Novice extract brewer - help with GWs Old Peculier please?

[antinomy]

Quick bit of background - I've done a good few straight and tinkered kit beers and am about to step up to extract brewing. Hubby has so far been extremely patient about the brewing paraphernalia and bottles cluttering up our tiny house, so I thought it would be nice for my first recipe effort to be one of his favourite beers in the world - Theakston's Old Peculier.

Equipment wise, I've got all the kit stuff plus a stockpot which will boil about 10l, no way I can boil a full 23l brew (nor cash to buy or space to store a bigger boiler - sorry!).

I've had a bit of a tinker inputting the ingredients from GW's recipe (from Brew Your Own British Real Ale 3rd edition) into the Hopville Beer Calculus engine (http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe), and have come up with a few questions -

First is, despite trying the ingredients for all grain, LME and DME, I can't get anywhere near GW's listed EBC of 95 (I'm getting numbers in the low 40s for all the variations). Is this my mistake, the website's mistake or (perish the thought!) GW's? I've even tried setting up the recipe with dark malt extract, and it doesn't really seem to make any difference! I couldn't for the life of me work out which of the many variants on crystal malt in the software to use, though, so I just picked one at random!

Secondly - am I right in thinking I'm going to have to go for late addition of some of my malt extract - if I set up the recipe with about half of the extract, I get EBU values roughly where I'm expecting them to be for a 10l boil. If I set up with all the extract, I get about half that. Is there any downside to this? What should the timing of the late addition be? Does it need to be boiled, and for how long?

Also I can't work out what yeast to use - would S-04 be appropriate, or I've seen a different OP clone on the net that wanted WLP500? What would you all suggest?

Thank you for reading all of this, any advice gratefully accepted!

(I haven't re-posted the recipe from the book out of concern for copyright etc - I can do if folks tell me it's ok and it would help work out what I'm misunderstanding!)

[Graham]

Most 'American style' recipe software messes up colour calculations because the usual algorithm used is based upon flawed ideas; based on a myth that has been kicking around in home brewing circles for a number of years. Best not to trust the colour predictions from most of them.

Boiling half the volume at twice the density and diluting it afterwards, as is common with malt extract brewing using a stock-pot, does not affect utilisation very much at all; certainly not with a 30 EBU beer. Unfortunately the hop utilisation formulae will get this wrong, so it is best to do all your calculations based on full volume, even though you are going to do something different. Again it is a flaw in methodology, particularly in the prediction formulas used, but it is all too firmly entrenched in home brewing folklore for it to change any time soon.

I would suggest that you boil all your extract for the required amount of time, but as you are not too bothered about clarity in a 95EBC beer, you can do what you want without penalty.

[antinomy]

Thank you very much, that's all extremely helpful!

I'll come back in due course and update on how I got on

[ebilpirate]

Sorry, for the forum necromancy in bringing this topic back up...

Do I understand this correctly; those of us tied to stock pots can potentially run a 22l brew length recipe by working exactly as per the recipe and topping up to the required length in the Fv? I understand utilisation might be a bit out but would the end result come closeish to running a brew at the original intended length?

(wife is adverse to be buying in a boiler "until you get that bloody shed sorted out then you Can do what ever you want")

[Graham]

Yes, you can boil half volume at twice the strength without affecting utilisation materially. That is, follow the recipe exactly but use about half the water during the boil; that is boil 11 litres rather than 22 with all the extract added. I would not go much below half volume though.

Of course the hops will retain proportionally more extract, but this can be recovered by sparging the hops or by adding a bit more extract to compensate. The loss is probably of no real consequence.

The assertion that hop utilisation is affected by specific gravity is more or less a myth. The popular utilisation formulae, such as Tinseth, get this aspect hopelessly wrong. If you want a second opinion on this, listen to the appropriate BasicBrewing podcast. Go to:
http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=radio

And scroll down to: March 4, 2010 - BYO-BBR Experiment III

In summary, James Spencer produced two malt extract beers with identical target gravities (1.068) and hopping rates. One beer was boiled at full target volume (normal concentration) and the other was boiled at about half volume (approximately twice as concentrated). After the boil the concentrated wort was diluted in the fermenter to the same volume as the wort boiled at normal concentration. Laboratory analysis of the finished beers revealed no significant difference in measured bitterness units between the two beers and tasters could not reliably detect any difference between them either. There was also a third beer, but that was produced in a different way, and was more or less irrelevant to the experiment, but again there was no significant difference in the bitterness.

[testtube]

I don't get why the FG for the Old Peculier recipe is 1015, when you buy a bottle, check the SG.

[ebilpirate]

Cheers for the feedback on that Graham.

It makes a lot of sense, much appreciated.

[R1ch]

I don't get why the FG for the Old Peculier recipe is 1015, when you buy a bottle, check the SG.

No problem.. FG of 1.012 after it's been degassed fully.

tastes rubbish too after all the gas has gone.