Planning a bit of a bung it in brew

[The Goatreich]

Hi all, I've not managed to brew since October 2012 and this weekend I have some time to myself in the house so I thought it would make sense to get a brew on.

Ideally I'd like to get a pale hoppy brew on, something around 4-5% but I haven't got any cascade in, and that's definitely the style I'd like to go for, with lots of dry hopping. However at the same time I'd like to get rid of some of my stock to make room in the freezer.

In stock I have:
140g bramling cross
66g challenger
40g first gold
10g fuggles
60g east kent goldings
36g nugget
85g perle
83g target

I also have plenty of different types of grains of all colours.

I've never designed my own recipes yet, and have always just used existing recipes from books or this website with slight tweaks. Can anyone recommend a brew using as much of the above hops as possible in one 5 gallon batch? You don't have to use them all obviously haha!

 

[RobWalker]

challenger, first gold, fuggles and ekg, super english ipa? :

 

[The Goatreich]

Sounds great, although personally I prefer the US styles I'm happy to do a purely English one.

Any thoughts on times and quantities? Maris Otter and Crystal for the base?

Cheers! :

 

[Baz Chaz]

The good old 'bungytin' brew :thumb:

I've done one of these before and the only advice I would give is keep careful notes :idea: mine turned out really nice, so good luck, you never just know whats it'll be like until it's in a glass, it certainly won't be undrinkable thats for sure :



Off out fishing for the day :party:

 

[The Goatreich]

Sweet cheers.

 

[boozy_shoes]

Have a look at this one:
http://beerevolution.wordpress.com/tag/ ... aboration/

especially:

"After the recent launch of Odell beers in the UK (through the fantastic Vertical Drinks who are also responsible for all of the delicious Sierra Nevada, Dogfish Head, Stone and Victory beer we get over here), Doug joined us to brew a Thornbridgified version of his World Beer Cup winning Red Ale. Full of a range of speciality malts, including Caramalt and Wheat malt and with a list of hops that is enough to make your mouth water, including Nugget, Centennial and Bramling Cross earlier in the brew and an amazing blend of Admiral, Phoenix, First Gold and Pilgrim in the hopback (in a tribute to UK hops and our decision to put an English twist on the American Red Ale style of beer), yesterday’s brewday was awesome."

 

[The Goatreich]

Very interesting blog!

I guess what I'll do to start with is find out which of my hops are bittering/flavour/aroma hops and plunge them into Beersmith to see what kind of result I get from that.

 

[RobWalker]

why not...blend them all together, calculate the average IBU, and just chuck them in? or use something like nugget/perle for bittering, and an absolute tonne of blended english hops 15 to 0 mins and dry hop? :

 

[The Goatreich]

I think I will.

I imagine I'll keep a simple MO and Crystal malt profile, but could be tempted to add some others.

Are bramling cross hops generally used in darker beers? I bought them originally for Aleman's Effin oatmeal stout, but I have lots left over and have got quite a lot of stout left so won't need to brew that for a while.

 

[RobWalker]

nah, not really. ruddles county uses them and a badger beer too. they have a curranty flavour and they're pretty earthy. I liked 'em in a ruby ale I made, they're probably more suited to dark, rough, malty beers so I'd probably say stay away from a smash type brew with them, but what you gotta remember is...well, hops are hops.

 

[The Goatreich]

Great stuff, thanks. I'm not so into earthy type beers unless they're really dark, so I think I'll stay away for this batch.

 

[JKaranka]

My 2p: nugget for bittering (20g), followed by first gold for flavour and aroma (20g & 20g), and bramling cross for aroma and dry hopping (20g & 50g). I do go through hops quite quickly when dry hopping.

 

[The Goatreich]

As a late hop does the fruity edge of the bramling x come through, or is it still quite earthy?

 

[Inneed]

I have nigh on just finished my first ever brew. It's conditioning at the moment, but all the tasters on the way have been hugely promising.

I used First Gold and Bramling cross as bittering hops and East golding once off the boil for aroma. Not exactly ticking all your left-over boxes and maybe a bit English but it does some of them and I am very pleased with the combination. Used bog standard light liquid extract and amber spreymalt with a bit of crystal as the base.

Does it for me :thumb:

 

[The Goatreich]

Great, cheers all. I'm going to spend some time on Beersmith tonight.

 

[The Goatreich]

OK, planning this for tomorrow. I think I'm going to go with an English bitter, with quite high IBU. I'm not sure if I've gone too high though. Please let me know if you think I've overcooked it.

Grain:
3.33kg maris otter
0.29kg 60L Crystal Malt

Hops:
Nugget - 36g - 90 mins
First Gold - 20g - 15 mins
Bramling Cross - 20g - 0 mins
First Gold - 20g - 0 mins
Bramling Cross - 50g - dry hop

Yeast: US-05

OG: 1.040
IBU: 59.6
Colour: 15.7 EBC
Est ABV: 4.5%

What are your thoughts?

 

[The Goatreich]

OR!!!!!!

3.5kg Maris Otter
200g Crystal Malt
25g target - 90 mins
10g fuggles - 90 mins
20g first gold - 10 mins
20g first gold - 10 mins
US-05
OG: 1041
Bitterness: 44 IBU
Colour: 13.7 EBC
ABV: 4.6%

 

[Baz Chaz]

Bungytin buddy see what happens, don't overthink it :thumb:

 

[The Goatreich]

In the end I went with:

3.5kg Maris Otter
200g crystal

25g target - 90 mins
7g fuggles - 90 mins
20g East Kent Goldings - 15 mins
20g First Gold - 10 mins
20g East Kent Goldings - 5 mins
24g First Gold - 0 mins
21g East Kent Goldings - 0 mins

Safale US-05

Planned a brew length of 23l, but somehow only ended up with 17.5l at around the right OG, so I had terrible efficiency, but I'm not bothered. It was just nice to get back brewing again.

Next plan is to do a super hoppy Galaxy brew.

 

[joe1002]

Sounds good :thumb: