I've seen some old recipes on Ron Pattinson's 'Shut Up About Barclay Perkins' blog and quite fancy giving them a go. However there's a couple of things that make me wonder how to go about them.
1. Most of the recipes seem to use several different pale malts and sometimes American 6-row barley. The question is; Why? I guess that mixing the malts adds something, but I'd be interested to know what. Is there any point? How would Maris Otter for the full grain bill change the taste? I'd like to replicate the taste (even though I've no idea what most of them were like) but does that mean I need to buy several differnt pale malts; where on earth do you get 6-row barley from in England.
2. A lot seem to use invert sugars No 1, 2 and 3. And Caramel colouring. Where do you get these things today? i've read that you can make invert sugars, but what about caramel colouring? How dark is it anyway?
If anyone's tried these recipes, I'd certainly be interested in your methods and thoughts on the results you got.
Old recipes from Shut up about Barclay Perkins
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Graham
Re: Old recipes from Shut up about Barclay Perkins
Many manufacturing outfits will double or triple-source their components just in case something goes wrong with one of their suppliers. Barclay Perkins could be doing the same in some cases; that is, multiple-sourcing their ingredients so that they are not left in the lurch if, for example, a malt-house catches fire. However, you can tell from some of the recipes that that is not the whole picture, often there is something different going on that has not been identified. More about that later.
The use of a portion of malt made from foreign barley was a fad that was common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It wasn't just American barley, but barley from several places around the world. The favourite was Smyrna barley from turkey, until some unrest / punch-up resulted in the whole port of Smyrna getting burnt to the ground. There are a handful of possible reasons for the initial use of foreign malt, some of which were probably based on certain technical myths that were common at the time. One obvious reason for the early twentieth century use of Californian barley was price. After 1919 America brought in prohibition, which meant that suddenly there was a surplus of brewing-barley growing capacity without a market. Between the two wars it seems that Britain enjoyed bargain-basement prices for Californian barley. After the 2nd war it more or less fell into disuse, but by that time prohibition in America had been repealed, so it was probably no longer at bargain-basement prices. Also it was risky stuff to use. High-nitrogen barley, which Californian six-row is/was, has poor haze performance and stability. Okay for dark beers, but use too much in a pale beer and it will haze at the drop of a hat.
There is little point in mixing malts for historic recipes. We have no idea what specification the malts were made to. Every major brewer have their malts made to their own specification, whether they make them themselves or contract them out. Malting has changed since those days too. There is no guarantee that today's malts are the same as even early twentieth-century malts.
If you want to replicate the old recipes on that site, I would suggest that you search to see if the original source data has been posted somewhere and do your own interpretation with the help of software. Kristen England's recipes are hopelessly naive and are not really to be trusted. Unfortunately, he is one of those people who are never wrong. If someone points out an idiosyncrasy of some sort, he will invariably defend himself by spouting a load of pseudo-scientific techno-babble in the hope of blinding his audience.
If we take the most recent recipe, posted on 2nd February 2011: There are four malts, but absolutely no specification has been given for any of them, apart from two-row or six-row. How on earth can a reader be expected to replicate a 1923 beer by randomly choosing several modern malts without guidance, even if modern malts do match old malts. It seems that the three two-row malts are not there as multiple sourcing to spread the risk. If that were the case, one would expect the quantities to be pretty much the same for each one. Furthermore, 9.1% of bog-standard pale malt is not going to make ha'p'orth of difference to the flavour when buried below the rest of it. The quantity is fairly low and fairly precise; so something else must be going on there. It is likely that the 9.1% is not standard pale malt, but more likely something either more flavourful or darker in colour. Likewise the 10.4% must be something different; it is just too low to make sense as pale malt. Indeed, the recipe as published is very pale, only 8 EBC (not 17.7 as specified), which seems to me to be too pale to be accepted by the London drinkers of the day. Modern London pride is about 22 EBC. This indicates that a darker malt must be in there somewhere.
