TTL caramel-biscuit note

[Piscator]

I think you can detect it in most British beers, but usually it's a good deal more subtle than in OSH and lacks the honey overtones. Mostly it tastes like caramel toffee (the creamy stuff you get in chocolate bars) or butterscotch to me. I've noticed that it's often largely absent in beers from the smaller breweries, though. I guess their processes differ from those used by the big boys and are more similar to what we do as homebrewers.

Through conversation with micro brewers my experience is that a significant number of micro's are using SO4 and/or Nott's which is largely why their beers tend to be comparable to the average all grain home brewers ales.
For a lot of the small breweries the cost of maintaining their own yeast strains is just too expensive - even simple things like maintaining your keg population chew through a huge amount of cash.
Using packaged dried yeast also helps them minimise the risk of infection which is another cost that small breweries can't afford to carry.


Cheers
Steve

[Dr. Dextrin]

I'm sure you're right, but it's a shame because it means that the malt profile in many beers from micros can be very samey. And it doesn't help that they often all use the same hops as well. Several times recently, I've sampled beers from different small breweries only to find they'd both brewed the same beer!

[Piscator]

I'm sure you're right, but it's a shame because it means that the malt profile in many beers from micros can be very samey. And it doesn't help that they often all use the same hops as well. Several times recently, I've sampled beers from different small breweries only to find they'd both brewed the same beer!

Agreed, I have also found that I have tried one or two "award winning" micro brewed ales only to find I thought mine were better (obviously I was a bit biased)........ and I am by no means an award winning brewer, just your typical occasional home brewer.
One good example was a stout which was mediocre at best, but I had been able to make an absolute cracker - but I had the luxury of allowing it to bottle condition for a much longer time than most commercials can allow - the brewery concerned told me their beers go out after 7 days in the bottle.

I was told by an ex-technical brewer from a famous brewery who was in the know that TTL does indeed get much of its caramel flavour from the use of brewing sugars, as do a lot of commercial beers. Due to the shady reputation associated with the use of sugars in the 70's and 80's a good many breweries dont like to talk about their use and so "secret" processes and or ingredients are alluded to rather than coming clean over the use of sugars. This is a bit of a shame, since used appropriately adjuncts can enhance recipes rather than just cheapen them.

[Dr. Dextrin]

That's an interesting point about sugars. I have no problem using them myself, but it can be difficult to know if a commercial brewer is adding them because, as you say, they don't like to mention them.

I think perhaps the most reliable way of knowing is to buy bottled beer from one of the outlets that require complete ingredient information on the bottles (not just the usual "contains malted barley"). I'm not sure who does this at the moment, but I remember buying a bottle of Black Sheep Riggwelter from Sainsburys a few years ago and seeing "sugar" listed as an ingredient, whereas the head brewer had denied that the beer contained any sugar.

It might be interesting to do the same thing with TTL.

[Piscator]

Apparently there are loads of sugars available to the big brewers each designed to bring something different to the recipe. Good idea on the bottled ingredients list although as far as I know alcoholic drinks are not required by law to make an ingredient declaration, only allergens and alcohol content. I can only assume the supermarkets are pressing them into making ingredient dec's to keep their products on the shelf howeve it's very useful for us. I seem to recall that the industry lobbied to get an exemption from ingredient dec's as I think they knew what the disclosure of sugar would do for the product image and sales.
I think GW mentioned in BYOBRAAH that some breweries had supplied recipes that couldn't work as there were not enough fermentables while some just plain refused to spill the beans.

I think the best bet if you are making a clone recipe is not to get too hung up on trying to match the exact recipe of the brewer but adjusting a base recipe with ingredients readily available to the home brewer to get the product as close as possible to the cloned brew.You might end up with a recipe that is quite different to the original but its the end product that matters.

