My Brewdog Libertine Clone recipe. Feedback welcomed

[allanmb]

I am about ready to start a Brewdog Libertine clone with the recipe and method below. All comments/questions welcome

Cheers
Allan

Ingredients:
3 x 1.5Kg Coopers Light LME
1kg Dextrose
250g Carafa III malt
215g Simcoe
75-100g Brewers Sugar for bottle conditioning
White Labs WLP007 yeast
Whirlfloc tablet and/or beer finings

30 mins:
75g Simcoe

10 mins:
15g Simcoe
Whirlfloc

Flame Out:
25g Simcoe

Dry Hop:
100g Simcoe!

Target IBU: 66
Target ABV: 7.4%
Estimated OG: 1075
Estimated FG: 1018
Estimated Colour: EBC 109

Liquid Yeast Starter (2-3 days before brew day):
- Take yeast out of fridge and allow to come to room temp (1-2 hours)
- Get 1.5-2 litre bottle - apple juice or so as it will have same size as airlock bung
- prepare 1.5-2 litre large top vessel by sterilising. Also place airlock and bung in steriliser
- Boil 500ml of water and 65g of DME or dextrose (or 50g of sugar) for 10 mins
- place lid on and let cool to 23-27C in basin of cold water
- add 1/4 tsp of yeast nutrient (not sure best if hot or cool)
- remove yeast film (carefully as not to contaminate) and shake yeast vial well
- pour liquid and yeast (carefully as not to contaminate) into vessel and cover with cling film
- give vessel a good shake to aerate then remove cling film
- put on some form of lid with airlock, or place foil or cling film on top
- leave for 24-72 hours until settled
- (optional) if high OG (>1.07) then add another wort as above at this point, leave for a further 24-48 hours
- (optional) refrigerate the start for 24-48 hours to let yeast flocculate (good for high OG)
- Yeast is now ready to pitch to main brew wort. Either all of it or can pour off liquid and just use slurry (good if large starter wort)

Partial Grain Extraction:
- Mill grain to desired consistency - good default is 0.045 inches (0.11 cm)
- Start with 18L pan of cold of water (3/4 full) with a lid/plate on the bottom to save the grain touching the bottom
- Add grain to a brew bag and place inside pan (Don't add any of the dust that may spill from the bag)
- Bring the temp of the pan and contents up to 70-72C (75 absolute max)
- Put lid on and leave to steep for 45-60 mins (flame out should be fine, but ensure it doesn't dip below 65C or insulate with towels)
- Sparge the grains (can use the liquid in the pan), do not squeeze!
- IMPORTANT! Remove the plate/lid before proceeding to bring the temp up to a boil for the hops

Hop Tea:
- IMPORTANT - Make sure the lid/plate has been removed from grain extraction!
- Add 1.5KG of LME to the pot (no more than 3/4 full), bring to boil and let froth clear (hot break) making sure not to let anything stick to the bottom of the pot
- Keep topping up the pot with boiling water to maintain the same volume of liquid throughout
- Add the hops in bags in stages as listed above, keep a good rolling boil and keep topping up to counter evaporation
- Add a whirlfloc tablet (if using) with 10 mins left to go
- add the rest of the fermentables with 10 mins left to go
- At flame out, start to cool quickly leaving in hops (constantly stirring while in a large sink of flowing cold water is good enough)
- Once cooled below 25C, remove hops, but do not squeeze the hops out
- Sparge the hop bags by pouring additional boiling water over the bags (or squeeze for a test?)
- transfer to fermentation vessel and top up to 23L with cold tap water
- Once temp is below 24C, aerate by shaking (for 10 mins ideally)
- take OG reading and then add the yeast at 21-24C

Primary Fermentation and Dry Hopping:
- Leave to ferment at 18-21C with an airlock for 21 days or until fermentation has completely stopped
- Transfer to secondary fermentation vessel and add dry hop pellets
- keep yeast from primary FV and harvest for next batch (see harvesting and freezing yeast note)
- Leave for 5 days (or 7 days if no finings being used) with airlock
- If using Finings, Add finings to FV, gently stir top half and leave for further 2 days.

Bottling/Conditioning:
- Syphon into another fermentation vessel, take final gravity reading then add 75-100g of brewers sugar. Gently stir then bottle.
- Leave in a warm dark place to carbonate for 14 days
- Leave in a cold dark place (fridge is best) to settle and clear for 14-21 days

Enjoy!

[Brew_DD2]

I'm planning on doing a Libertine Clone myself and was wondering how this turned out?

[allanmb]

It has just had it's two weeks conditioning in a warm place and is in the fridge for the next two. I did have a cheeky taste at the weekend though. It has come out a little sweeter than hoped but I think I got a stuck fermentation as the final gravity was a touch higher than expected. It had a lovely hoppy nose though and is extremely drinkable! My best brew yet I think. One change I would make would be to, either add even more dry hops, or dry hop for only 2-3 days instead of 7-10.

I used to think dry hopping for a week was best but I have been reading that only a couple of days is enough to extract the best from the hops. What do people here do?

[Brew_DD2]

Thanks for the update. Did you get it dark enough with those steeping grains? I tried feeding your recipe into brewersfriend.com recipe editor and it came out reall light. I've been messing around with my recipe (in the thread below) in attempt to get it dark enough.

What FG did you come out at?

[allanmb]

It was extremely dark. So much so that you can hardly see light though the bottle when holding it up to the sun! I think we could have gotten away with 25%-50% less and it would have still looked black!

I cant remember what the FG was, but I think it was around 1020. I'll reply tonight once I get home and see my notes

[Brew_DD2]

Good to know. Don't know why that recipe builder is needing so much more dark steeping grains than your recipe.

[allanmb]

What recipe builder? What colour does it have listed for Carafa III ?

[Brew_DD2]

Brewersfriend.com recipe builder. Its has carafa III as 535Lovibonds

[allanmb]

The Carafa III I used has an EBC of 1200 which is approx 610 Lovibonds so you are in the right ballpark. The final gravity came out at 1018 but I calculated 1013 so quite a bit out. Having said that, the OG was expected to be 1069 but was actually 1073!

[allanmb]

I just tried BrewersFriend recipe builder and it comes out with a pretty pale beer based on this recipe. It is very wrong, or at least something is. I use Beer Engine and it seems far more accurate.

[Brew_DD2]

Yeah it's pretty strange. Glad I came across this thread. Have you checked out my recipe in the other thread? I needed to add a load of grains to get a good colour.

Strange, brewersfriend has a good reputation from what I gather. I'll try a few others.

[allanmb]

Let me know how you get on