Theakston old Peculier

[derekp]

just thinking that if I missed out the chocolate malt, and still managed 23 litres of a 1056 beer then could my efficencies must be pretty high?. Also if I did leave it out then I have made a decent drink worth brewing again lol

[Graham]

For once it does not appear to be one of my upcocks.

I would not be at all surprised if the wrong stuff is in the bag. I would be inclined to give the stuff a test before brewing. 2.4 grammes stirred into 200 millilitres of near-boiling water should give you nearly the same colour as the beer is supposed to be. A standard coffee-mug holds 250ml to the brim, and I expect a teaspoon-full would give a good approximation to 2.4 grammes. Should certainly be able to detect the difference between brown malt and chocolate because brown malt only has 10% of the colour of chocolate.

The choc malt only contributes about 2°to the gravity. Should still be a pretty good beer though. Just call it Young Peculiar, or even Young's Peculiar if they have got it wrong, which I suspect they have - regretfully Young's do not major on full-mash stuff.

[derekp]

well it seems even though I have studied for the AME (brewing exam) and had worked for a major brewery for 15 years I have made a possibly stupid mistake, took Grahams advice and done the test and guess what,I did add the chocolate malt but forgot to crush it, so anyone out there who buys bags of malt for a HB shop get it crushed first lol.

[wetdog]

I managed to buy a bag of chocolate last year that wasn't crushed. I have a large pestle and mortar so got busy with that but won't make that mistake again.
Come to think of it, I bought it to use in a TOP, the Dave Lines extract version. The colour was right but it took a few weeks before the taste of the dark grains mellowed

[Graham]

...guess what,I did add the chocolate malt but forgot to crush it

Better get out the rolling-pin then.

[derekp]

just use a blender to crush the grain, theres not much to add to the grain bill so mine will go in as nearly flour lol

[hazard]

I'm keen to make some Old Peculier but.,..
1. Shouldn't this have some treacle somewhere? I see that Hop and Grain recipe has some brown sugar, can I substitute treacle instead?
2. What is appropriate yeast for this? I guess that, since this is from Yorkshire that I should use use Wyeast West Yorkshire (1469) or Ringwood (1187) - any recommendations?

hazard

[chris_reboot]

I didn't use sugar in my recipe, and its come out a real treat!
Really happy as its my 1st AG.

Grahams recipe cant be faulted.
Keep meaning to blind taste test against the real thing, but mines too nice, can't bring myself to open the bottle!

I used S-04 yeast as it's what I had in stock

[clogwog]

Get yourself a mill, and forget about being hostage to the crush of your HB shop.
That way, you are in control, and you remove one possible variant from your brewing process.

[Parva]

The maltster generally crushes the malt before it reaches the homebrew shop and bearing in mind they crush for breweries as well as homebrewers they tend to get it right. Certainly Muntons and Fawcetts malt is well crushed and it looks like Warminster malt is pretty good also. I'd sooner leave it to the experts than dick around with it at home.

Whilst I totally agree with this view I have noticed that my latest sack of M.O. from Fawcetts has been giving me a lot of stuck sparges, something I've not suffered with 3 previous sacks. However, my efficiency has also shot up due to the presumably better crush. I'm happy to stick with the pre-crushed stuff (why have the added hassle of doing it yourself?) but I can confirm that even the maltsters have some variation in the crush that they do.

[Graham]

Like most things, malt should be specified in regards of colour, nitrogen and crush. Any commercial brewer, as long as they are big enough to do so, will do exactly that. Specifying Marris Otter deals with the nitrogen aspect and probably the colour too, but breweries that use a temperature stepped mash, as many big breweries do, can get away with cheaper, higher nitrogen malt. At least M.O. overcomes that hurdle.

Many brewers, even micros, use a separate mash tun / lauter tun combination rather than the traditional English false-bottom mash tun. Brewers that use a lauter tun can use a much finer crush and get a better efficiency because of it. The degree of crush possible using a lauter tun would cause a set mash in the traditional mash tun. An over-crushed malt doesn't float and the flour settles on the false bottom and blocks it. It is the husks that enable the bed to float and, ideally, the majority of the kernel should still be within the husk.

The ideally our stuff should be cracked rather than crushed, and the grain should be very coarsely milled to just break open or simply crack the kernels. The problem is that when buying ready-crushed malt from a maltster, is that you could end up with stuff intended for a lauter tun - at best you might get a crush at whatever the mill was last set to. With someone like Warminster you are probably fairly safe, but with Muntons or any largish maltster that supplies all sorts of customers, you have to be careful. I have had stuff from home-brew shops, that has allegedly been bought in ready crushed, that has been grossly over crushed.

You have to be particularly wary of some of these anonymous pale malts supplied by the home-brew wholesalers.

[Graham]

Different breeds of barley have widely different kernal sizes, and even the same breed of barley will have varying kernal sizes. The malster screens this into its different sizes prior to malting to ensure even germination. Technically at least, different batches of even the same breed could require different mill settings. The last time I bought malt from a maltster (Tuckers) it was milled there and then, I don't recall any adjustments to the mill. Sometimes they will ask what crush you want, if you order in advance, but it is probably not cost-effective to bugger about with mill settings for a couple of sacks of pale malt. There was nothing wrong with the Tucker's stuff though.

On the other hand I have had bad experiences with stuff bought from H-B shops, but perhaps things have improved now. To go to a maltster and not ask for what you want is like going to a shop and just asking for a packet of biscuits. You get what you are given. Not that home brewers are in any position to dictate. Many small breweries now have a lauter tun or a Strainmaster / Mashmaster. Most bespoke breweries, meaning those that are not cobbled together from cellar tanks, often come with a lauter tun as standard.

The traditional false-bottom mash tun is a long way from being extinct yet, but not every brewery wants the same degree of crush.

[Korev]

Another Q for Graham on the colour.

I have put the recipe from the book into Promash with the colour of malts that I can get in Aus and it comes out as 36.2 EBC, If I put the same data into Beer Engine I get 88 EBU, so there is something strange happening here

Grist
91.5% Bairds MO 6 EBC
4.9% Bairds Med Crystal 150EBC
3.6% Joe White Choc 900 EBC

It takes adding 780g of black patent malt @ 1034 EBC to get to 95EBC for this recipe in Promash !!

Thoughts - is this a case where colouring like Carafa Special III is needed or is the 95 EBC wrong?

Cheers
Peter

[Graham]

I have put the recipe from the book into Promash with the colour of malts that I can get in Aus and it comes out as 36.2 EBC, If I put the same data into Beer Engine I get 88 EBU, so there is something strange happening here

Grist
91.5% Bairds MO 6 EBC
4.9% Bairds Med Crystal 150EBC
3.6% Joe White Choc 900 EBC

It takes adding 780g of black patent malt @ 1034 EBC to get to 95EBC for this recipe in Promash !!

Thoughts - is this a case where colouring like Carafa Special III is needed or is the 95 EBC wrong?

No, I don't think that 95 EBC is wrong. I have 95 EBC as the colour of Old Peculiar in the information that I have, which I have to assume is correct.

I would rather trust BeerEngine's colour prediction than Promash's or BeerSmith's. The colour predictions in the American software is calculated using the Morey equation, which is based upon the screwy idea that beer colour is not linear. Also, their software uses ASBC numbers internally (Lovibond and SRM) and their conversions between those and EBC are rather suspect too. In my view, American home brewer's concept of beer colour is just a tangled mess.

Joe White does not give full data for their malts on their web site, so it is not clear what method they use to determine colour, but BeerEngine uses Institute of Brewing methods. It will make a difference of about 13% in malt colour if they use a different method.

[Korev]

Thanks for your comments - however I brewed your recipe today and it is not anywhere near 95EBC see colour below. The grist other than the JW Choc which was 900 EBC vs 1050 was the same. So to test it further please could you confirm the crystal you used was 145 EBC and could you confirm what Brand of UK choc malt was used in your recipe.

op brown.JPG (17.75 KiB) Viewed 4039 times

Thanks
Peter