Badger Fursty Ferret

[Matt]

Continued from the other thread…

From Seymour's database …

ABV: 4.4%
Grainbill: 96.5% Pale, 3% Crystal Malt, 0.5% Chocolate Malt
Bittering Hops: Goldings and Fuggles
Late Hops: mostly Goldings plus a little Styrian Goldings and/or Cascade
IBU: 30
Colour: golden amber, 25–30 EBC

Plus an interesting update in an email from Toby Heasman, the head brewer, *today* …

'We do not normally give out recipe info. But I can tell you that the
main stay of Ferret is its high drinkability. It is not overtly hoppy,
the hop character is subtle so you may want to use a noble hop such as
Goldings.

It is a mid to light coloured ale that uses predominantly pale ale malt
with a couple of percent as crystal.

You will not be able to get any of our yeast which is unique. Our yeast
tends to give a reasonable level of esters and fruit type notes which
are its main characteristics'

I asked him how the caramelly taste was achieved with such a low % of crystal and he confirmed that its down to kettle caramelisation.

… so Seymour was pretty damn close, but I'm thinking of brewing with 97.5% pale + 2% crystal + 0.5% choc for colour. Goldings bittering to 20 IBU, goldings at 5 mins 5 ibu, fermented with WLP002 or WLP017. Plus do the hob reduction of a couple of litres of wort to shoot for those lovely caramel flavours.

Anyone got any thoughts on that?

Cheers,

Matt