Admittedly, Barclay Perkins, as brewers, did get up to some odd things that defy rational explanation, particularly at that period, but I doubt if this is one of them.
Without further information on those malts, all four malts might just as well be lumped into a single quantity of two-row pale malt. No point in risking a haze by using American six-row, even if it was available over here.
When we come to the invert sugars, each number assigned to invert does represent its specification, so that is fine if you can get the stuff. However, in his various postings, Kristen England often suggests making the stuff from a mixture of treacle and golden syrup, with no regard for matching the colour or molasses content. All attempts at this are bound to fail to match the real stuff in either colour or flavour.
When he specifies caramel, he again specifies it without reference to colour. Caramels come in a wide variety of colours (or densities) and flavours. Again when substituting he recommends using domestic gravy browning of unspecified colour or quality.
As you might agree, his whole approach to recipe design is rather hit and miss, despite his wild claims of authenticity. The most recent recipe is pointless because there is not enough information there to come anywhere close to replicating a 1923 XLK. Most of the other recipes have similar shortcomings.
Brewers' caramel is supplied by Brupaks and is available from the Home Brew Shop at Aldershot. To use the stuff you will need to know the colour of the caramel and preferably its specific gravity as well. This might be printed on the bottle, but otherwise you will have to phone brewpaks for that information. The final colour of the beer being targetted will also be required. Not somebody's guestimate of what the colour of the beer should be, but its true, specified colour. Given those figures it is quite straightforward to calculate the quantity of caramel required to adjust the colour.
The use of a portion of malt made from foreign barley was a fad that was common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It wasn't just American barley, but barley from several places around the world. The favourite was Smyrna barley from turkey, until some unrest / punch-up resulted in the whole port of Smyrna getting burnt to the ground. There are a handful of possible reasons for the initial use of foreign malt, some of which were probably based on certain technical myths that were common at the time. One obvious reason for the early twentieth century use of Californian barley was price. After 1919 America brought in prohibition, which meant that suddenly there was a surplus of brewing-barley growing capacity without a market. Between the two wars it seems that Britain enjoyed bargain-basement prices for Californian barley. After the 2nd war it more or less fell into disuse, but by that time prohibition in America had been repealed, so it was probably no longer at bargain-basement prices. Also it was risky stuff to use. High-nitrogen barley, which Californian six-row is/was, has poor haze performance and stability. Okay for dark beers, but use too much in a pale beer and it will haze at the drop of a hat.
There is little point in mixing malts for historic recipes. We have no idea what specification the malts were made to. Every major brewer have their malts made to their own specification, whether they make them themselves or contract them out. Malting has changed since those days too. There is no guarantee that today's malts are the same as even early twentieth-century malts.
If you want to replicate the old recipes on that site, I would suggest that you search to see if the original source data has been posted somewhere and do your own interpretation with the help of software. Kristen England's recipes are hopelessly naive and are not really to be trusted. Unfortunately, he is one of those people who are never wrong. If someone points out an idiosyncrasy of some sort, he will invariably defend himself by spouting a load of pseudo-scientific techno-babble in the hope of blinding his audience.
If we take the most recent recipe, posted on 2nd February 2011: There are four malts, but absolutely no specification has been given for any of them, apart from two-row or six-row. How on earth can a reader be expected to replicate a 1923 beer by randomly choosing several modern malts without guidance, even if modern malts do match old malts. It seems that the three two-row malts are not there as multiple sourcing to spread the risk. If that were the case, one would expect the quantities to be pretty much the same for each one. Furthermore, 9.1% of bog-standard pale malt is not going to make ha'p'orth of difference to the flavour when buried below the rest of it. The quantity is fairly low and fairly precise; so something else must be going on there. It is likely that the 9.1% is not standard pale malt, but more likely something either more flavourful or darker in colour. Likewise the 10.4% must be something different; it is just too low to make sense as pale malt. Indeed, the recipe as published is very pale, only 8 EBC (not 17.7 as specified), which seems to me to be too pale to be accepted by the London drinkers of the day. Modern London pride is about 22 EBC. This indicates that a darker malt must be in there somewhere.
