparging either at 1018 or a funny taste or running out or sparge water.
Also, I tip the tun at an angle right at the end to collect the last of the wort, so I don't tend to calculate for losses for dead space.


All wort into the kettle to start the boil... Lovely, weird, brown scum...


Hop additions measured out ready for the start of rolling boil.


Thar she blows! Big lovely weird brown scum bagel now.
This kettle takes roughly 60 minutes to bring almost 30l up to a rolling boil.


Boil complete, put the chiller coil in 10 mins before end of boil to sanitise it.
I coincide the chiller going in with a teaspoon of irish moss, which incidentally, I just lob in from the pot, does anyone rehydrate before use?


Chill it down to 25*c ready to pitch the yeast. I've started using there White Labs vials, I really like them, just as easy to use as dried yeast - you take them out of the fridge when you start the brewday, then they are up to room temp by the time you need to pitch them. Just shake before you dump it straight in.
You can make a starter a few days before hand if you have to, as these yeast do seem to start slowly. I haven't yet tasted the final product, but I have got a Hoegaarden clone that is coming to the end of primary and I shall update when I can as to how much flavour they add. I'm hoping for good things from these yeasts, surely they have to have more character than dried?

The reward!


The brew actually came out at 1048 and 25l. I made the mistake of adding water to the chilling kettle rather than running off to the FV then adjusting... it's a little annoying as if I hadn't topped up on the fly, I think I would have been bang on at 1054 and 23l! Also, as already stated the IBU is too high at almost 50, but I'm not massively fussed, so long as I capture some of the OSH character I'll be happy, as I'm sure will the father in law!

Happy days :p

 

[stevej]

Nice post and great pictures:hat:

 

[cornyandy]

I'm going to sound horrid here but I don't mean it unpleasantly. I really don't like OSH. What bothers me is I can't quite work out why. It's a quality brew and I used to enjoy it without loving it but somehow it seems to have a burnt caramel flavour to it now, something I can't quite distinguish. Perhaps the OSH expert can explain it.

Your brew looks a great brew by the way and a dare say I would enjoy it more than the original

Cheers and good beers

A

 

[TheRedDarren]

Nice post and great pictures:hat:

Thanks fella, now the four week wait before drinking it!:evil:

 

[TheRedDarren]

I'm going to sound horrid here but I don't mean it unpleasantly. I really don't like OSH. What bothers me is I can't quite work out why. It's a quality brew and I used to enjoy it without loving it but somehow it seems to have a burnt caramel flavour to it now, something I can't quite distinguish. Perhaps the OSH expert can explain it.

Your brew looks a great brew by the way and a dare say I would enjoy it more than the original

Cheers and good beers

A

Not at all mate, if you don't like it, you don't like it!
Funny you say that though, I used to adore it, then went right off it. Had a glass at the in laws the other day and came right round again! It does have a distinctive flavour...
The caramel would be from the Crystal malt, as you know, but I never got it as a burnt flavour..?
If you're passing through Cardiff in four weeks let me know, you can have a few! :wink:

 

[stevej]

I like a pint of OSH keep us informed at how it turns out! might steal your recipe

 

[cornyandy]

Thanks muchly but though Cardiff is one of my favourite places at the moment (Think cricket and Ashes) It's a long way from East Yorks. It's difficult to quantify the flavour I don't like but it seems to sit on my palate in an unpleasant way (tbh so do some of the Marston's brews like Double Drop and Single Malt)

 

[TheRedDarren]

Bottled it yesterday, 40+ bottles of varing sizes! I don't seem to mind bottling... yet.
Anyway, It went right down to 1010, a little more than the predicted 1015 so that makes it 5% bang on and 80% attenuation with wlp005 which I'm very happy with.
Time will tell yet what the taste will be like but to be fair, this tastes pretty damn good, extremely happy with the malt forward character and toffee notes with that familiar end of hoppy happiness!
I'm happy to give a bottle to anyone near the area!

 

[TheRedDarren]

Opened a bottle of this last night, quite nice so far. Really good colour (if a little dark) and strong carbonation.
Not a million miles from the real thing but the recipe needs a tweak. The taste of the crystal 150 comes through quite strong, maybe a bit too strong. I think all the other flavours have mellowed but the crystal 150 hasn't yet, so it still needs another week or two to mellow to blend with the other malts.
Next time I brew this I'll use crystal 60 instead. Oh and no dingemans, I only used that to use it up, I'll just use MO as the base malt.

 

[clibit]

You need to be careful when ordering crystal cos some sellers use the ebc numbers and some use lovibond numbers. 150 ebc is approx 75 lovibond.

You also need to be clear when you use a recipe which colour system it uses in naming the crystal. When the recipe says crystal 60, does it mean ebc or lovibond?

 

[TheRedDarren]

Ah ok, maybe that's where I went wrong. I shall check that in future.
Thanks mate.

 

[TheRedDarren]

Just checked my cupboard and it's 150 ebc.

 

[kev192]

loved reading the post and the pics :)

 

[clibit]

150 ebc is around 75L, so check the recipe and try to establish if the recipe uses ebc or L. It's likely you used the right crystal I think.

 

[TheRedDarren]

This is now tasting pretty good, unfortunately waiting for the crystal 150 to mellow took so long the hop aroma has faded. But it is a nice malt forward pint. Next time I'll use the correct crystal and hopefully it'll be ready before the aroma fades.