Clotworthy Dobbin - 29/05/2008

[delboy]

Might be a wild yeast then in along with the burton yeast. I'll be sure and stand the fermenter in a bleach solution so i don't carry this over into any other brews.

[Jymbo]

Interesting about the choc malt jymbo, was it pale choc (from H&G) or normal choc malt? One thing i would change about this for sure (apart from staying reasonably sober when making it) is i would mash high or maybe even use windsor. Clotworthy dobbin has a lot of residual sweetness.

Just regular chocolate malt (from hop shop) - but I think I probably used too much - been using the missus' kitchen scales and they're only good for weighing out large quantities. All the same I think I'd reduce the quantity a bit the next time anyway and maybe up the black malt a bit as the dark malt bitterness it definitely desirable - I just felt that the chocolate malt flavour overpowered the other flavours.

I may do a mini-mash at some point to try and get it a bit closer.

Anyway, the brew actually turned out quite nice , so no harm done.

[Jymbo]

Had a few bottles of this last night and it's delicious. It's had a week in the bottle now and it does bear a fair resemblence to the real thing. Definitely has the dry taste of an Irish red ale. Next time round I'll add a bit more Cascade at the end of the boil and possibly mash at about 68C, just to get a bit closer to the original but I'm very happy with this as a first attempt at recipe formulation.

[delboy]

Nice one