Home Brew Forum

Today I was at Mad Cat Brewery in Faversham to brew a commercial scale version of my recipe, Brown Rabbit. I won a competition held by East Kent Amateur Brewers and the prize was a brew day at Mad Cat.

I arrived at 8:30 and the HLT was already full and nearly up to temperature. Eight sacks of grain were then measured out along with twenty four 500g bags of oats (I used one bag of oats in my original recipe). The grain was wetted as it was poured into the mash tun and given a good stir with massive paddle. 1150 litres was pumped into the boiler and a ridiculous quantity of hops were measured out. The recipe was altered slightly due to hop availability but I was more than happy with the changes made. Peter Meaney, the Mad Cat owner, gave me full control over any changes that had to be made to the recipe. After the boil the wort was transferred and 500g of yeast added. The gravity was ever so slightly lower than the original recipe, but as it was fairly strong anyway that shouldn't be a problem.

Big thanks to Peter Meaney for a very enjoyable and successful brew day. It should be available In pubs in Kent in December.

Congrats on your competition win & prize!

It must have been a great experience to have your own recipe brewed on a commercial micro scale!
Nice story, well done!

Any idea what pubs this will be available at?

The original homebrew recipe

Brown Rabbit

Recipe specifics:

Style: American Brown Ale
Batch size: 40.0 l
Boil volume: 53.0 l
OG: 1.055
FG: 1.011
Bitterness (IBU): 35.1
Color (SRM): 24.0
ABV: 5.8%

Grain/Sugars:

5.40 kg Maris Otter Malt, 57.7%
1.20 kg Vienna, 12.8%
1.00 kg Caragold, 10.7%
0.50 kg Crystal 150L, 5.3%
0.50 kg Wheat, 5.3%
0.50 kg Flaked Oats, 5.3%
0.26 kg Roasted Barley, 2.8%

Hops:

30.00 g Kent Golding (AA 6.4%, Pellet) 60 min, 11.9 IBU
55.00 g Cascade (AA 7.0%, Pellet) 20 min, 14.5 IBU
55.00 g Citra (AA 12.7%, Pellet) 5 min, 8.7 IBU
45.00 g Cascade (AA 7.0%, Pellet) 0 min, 0.0 IBU
40.00 g Citra (AA 12.7%, Pellet) 0 min, 0.0 IBU
80.00 g Kent Golding (AA 6.4%, Pellet) 0 min, 0.0 IBU

Yeast/Misc:

US-05
Protofloc

Looks like a very delicious beer. I am a complete sucker for brown/red USA ales!

I wonder will it find its way down to Brighton??

floydmeddler wrote:Looks like a very delicious beer. I am a complete sucker for brown/red USA ales!

I wonder will it find its way down to Brighton??

It's mainly Kent, but some does manage to sneak over the borders so you never know.

A few photos here, more to be added soon.

https://www.facebook.com/MadCatBrewery

Underground Joe wrote:A few photos here, more to be added soon.

https://www.facebook.com/MadCatBrewery

Well Done UJ! Master Brewer in the making!
I don`t do Facebook, can you put pics on JBK?
WA

That is truly exciting, congratulations! Great looking recipe, I can easily believe it turned-out so nice.

Well done Joe, what a great prize.

Btw, are you the guy who does demos at the Faversham brew shop?

Yeah that's me. We met a month or so ago I think. I'm doing a BIAB demo in a couple of weeks.

Yeah we did - good put put a name to a face. I think you were talking about this recipe at the time, great that it won the comp

Nice going, is there anyway for us non-facebook users to see the photos?

What does the Caragold malt add to your finished beer

Caragold is a very pale crystal and according to the blurb adds body, sweetness and head retention.

pdtnc wrote:Nice going, is there anyway for us non-facebook users to see the photos?