Home Brew Forum

Hi all,

Completed my first brew of 2018 last night on my Grainfather system. I followed (in principle) David Heaths recipe for Fullers London Pride but tweaked based on what I had, I also only Mashed for 45 mins and boiled for 45 mins.

Grain bill:
4.6kg Pale Malt
0.5kg Dark Crystal Malt

Mashed @ 67c

Hops:
10g Challenger 45 mins
10g Northdown 45 mins
10g Target 45 mins
15g Challenger 10 mins
15g Northdown 10 mins

Additional:
Irish Moss at 10 mins

OG: 1.048

This was the first time I mashed for 45 minutes and boiled for 45 minutes. In an attempt to shorten the brew day. It certainly seemed to go quicker. From watching another of David's videos, he uses the grain basket as a hop spider during the boil. I did this and found that the wort was pumped far more quickly than on previous attempts due to not being clogged by hop matter - I will certainly do this again.

Any ideas how this will turn out with the Dark Crystal Malt? Will it resemble anything like London Pride??

Thanks - happy brew year!

Manngold wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 03, 2018 2:18 pm

From watching another of David's videos, he uses the grain basket as a hop spider during the boil. I did this and found that the wort was pumped far more quickly than on previous attempts due to not being clogged by hop matter - I will certainly do this again.

I have not thought of using the grain basket as a hop spider. I take it you used whole hops rather than pellets? I would have thought the holes in the grain basket are to big when using pellets to be effective.

chefgage wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 03, 2018 3:01 pm

Manngold wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 03, 2018 2:18 pm

From watching another of David's videos, he uses the grain basket as a hop spider during the boil. I did this and found that the wort was pumped far more quickly than on previous attempts due to not being clogged by hop matter - I will certainly do this again.

I have not thought of using the grain basket as a hop spider. I take it you used whole hops rather than pellets? I would have thought the holes in the grain basket are to big when using pellets to be effective.

Hi. I used pellets. Minimal hop matter got through, they kind of clumped together after the whirlpool and a big mound was left. I am very pleased with the results as the pump seemed much more efficient. Pumped through 21 - 23l of wort in about five minutes (maybe less). I guess the proof is in the pudding. Will update once I taste.

Sounds good, i might have to give that a go. The only issue for me would be cleaning out the grain basket prior to boiling. I like to be on with that during the boil

chefgage wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 03, 2018 5:38 pm

Sounds good, i might have to give that a go. The only issue for me would be cleaning out the grain basket prior to boiling. I like to be on with that during the boil

I managed whilst it was getting up to boiling. Only took a few minutes!

I left all the silicone seals, no issue. I will defo use this method again.

Manngold wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 03, 2018 2:18 pm

... Any ideas how this will turn out with the Dark Crystal Malt? Will it resemble anything like London Pride?? ...

I did a London Pride clone a few months ago using "straight" crystal malt (ebc 135) and the result was rather pale. I'd concluded a darker crystal would be in order. Many London Pride recipes call for 150 ebc crystal but no idea where to get that anyway. Currently have a Fuller's ESB clone on (same recipe, just a bit more of everything) and added a tad of black malt to that to get the colour right, but I still think dark crystal malt would be better.

Fullers use brewers caramel to darken their brews. You can buy it from the HBS but it is quite expensive. I don’t worry about the colour these days as long as it tastes good.


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wezzel01 wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 04, 2018 8:01 pm

Fullers use brewers caramel to darken their brews. You can buy it from the HBS but it is quite expensive.

Make your own for the price of a pound or two of sugar. I made about 16 ounces using this recipe and it'll probably last me years. I don't think I've ever used more than 10 ml to kick a 12-gallon batch up to the appropriate color. Mine came in at 5200 SRM, so it's powerful stuff.

https://web.archive.org/web/20120306123 ... rs-caramel

To compute the color of my caramel, I counted the number of drops it took to bring a pint of water up to the color of a beer with a known SRM. Then I converted drops to ml and played around with Beersmith until that many ml would turn a pint of water the correct color.

My neighbor always compliments me on the color of by beers. It's easy to make something look very appealing without changing the taste at all. Forget about chocolate malt and make your own caramel coloring! I've even swirled a drop or two into a pint of fizzy yellow lager and concinced people that I'm drinking the good stuff.

wezzel01 wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 04, 2018 8:01 pm

Fullers use brewers caramel to darken their brews. You can buy it from the HBS but it is quite expensive. I don’t worry about the colour these days as long as it tastes good. ...

I've tried to verify this with no success. What I did find is references to Fuller's using brewers' caramel when they also used flaked maize which they stopped using eons ago. But I find about 93% pale malt plus 7% crystal malt (135 EBC) just a bit pale - and I don't mean paler than Fuller's (which it is), I mean paler than I would like (what it looks like doesn't effect flavour, but it seems too and that is as bad).

They used to use caramel but use chocolate malt now

you can see this brewlog that they posted to see the proportions. Also the same for Chiswick Bitter, ESB and Golden Pride





92.6% Simpsons MO
7.2% Light Crystal
0.2% Chocolate

Minch crystal is 145ebc