toffee flavour

[mysterio]

I agree the diacetyl helps with the toffee/butterscotch and slick mouthfeel that london pride has. SO4 always gives me some of that (I really enjoy that character so I always drink my SO4 brews fresh), although it has a different overall profile than wlp002. Brooklyn lager doesn't have diacetyl that I can detect but I could be wrong. Have you tried darker varieties of crystal DB? I bought a 3 kilo bag of dark crystal malt (200EBC) from the hop shop and I really like the flavour it gives in bitters. I originally tried it to try and get that dark toffee flavour you get in Sam Smiths Nut Brown Ale but I use it in most things now. CaraMunich gives a nice toffeeish flavour too, I often use it in place of normal crystal. I might try a blend of those two next time.

[delboy]

You're probably right that the toffe flavour in brooklyn doesn't come from the yeast but instead from the malts.
But it was an eye opener to me that the yeast could be responsible for this taste also, i notice the WLP002 that you are struggling with is reknowned for diacetyl, have you had a taste from the fermenter yet?

[mysterio]

Yeah, now I know what people mean when they say their beer tastes like "band-aids". I suspect the batch is ruined.

It does, however, make a nice beer when it's treated right and the stars are aligned.

[RabMaxwell]

Rye malt gives a toffee malt flavour http://www.crispmalt.info/ Hop & Grape have Rye crystal malt

[Barley Water]

I have another idea for you Delboy, have you tried carmelizing the wort? There are a couple of ways to do it, one I have tried and the other I have not. You can pull some of the first runnings and boil them down on the kitchen stove until they start to get darker (I have done this alot and it works out pretty well). The other thing you can do is heat up your boil kettle before you start running the wort in (I haven't tried this one yet). Of course, you need a direct flame on the bottom of the kettle and I know you guys over there like the electric powered boilers so this might not be an option for you.

As far as getting diacetyl out of WLP02, I just did a London Pride clone and yes this strain throws off alot. By the way, the more of this beer I drink, the more I like it, I will for sure brew it again. The diacetyl makes the beer drink bigger than it is and it is very smooth. God bless Mr. Graham for this one, I am one happy yank.

[oblivious]

As far as getting diacetyl out of WLP02, I just did a London Pride clone and yes this strain throws off alot. By the way, the more of this beer I drink, the more I like it, I will for sure brew it again. The diacetyl makes the beer drink bigger than it is and it is very smooth. .

That what i thought too

[Seveneer]

I don't think diacetyl is the key to a toffee flavour. It's more of a sickly butterscotch and is not pleasant.

I would agree with the guys who said to caramelise the wort. If you brew with electricity turn the elements on full power as soon as they're covered and sparge slowly.

/Phil.

[delboy]

Some great advice i think i'll cover all bases and get some of the fullers yeast and also on a seperate brew try caramelising some of the first run off

[monk]

I've tried to get toffee flavors out of S-04, but they have always subsided after a week or two in the bottle. The best toffee flavor I've ever gotten was by accident, and was from carmelising the wort as these guys have mentioned. When I was house sitting for grandma I brewed 2.5 gallon extract batches in a one-gallon pot. I didn't know about late extract additions, so I just put 3 lbs. of LME into about 1/2 a gallon of water and boiled with hops for an hour. This produced a very caramel/toffee flavored beer. At the time I was dissappointed because I was going for a Sierra Nevada PA style, but some of my friends loved the results, and it was a beautiful beer.

I'm going to try another small batch and purposely carmelise about a pint of wort before I add it back to the main batch.

Good luck with your experiments, DB. Let us know your results. My wife keeps asking for more malty brews.

monk

[SteveD]

Lovely beer

I think their magic ingredients are pale malt, crystal and flaked maize plus the famous Fullers yeast. The low attenuating yeast helps give some malt flavor and crystal will help with the malt flavor.

I still haven't gotten a recipe sorted - Graham's seems to be in the ballpark (although I have never followed it to the letter).

The bottled stuff over here is always a disappointment. The kegged stuff probably a little better (ironically) both a mere shadow of Pride on cask.

You're right about magic items 1,2,and 4. Fullers don't use flaked maize any more. The biggest single factor giving Fullers beers their characteristic round malt profile is....No 4, their yeast. And, it's proper maltiness, which can have a toffeeish quality, but it's not diacetyl.

[SteveD]

Well ok, maybe a bit. Better off asking the brewers at Fullers though!! I've never really noticed it. Next time I've got a pint in front of me I'll see if I can pick it up. Funny that homebrewers mostly try to avoid diacetyl, and will comment on it in tastings as a fault if it's present in greater than trace ammounts and yet here we're saying it's a keynote flavour in Fullers - a consistently prize winning brewery.

[Aleman]

Its also a keynote flavour in Bohemian Pilsners . . . OK so not to the extent that they should be toffee like but it does need to be there.

[delboy]

Im going to ask a question about the fullers yeast while some of the heavyweights are still interested in this thread.
When brewing with fullers yeast how long do you leave it to have some diacetyl present in the finsished article. Should i be looking to get it off the yeast as soon as it reaches final gravity or is it ok to let it clean up a little after itself, say a few days, also is diacetyl production affected by fermentation temperature?

[Aleman]

Another thing to add, is that it tends to clean up after itself in warmer states which is the 'reason' behind a diacetyl rest that US Brewers do ie warm the beer to 60C for a couple of days before reducing it down to the lagering temperatures.

One of the real issues with diacetyl is getting a consistent amount produced, obviously the prime thing is to have a yeast that is a good produced then by trial and error you can work out when to rack, if you need to warm it, if you need to rouse it etc.

Again it comes from being consistent with what you are doing and what you are brewing, and only really by serial brewing the same beer under different conditions can you 'perfect' the process. . . .But its boring re beer variety

[delboy]

Thanks for the promt replies, i think i'll taste it as i go along and try to make an educated guess when to keg it.