8/3/10 AG#6 - Cadbury's Real Ale Egg (photos)

[Garth]

Coco Pops

Now that ... is an outstanding idea. Why haven't I thought of that before?

Actually.... don't answer that

on here we've seen some 'odd' things added to the mash and boil, creme eggs definately get added to the list.

PieoPah, who used to be a regular contributor to this forum came up with some crackers, one of them was a stout which had at least four different breakfast cereals in it, one of them being Coco pops. I'm sure it was called Liquid Breakfast or summat, it might have even had lactose in it as well.

He did another more normal recipe, Pops V2 Stout, comes out at about 7% has a lot of different malts in it, done it twice and it works quite well.

[WishboneBrewery]

This could be a way to get the other half to drink beer!!
madness!!!

[andybiochem]

Thanks for all the positive comments! I just get blank faces when I describe the beer to friends! They just don't understand.

I've just taken a sneaky wineglass-full from the primary to test for diacetyl.

Initial tasting notes, very very nice! Very stout-like, lots of smoke in there, definitely more malty than hoppy. No tobacco/coffee which I was worried about, and no diacetyl either. I could bottle this tomorrow, it's been 11 days in the primary.

Most importantly, and sadly, no sign whatsoever of creme egg

Who can blame the yeasties though! They probably ate through the fondant first.

The fuller's yeast will deffo be going in my yeast bank!

[andybiochem]

Just finished bottling / labelling


Left-overs from bottling


As I said above, this is a very nice dark ale. Not too au-fait with different ale styles, but I think this is most likely a stout? Feel free to correct me.

Two more weeks bottle conditioning (primed with 50g sucrose).

Will post again when ready.

[WishboneBrewery]

gotta love the labels

[GeordieBrewer]

Absolute Champion effort! would love to know how it turns out after a bit of conditioning! Now in the mood for creme eggs!

[andybiochem]

Coming to the end of this ale now, so thought I'd give an update.

Creme Egg flavour is non-existent, unsuprisingly. What's left is actually a really nice stout! It's very, very dark and has a good bit of depth to it. I wasn't much of a fan of dark ales, but this one has converted me somewhat. A mild-to-strong smoky coffee flavour has developed, and it's really more-some. It's definately not something you'd down in a couple of swigs, I'd happily spend an hour on a pint of this.

Being critical, it's a tiny tiny bit too sweet, I'd like to have a more rounded bitterness/sweetness balance. Also, it's a little over carbonated: I opened a bottle at 14 degrees c just the other day, and the head slowly crept up to the mouth of the bottle. I think in future I'm going to stick to 50g or less priming sugar in the 15L batches I brew.

Final tasting notes:
Apppearance: Very Dark
Aroma: Malt+, Smoke
Flavour: Malt+, Nutty, Smoke, Tobacco, Coffee, Sweet
Mouthfeel: Long, Thick/Chewy, C02+
Overall: 62/100

I marked it down for sweetness and fizzyness.

[WishboneBrewery]

Sounds good in the end

[Bobba]

Lovely head on that! What a shot that is
I'm interested in your yeast prep.....what did you wash those yeasties with? Acid? How tricky is it and is it worth it?

[andybiochem]

Cheers guys!

Unfortunately the head only lasts about 20-30 mins, then clears completely.

The yeast are washed with plain old water (boiled + cooled), just to get rid of the spray malt starter beer. I'm sure such a small amount wouldn't actually affect the flavour of the beer in the end if I threw the whole lot in, but since this was my first beer from recovered yeast I wasn't taking any chances.

After the starter had stopped fermenting and there was a good layer of yeast, I simply:
- put the mini-demijohn in the fridge for 24 hrs to settle the yeast to the bottom
- carefully poured off the starter beer
- filled mini-demi with 1L boiled/cooled water, then back in fridge
- once settled again, poured off most of the water
- added a bit more water to get about half a litre
- allowed to come to room temp whilst brewing
- pitch

[EccentricDyslexic]

Nice labeling!

What was your FG on this brew?

Steve

[andybiochem]

FG = 1.013

[Tony01]

Outstanding!
So pleased it worked out!

[chris_reboot]

excellent work.
loving the labels!