Well this weekend the wait was finally over. Bottled on the 1st March, I finally sucumbed to opening my first bottle of "Forest Dark" my very first AG. All I can say is that all the stress and hours were well spent, its bleedin delicious. Just to clarifty that point, it wasnt that hard at all, but I did stress a fair bit, so dont let these words put you of going AG.
All those batches of kit beer now seem so poor in comparison!
The taste is so clean (no twang), so rich, and YUMMY!
4.00 kg Marris Otter
0.50 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM)
0.20 kg Aromatic Malt
0.25 kg Meladonin Malt
0.50 Wheat Malt
0.15 kg Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM)
Add first wort hops to boiler at start of sparge
15.00 gm Styrian Goldings [5.00%] (60 min) (First Wort Hop)
15.00 gm Fuggles [4.50%] (60 min) (First Wort Hop)
--Boil for 60 min
15.00 gm Styrian Goldings [5.00%] (30 min)
15.00 gm Fuggles [4.50%] (30 min)
1.00 tsp Irish Moss (50 min)
Epping forest Dark
-
Barley Water
- Under the Table
- Posts: 1429
- Joined: Tue May 22, 2007 8:35 pm
- Location: Dallas, Texas
Good for you, now you can mess with the formulations and procedures to produce the taste you want rather than settle for commericially available LME/DME. What you now need to do is save up your money and purchase a kegging system. That way, you will not have to wait so long for a beer to be ready to drink and you will be amazed at what a pain it is to clean a bunch of bottles.
Drinking:Saison (in bottles), Belgian Dubbel (in bottles), Oud Bruin (in bottles), Olde Ale (in bottles),
Abbey Triple (in bottles), Munich Helles, Best Bitter (TT Landlord clone), English IPA
Conditioning: Traditional bock bier, CAP
Fermenting: Munich Dunkel
Next up: Bitter (London Pride like), ESB
So many beers to make, so little time (and cold storage space)
Abbey Triple (in bottles), Munich Helles, Best Bitter (TT Landlord clone), English IPA
Conditioning: Traditional bock bier, CAP
Fermenting: Munich Dunkel
Next up: Bitter (London Pride like), ESB
So many beers to make, so little time (and cold storage space)
-
macleanb
Thanks chaps...
BTW I KNOW what a pain bottle cleaning is
, this is my first AG, but I have quite a number of kits under my belt. However I am off toys/shiny stuff for the rest of the year (well big toys) so Cornies will have to wait until next year.
I assume you guys have 4 plus cornies, I mean you dont want to drink the same beer every night!
BTW I KNOW what a pain bottle cleaning is
, this is my first AG, but I have quite a number of kits under my belt. However I am off toys/shiny stuff for the rest of the year (well big toys) so Cornies will have to wait until next year. I assume you guys have 4 plus cornies, I mean you dont want to drink the same beer every night!
-
steve_flack
-
Iank
I popped open the first bottle of said Epping Forest Dark last night and have to confer that it is absolutely splendid 
I did a taste copmparison to my Brupaks Old Ale (with LME) which was racked to King Keg on 21st March.
Now, I had been very pleased with the OA - Quite O.P. ish, quite sweet, dark, rich, not really any twang.
But the EFD is clearly superior. It's definitely more complex, but somehow cleaner and crisper, whilst still being dark and rich.
I did a blind taste test on the missus too (she's not really a beer drinker but quite likes it) and she was less certain but plumped for the EFD too.
I did a taste copmparison to my Brupaks Old Ale (with LME) which was racked to King Keg on 21st March.
Now, I had been very pleased with the OA - Quite O.P. ish, quite sweet, dark, rich, not really any twang.
But the EFD is clearly superior. It's definitely more complex, but somehow cleaner and crisper, whilst still being dark and rich.
I did a blind taste test on the missus too (she's not really a beer drinker but quite likes it) and she was less certain but plumped for the EFD too.