Help me create my recipe!

[markcurling]

Hi guys,

I am fairly new to brewing, I've got 3 all grain brews under the belt now so am starting to get a feel for it!

I would like to create a new beer, but don't really know where to start with the recipe.

I am a big fan of hoppy golden ales and have just bottled my first attempt at one (pale malt, touch of crystal, target and East Kent Goldings for aroma). However, my favourites are the pale ones which have a big kick of digestive biscuit from the malt. My question is, how do I go about getting this flavour?
Is it from the rather unsubtly named 'biscuit malt'?
Or is it a flavour that comes about from over-sparging (can't remember where I picked this idea up from)?

If anyone has got any ingredients tips or a proven recipe I could try out then I would be very keen to hear of it!

Thanks for the help,
Mark

[boingy]

Can you name one or two commercial examples of the kind of thing you would like? It will help to focus the replies.

[markcurling]

Unfortunately I struggle to think of any - I have had many different beers which fit the description at festivals over the last couple of years, but can't recall a name, and certainly not a commercial example. It's frustrating because finding a recipe would be much more straightforward if I could!

[pas8280]

Mark i think i know the taste that you are refering to, i have had it in two local micro brewery pints Bank Top's Gold Digger which is a blonde ale and Prospect brewerys Open Cask which is a much darker bitter colour, which led me away for some reason from the grain bill to getting the flavour from the hops.
I have e mailed both breweries without reply and posted on this forum but because they are both small micro's members have been unable to assist, i am therefore following this tread with interest
good luck Paul

[trucker5774]

Mark i think i know the taste that you are refering to, i have had it in two local micro brewery pints Bank Top's Gold Digger which is a blonde ale and Prospect brewerys Open Cask which is a much darker bitter colour, which led me away for some reason from the grain bill to getting the flavour from the hops.
I have e mailed both breweries without reply and posted on this forum but because they are both small micro's members have been unable to assist, i am therefore following this tread with interest
good luck Paul

Paul. I PM'd you about Open Cask. Where is it on sale at the moment?

[markcurling]

No ingredients suggestions to get this flavour then? I was hoping the answer might be fairly straightforward!

[De-Geert]

If it would be all that straightforward, brewing would not be so much fun.

[Barley Water]

I can think of three specialty grains to try. Special Roast, Victory and of course Biscuit malt should all help you bring out the flavor you seek. Also, use Marris Otter for the base grain as it will also enhance that flavor. Here's the rub though, the malts I've listed will also tend to color your beer darker although I personally don't see that as a problem. I guess you could try and offset the color effect of the specialty grains by using a bit of flaked corn (or do a cereal mash with corn grits which is my favorite method). The great thing about this hobby is that now you get to fool around with the quanties added to get the effect you are looking for.

I am going to do an Octoberfest this weekend and I am seriously considering adding 4 to 6 ounces of Special Roast to the grist in a 5 gallon batch. My objective is to add just a little more "toast" to the beer, I'll likely severly reduce the crystal type malts and go for a dryer interpretation as well. Naturally, I'll also do a double decoction so I can get those nice melonodin flavors.

By the way, oversparging will tend to give you sort of a harsh taste which I always am trying to avoid, certainly not a biscuit taste in my opinion. Also, if you hop the hell out of the beer, you will cover up some of the more subtle malt flavors so I would also be looking to get a pretty balanced product. I would probably start out with an IBU/Gravity Point ratio of around 0.5 (naturally, depending on attenuation, you may want to alter this a bit after brewing a batch or two). Everything else being equal, the hoppier the beer, the more I try to dumb down the malt flavor so as not to compete. Anyhow, take all that for what it's worth and come up with something unique, that's the best part of the hobby.

[markcurling]

Barley Water, thank you very much for your response!
A lot of interesting points - certainly enough ideas for me to play with for my next couple of brews!
I'll give some of those malts a trial and let you know any progress...

Mark

[Barley Water]

Just a little more information on this topic which hopefully will be useful. As noted in my previous post, I brewed an Octoberfest this weekend and included 6oz of Special Roast (in a 5 gallon batch) to try and increase the "toasty" character of the beer. My initial take on this grain is that it lends sort of a pumpernickel type aroma which I could pick out during the boil (of course I did a double decoction so it may be that the melonodin reactions also contributed to this effect). I rather liked it so it will be interesting to see what flavor it contributes. Also, when purchasing my grain I tasted a little and this stuff is pretty agressive tasting, I would certainly not add more than about 6oz in a 5 gallon batch. I plan to lager this stuff until early October so it will be awhile before I know the results of this experiment.

[lancsSteve]

If you;re starting on recipe formulation I'd REALLY recommend startiunbg simple - single malt, single hop so do all marris otter and then goldings or fuggles. You can build up an idea of what does what that way.

If you have access to two boilers (or just want to experiment) then take one mash and split it into a big boiler for your main brew (maybe EKGs early and late, no good reason to use high-alpha hops for bittering in home brewing IMHO) and then in two largeish pans on the cooker you can brew off with different hops e.g. one with challenger and one with fuggles - ferment these in demijohns so you get 3 beers from the same mash.

You can also split the main brew and ferment with different yeasts...

Then you can pick your favourite/closest from these splits and change one thing next time e.g. add one 'speciality' malt like biscuit (used in many Belgians) or Victory.

OR do a mini-mash with these malts in a second insulated cooler or in a pan on the stove in a sparging bag and add that to one boiler...

This may all sound complex but it's not really and the time is the same. You can also try steeping grains (for crystal and roasted malts that don't need mashing) or using a mini-mash to allow you to control for different elements and work out a recipe and try things in parallel rather than progressively doing full brew-lengths of similar beers.