Cheers
Steve

[CestrIan]

But I'm no longer believing that stuff and have started experimenting with yeasts like Fullers that produce a lot of dicetyl. My latest (a simple bitter modelled on Wadworth 6X - with just pale and crystal malts) has produced an amazing toffee flavour that I've never managed to achieve before, so I'm starting to think I'm on the right track.

However, temperature control during fermentation appears to be quite important as, also, is the ability to clear the yeast from the beer at the correct point in the fermentation by cooling (essentially this is to prevent the diacety rest taking place). I suspect all this needs to be done in quite a controlled manner for best results. There are enough variables to keep me busy for a while, so I'm definitely just at the start of the learning curve.

But I think this is a promising area to experiment with.

Hi DD! You say you're on the right track. How did you achieve the diacetyl toffee flavour in the 6X brew? Did you drop the temp to 17C like in the brewing network recipe?

[Dr. Dextrin]

But I'm no longer believing that stuff and have started experimenting with yeasts like Fullers that produce a lot of dicetyl. My latest (a simple bitter modelled on Wadworth 6X - with just pale and crystal malts) has produced an amazing toffee flavour that I've never managed to achieve before, so I'm starting to think I'm on the right track.

However, temperature control during fermentation appears to be quite important as, also, is the ability to clear the yeast from the beer at the correct point in the fermentation by cooling (essentially this is to prevent the diacety rest taking place). I suspect all this needs to be done in quite a controlled manner for best results. There are enough variables to keep me busy for a while, so I'm definitely just at the start of the learning curve.

But I think this is a promising area to experiment with.

Hi DD! You say you're on the right track. How did you achieve the diacetyl toffee flavour in the 6X brew? Did you drop the temp to 17C like in the brewing network recipe?

No, not exactly, although maybe I did something similar by accident. My main intention in this experiment was to under-pitch to create some diacetyl and then try and drop the yeast out quickly at the end of fermentation to avoid any diacetyl rest taking place.

I don't have a fridge to ferment in, so I was relying on using a water bath and putting PET bottles of frozen water into it. That's actually not particularly effective, though, especially as the weather turned out quite warm, so I'm postponing further experiments until the colder weather.

What I actually did was initially fill the water bath from the cold tap, so the wort started at around 17C (which by coincidence seems to be about right), and then pitch a fairly small yeast starter. I then allowed the temperature to rise to about 20C. I was able to hold it at this temperature with the frozen water trick, although it probably varied by a degree or so either way. Then, once the fermentation seemed to be finishing, I cooled as far as I was able (probably to around 17 or 18C) and let the yeast settle. The Fullers yeast tends to drop out quickly anyway. Then I racked the beer off the yeast, primed with sugar and kegged it.

So compared to the Brewing Network temperature profile, I probably cooled a bit less and a bit later in the fermentation and didn't do the really cold bit at the end, but otherwise somewhat similar.

[CestrIan]

I might try this. I've got a TTL clone in the fridge at the minute that I made yesterday with wyeast 1469. I pitched at 18C and let it rise to 20C over the first 24 hours. I have just got back from a night out in Chester and have supped a couple of pints of TTL on cask in the Golden Eagle and I've been mulling over how they make such a balanced beer.

I did boil down a couple of litres of first runnings to a thick syrup and then add it back to the kettle like a scottish heavy, but I might drop the temp half way through the fermentation to leave some diacetyl as well.

I went to the coniston brewery a few years ago and they brew for 4 or 5 days at ambient temps and then drop to 11C in a temperature conditioned secondary tank, so I'm wondering now if cutting the end of the fermentation short they are introducing some diacetyl to the brew. I have made blue bird bitter in the past which is a simple recipe with MO and challenger, but it won champion beer of britain in 1998, so there must be somthing more to it than that, maybe it is a touch of diacetyl that gives it the edge!

[EccentricDyslexic]

I also have been slowly coming to the conclusion that the accepted method for home brewers doesn't relate to the commercial experience. They seem to wait for the required gravity to be reached or get very near it and crash chill...no diacetyl rest at all. Also, I'm not entirely convinced I should be waiting the whole four weeks before supping me beers, I have been enjoying my beers more recently from only 7 days old.
Maybe we shouldn't be listening to so much American brewing mantra.