Admittedly, Barclay Perkins, as brewers, did get up to some odd things that defy rational explanation, particularly at that period, but I doubt if this is one of them.
Without further information on those malts, all four malts might just as well be lumped into a single quantity of two-row pale malt. No point in risking a haze by using American six-row, even if it was available over here.
When we come to the invert sugars, each number assigned to invert does represent its specification, so that is fine if you can get the stuff. However, in his various postings, Kristen England often suggests making the stuff from a mixture of treacle and golden syrup, with no regard for matching the colour or molasses content. All attempts at this are bound to fail to match the real stuff in either colour or flavour.
When he specifies caramel, he again specifies it without reference to colour. Caramels come in a wide variety of colours (or densities) and flavours. Again when substituting he recommends using domestic gravy browning of unspecified colour or quality.
As you might agree, his whole approach to recipe design is rather hit and miss, despite his wild claims of authenticity. The most recent recipe is pointless because there is not enough information there to come anywhere close to replicating a 1923 XLK. Most of the other recipes have similar shortcomings.
Brewers' caramel is supplied by Brupaks and is available from the Home Brew Shop at Aldershot. To use the stuff you will need to know the colour of the caramel and preferably its specific gravity as well. This might be printed on the bottle, but otherwise you will have to phone brewpaks for that information. The final colour of the beer being targetted will also be required. Not somebody's guestimate of what the colour of the beer should be, but its true, specified colour. Given those figures it is quite straightforward to calculate the quantity of caramel required to adjust the colour.
Last edited by Graham on Mon Feb 07, 2011 12:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Jerry Cornelius
Re: Old recipes from Shut up about Barclay Perkins
Thanks Graham, very interesting. It does seem a shame that he doesn't add detail to the ingredients because, as I said, I was mystified and as you point out, it's useless as a practical recipe to follow. Sometimes the recipes lists caramel and sometimes caramel colourant; I assume that they are the same thing, but I have no idea.
I guess I'd be better off getting the Durden Park book, but the ones that are on their site are all high gravity beers, and I'm interested in the 1.035 - 1.042 range beers, which Ron Pattinson has a few recipes for. Perhaps I can just use them as a starting point (using all Maris Otter) and just make some beers that won't be authentic, but may, after experiment, be worthwhile.
I guess I'd be better off getting the Durden Park book, but the ones that are on their site are all high gravity beers, and I'm interested in the 1.035 - 1.042 range beers, which Ron Pattinson has a few recipes for. Perhaps I can just use them as a starting point (using all Maris Otter) and just make some beers that won't be authentic, but may, after experiment, be worthwhile.
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Graham
Re: Old recipes from Shut up about Barclay Perkins
I was really only talking about the 'Let's Brew Wednesday' stuff and Kristen England's interpretation of the recipes. There is plenty of other stuff on Ron Pattinson's site that will enable you to recreate some of the beers.
As you suggested, for the most part, Kristen England's recipes are impractical; he leaves too much guesswork to the reader and too much approximation for things like the sugars and colouring. Surely it is the recipe designer's duty to produce a complete workable recipe that matches the prototype as closely as possible, and his job to suggest viable, fully specified substitutes if necessary. It should also be his job to question why there are two malts that each make up around 10% of the grist. If they really are pale malts, their impact will be negligible at those quantities in comparison to the rest - in that case they should all be bundled together as one pale malt. However, it looks as if those are not pale malts, but something else. Without knowing for sure what that 'something else' is, the recipe should not have been attempted. In short, he leaves all the difficult stuff to the reader.
