Home Brew Forum

Decided to have another go at Clotworthy Dobbin. Had a few bottles of my last batch left so I did a side by side comparision with a bottle of real Clotworthy. Decided I needed more flavour hops and a bit less chocolate. Also caramalised 2L of the wort this time and mashed at 68C to try to get a bit more of the toffee flavour. Used Safale-05 this time instead of Wyeast Irish. Anyway, here's what I came up with:

Brewlength: 23L
Target OG: 1048
Mash:90mins
Boil: 90mins
Bitterness: 30 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70%

Grain Bill

Marris Otter: 4500g
Crystal Malt: 450g
Chocolate Malt: 80g
Black Malt: 25g
Wheat Malt: 150g

Hop Schedule

90mins: Challenger (7.1%): 10g
90mins: Northdown (7.9%): 12g
15mins: Challenger (7.1%): 15g
15mins: Cascade (5.4%): 15g
8mins: Cascade (7.3%): 10g
0mins: Cascade (7.3%): 20g

Mash At 68C.
Safale US-05

Caramalise 2L of first runnings and add to boil.

Hit the target spot on and got 23L @ 1048.

Looks good jymbo, my last attempt at this isn't much like clot dobbin but its still a cracking pint on its own right.

Whats the thinking behind using US-05?

I get a lot of sweetness in clot dobbin i wonder how fullers yeast would work in it

There's no great masterplan behind the Safale-05, Del - just that yesterday was the only chance I'll have for the next week or so to get a brew on and the only yeasts I had in the house were Safale-05 and Nottingham so I decided to have a go at it with the 05 - I've had really good results from this yeast in the past with Porter and Caledonian 80/- but I agree that the fullers yeast or anything that finishes a bit higher would be a good idea. Hopefully the caramalising and the high mash temp will help a bit.

Yeah i suppose you can only use what you have. I made my last attempt with windsor which did leave a bit of residual sweetness but by the time it had cleared down (took an age) it had dried out a bit also.

Just wondering do you have any trouble with yeasts settling down? I think in this part of the world the water tends to be very soft with very little Calcium, lately i've taken to treating the water.

Mmmm, nice recipe - I don't know the original but it sounds tasty.

delboy wrote:Yeah i suppose you can only use what you have. I made my last attempt with windsor which did leave a bit of residual sweetness but by the time it had cleared down (took an age) it had dried out a bit also.

Just wondering do you have any trouble with yeasts settling down? I think in this part of the world the water tends to be very soft with very little Calcium, lately i've taken to treating the water.

I've never had any bother with the yeast clearing out. I pass my brewing water through a Brita filter and fill up about six five-litre PET containers during the few days before I brew. I add a bit of gypsum to the mash and sparge water. That gives me a pretty much spot-on 70% (brewhouse) efficiency every time.

I did get a report from the water board who were very helpful, but I think my water comes from a different supply from Belfast. The hardness figures I got were:

Hardness levels for Dunore North (Ballymena/Antrim/Crumlin, zone Z109) in Northern Ireland are:

Permanent Hardness: 53.5 mg/l Calcium
Temporary Hardness: 134 mg/l CaCO3

The Brita filter removes a lot of the temporary hardness without taking too much Calcium away and the gypsum seems to compensate for the rest of the calcium reqired. I usually boil the gypsum in some water in a pot before adding to the mash liquor as it doesn't disolve well in water below 90 degrees or so.

this is one on the like hopefully over Christmas, what about trying ringwood yeasts (WLP005)?

My local small offy is no stock this, I got to enjoy of few of these over th weekend.

Haven't tried ringwood yeast, but I'd say that any yeast that doesn't attenuate too much should be suitable. I'll let you know how this one goes - I've probably used a bit too many flavour hops with this recipe, but I wanted to be sure of a good flavour even if the yeast doesn't leave enough sweetness. I've used the fullers yeast before and I'd say it would be well suited to this brew.

Hope it turns out ok Jymbo. My attempt at this turned out a nice beer, but I agree deffo less chocolate next time, and as Del says it took an age to clear, and when it did, it wasn't crystal.

Yea, I have a few beer that have suffer because of poor US-05 poor clearing

Jymbo wrote:

delboy wrote:Yeah i suppose you can only use what you have. I made my last attempt with windsor which did leave a bit of residual sweetness but by the time it had cleared down (took an age) it had dried out a bit also.

Just wondering do you have any trouble with yeasts settling down? I think in this part of the world the water tends to be very soft with very little Calcium, lately i've taken to treating the water.

I've never had any bother with the yeast clearing out. I pass my brewing water through a Brita filter and fill up about six five-litre PET containers during the few days before I brew. I add a bit of gypsum to the mash and sparge water. That gives me a pretty much spot-on 70% (brewhouse) efficiency every time.

I did get a report from the water board who were very helpful, but I think my water comes from a different supply from Belfast. The hardness figures I got were:

Hardness levels for Dunore North (Ballymena/Antrim/Crumlin, zone Z109) in Northern Ireland are:

Permanent Hardness: 53.5 mg/l Calcium
Temporary Hardness: 134 mg/l CaCO3

The Brita filter removes a lot of the temporary hardness without taking too much Calcium away and the gypsum seems to compensate for the rest of the calcium reqired. I usually boil the gypsum in some water in a pot before adding to the mash liquor as it doesn't disolve well in water below 90 degrees or so.

Must change my location signature, it should read carrickfergus and not belfast. We get out water from the resovoirs just above carrick and the water is v. soft.

Kegged this yesterday. It finished at 1011 so hopefully there's a bit of residual sweetness left in there - the last attempt dropped right down to 1006. Tasted good going into the keg but I'll reserve judgement for a couple of weeks.

This is definitely closer to Clotworthy than the last attempt. I think the grist is very close - compared colours with the real thing last night and its identical. The malt taste is right too although it could be a bit sweeter. The hops and yeast need changing though - Challenger should definitely not be present in the flavour hops - I think Cascade on its own would be more suited and the Fullers yeast would probably leave a bit more sweetness from the malt.

All in all it's a pretty nice pint, but possibly a bit too hoppy.