Steve

[Piscator]

I went to the coniston brewery a few years ago and they brew for 4 or 5 days at ambient temps and then drop to 11C in a temperature conditioned secondary tank, so I'm wondering now if cutting the end of the fermentation short they are introducing some diacetyl to the brew.

You will probably find they are not cutting the fermentation short - in a commerially sized fermentation the yeast behaves differently to our homebrew buckets.
Generally things are pretty much done between 3-4 days and temperatures are allowed to run quite high compared to what we might allow as homebrewers.
The brews are then crashed to about 10-11C to drop the yeast out of suspension for a couple of days so the whole process takes them about a week.

This technique is probably as much designed around being able to brew weekly batches as it is about quality, but not many breweries would admit it

[dave.wilton]

You will probably find they are not cutting the fermentation short

That is what I was thinking about changing next time I brewed following the fullers profile I listed earlier. I will not crash it as soon as it reaches 1/5th gravity but give it a bit more time to finish out. I will let you know what effect it has

[Dr. Dextrin]

I went to the coniston brewery a few years ago and they brew for 4 or 5 days at ambient temps and then drop to 11C in a temperature conditioned secondary tank, so I'm wondering now if cutting the end of the fermentation short they are introducing some diacetyl to the brew. I have made blue bird bitter in the past which is a simple recipe with MO and challenger, but it won champion beer of britain in 1998, so there must be somthing more to it than that, maybe it is a touch of diacetyl that gives it the edge!

I can recommend recovering the yeast from a Coniston Bluebird bottle, as it definitely adds something as well as getting the FG just right. I agree, though, that a touch of diacetyl is probably also needed in this beer, otherwise there isn't quite enough body. I may try cooling it at the end of fermentation next time.

And on the subject of brewing sugars, am I alone in thinking that our homebrew suppliers are also being a bit sniffy about them? We have a well-developed sugar industry in the UK that supplies our commercial brewers and allows them to produce a range of distinctive ales. There are about as many different-coloured sugars produced as there are different-coloured malts, but they seem to be completely unavailable to home brewers. For example, when I visited Jennings earlier this year, they were quite open about using stuff called Brublock, but I've never seen it available to buy. About the only brewing sugar you'll find readily as a homebrewer is the Belgian candi stuff (and at a ridiculous price). For some reason, that's considered respectable and the British stuff isn't, so we have to resort to whatever they happen to have at Tesco. I'm sure the specialist homebrew outlets could get their hands on a range of brewing sugars if they really wanted to.

[Piscator]

I think you're right we are missing out, but I think its sort of our own fault as we tend to be quite focussed on all grain brewing and regard sugars as nasty undesirables which we tend to replace with malt.
I also think there's an untapped market out there for someone who can re-package into homebrew sized containers - I'd certainly dabble if it were available.

Cheers
Steve

[seymour]

...Maybe we shouldn't be listening to so much American brewing mantra...

Precisely! After all, other than German lager-brewing immigrants who dominated the industrial-scale post-Prohibition era, our brewing roots lie in English brewing tradition. You taught our "founding fathers" everything they knew. Please, please, don't follow our advice and only brew high-grav, high-attenuated, super-clean, neutral conversions and fermentations. Most of our "advancements" have been at the expense of all the yumminess you English ale brewers manage to leave in!

[EccentricDyslexic]

Well I bit the bullet today and am chilling my brew at 1.012. wlp002 has attenuated to 70% and it tastes lovely. It was 1.014 yesterday, so this is my first time not allowing three clear days at least before chilling to drop the yeast!

Gonna keg it tommorrow with some finings and keep at cellar temps for a couple of days and then drink it! Will report back on how well it goes down with me mates at a party this weekend.

Steve