Some of K. E.'s recipes might actually be workable. Indeed, if it wasn't for the caramel, his 19th January recipe for 1919 X: given HERE: would be workable. The two pale malts, being of roughly equal quantities, are obviously for risk spreading. The quantities being quite high, about 30% in each case, precludes them from being anything other than pale malt, or perhaps mild ale malt at a push. They should have been combined into one lump. Most of the flavour is supplied by the other ingredients. Shame about the caramel. That recipe expects 0.6% of some unspecified caramel, I have just seen 1.6% specified elsewhere. That is a lot of caramel, far more than I would expect to see. For some reason he specifies it as a percentage of the weight of grist. That is wrong. Cloud-cuckoo land. Caramel colour has absolutely nothing to do with the weight of the grist. A fixed amount of caramel will add a fixed amount of colour to a fixed volume of beer, no matter what is in it or what its original gravity might have been. It should be based on the weight or volume of beer after fermentation. For example to add 10EBC of colour to 23 litres of beer would require 5.8ml of something like Brupaks caramel. That is 0.025% by volume. Bit of a difference don't you think.
However, all is not lost. There is enough information elsewhere on Ron Pattinson's site to replicate many of the beers. Finding all of the required information and collecting it together might be a bit tough, because of the way a blog-type site is organised; the necessary stuff is generally widely scattered between various tables and images and it is not well indexed.
Ironically, Barclay Perkins beers can be difficult to convert because they got up to strange things that do not make much practical or scientific sense, and they had a far too heavy reliance on caramel. It seems that during the 1930s the standard of their brewing science and other forms of acumen was well behind the art of the day and well behind other brewers. There must have been a "we've always done it this way" culture within the walls of Barclay Perkins, or perhaps Messrs Barclay and Perkins were such tyrants that everybody was terrified of changing anything.
Nevertheless, there is tons of stuff on Whitbread beers and some beers of other brewers on Ron Pattinson's site. Whitbread beers, for example, are much more straightforward and generally of higher quality (less reliance on caramel) than the B.P. beers. They are much easier to replicate too.
I would not give up on the site just yet.
As you suggested, for the most part, Kristen England's recipes are impractical; he leaves too much guesswork to the reader and too much approximation for things like the sugars and colouring. Surely it is the recipe designer's duty to produce a complete workable recipe that matches the prototype as closely as possible, and his job to suggest viable, fully specified substitutes if necessary. It should also be his job to question why there are two malts that each make up around 10% of the grist. If they really are pale malts, their impact will be negligible at those quantities in comparison to the rest - in that case they should all be bundled together as one pale malt. However, it looks as if those are not pale malts, but something else. Without knowing for sure what that 'something else' is, the recipe should not have been attempted. In short, he leaves all the difficult stuff to the reader.
Some of K. E.'s recipes might actually be workable. Indeed, if it wasn't for the caramel, his 19th January recipe for 1919 X: given HERE: would be workable. The two pale malts, being of roughly equal quantities, are obviously for risk spreading. The quantities being quite high, about 30% in each case, precludes them from being anything other than pale malt, or perhaps mild ale malt at a push. They should have been combined into one lump. Most of the flavour is supplied by the other ingredients. Shame about the caramel. That recipe expects 0.6% of some unspecified caramel, I have just seen 1.6% specified elsewhere. That is a lot of caramel, far more than I would expect to see. For some reason he specifies it as a percentage of the weight of grist. That is wrong. Cloud-cuckoo land. Caramel colour has absolutely nothing to do with the weight of the grist. A fixed amount of caramel will add a fixed amount of colour to a fixed volume of beer, no matter what is in it or what its original gravity might have been. It should be based on the weight or volume of beer after fermentation. For example to add 10EBC of colour to 23 litres of beer would require 5.8ml of something like Brupaks caramel. That is 0.025% by volume. Bit of a difference don't you think.
However, all is not lost. There is enough information elsewhere on Ron Pattinson's site to replicate many of the beers. Finding all of the required information and collecting it together might be a bit tough, because of the way a blog-type site is organised; the necessary stuff is generally widely scattered between various tables and images and it is not well indexed.
Ironically, Barclay Perkins beers can be difficult to convert because they got up to strange things that do not make much practical or scientific sense, and they had a far too heavy reliance on caramel. It seems that during the 1930s the standard of their brewing science and other forms of acumen was well behind the art of the day and well behind other brewers. There must have been a "we've always done it this way" culture within the walls of Barclay Perkins, or perhaps Messrs Barclay and Perkins were such tyrants that everybody was terrified of changing anything.
Nevertheless, there is tons of stuff on Whitbread beers and some beers of other brewers on Ron Pattinson's site. Whitbread beers, for example, are much more straightforward and generally of higher quality (less reliance on caramel) than the B.P. beers. They are much easier to replicate too.
I would not give up on the site just yet.
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Bribie
Re: Old recipes from Shut up about Barclay Perkins
Maybe Simpsons malts etc could offer some hints if you could get in touch with them. I was reading their site recently and they state that even as late as 50 years ago maltsters were still a wee bit hit or miss in areas such as modification etc that are now a precise science.
Would the importation of American six-row in particular account for the widespread use of maize in many 20th century beers?
Would the importation of American six-row in particular account for the widespread use of maize in many 20th century beers?
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Graham
Re: Old recipes from Shut up about Barclay Perkins
Yes, there would a fair amount of variation between maltsters and even between different batches of the same product from the same maltster. Barley being a natural product, with its inherent variation, and the point at when the germination or kilning was "properly done" being a human judgement by eye, is bound to cause quite high variations. Blending the products from two or three maltsters would even that out to a degree; a deficiency of some sort in one malt will be compensated by the others and the effect minimised.Bribie wrote:Maybe Simpsons malts etc could offer some hints if you could get in touch with them. I was reading their site recently and they state that even as late as 50 years ago maltsters were still a wee bit hit or miss in areas such as modification etc that are now a precise science.
Apparently there still is a certain amount of variation between maltsters, depending upon the small details of their kilning regime, but probably not between batches from the same maltster these days.
The point I was making above is that it is pointless blending malts to recreate an old recipe, just because the original brewer did. It is not going to get you any closer to the original than using a single supplier. Two or three unknowns cannot make a known.
I would say that the wide use of sugar and maize in Britain, certainly in the first half of the twentieth century, was related to the use of imported malts to dilute their haze potential. Of course imported barley, plus sugar and maize is cheaper than a beer made from 100% indigenous malt, so no doubt there was a certain amount of cheapskating involved as well. When the use of American barley declined, the use of sugar didn't.Bribie wrote: Would the importation of American six-row in particular account for the widespread use of maize in many 20th century beers?
Even today, the difference in nitrogen or protein content between American and British malt is huge:
Briess pale malt - protein 11.7% - Diastatic power 85
Briess two-row - protein 12% - Diastatic power 140
Briess six-row - protein 13% - Diastatic power 160
Compare with British malt:
Fawcett pale malt - protein 9% - Diastatic power 50
The higher the protein content the more enzymes there are and the higher will be the diastatic power; kilning destroys some of the enzymes, so malt colour also comes into the equation. As you can see, Briess six-row has more than three times the diastatic power of poor old British malt. So the six-row will convert much faster than the Fawcett, presumably three times faster, or will convert a good deal more adjunct, or a combination of both.
I think that when the diastatic power of the different malts was first appreciated, it caused the trend towards using a proportion of foreign malt in the grist to 'assist conversion' in the belief that British malt was deficient in that respect. This 'tradition' hung around well into the late 20th century. In the early 1980s I visited Gales brewery, and they were still adding diastatic malt extract to their mash tun to 'assist conversion'. Speaking to an EDME representative some time later, he said that the majority of their diastatic malt extract went to regional brewers for that purpose. It was, of course, quite unnecessary.
Of course, the higher the protein content, the higher the probability of a protein haze. The realisation of this may have caused the decline in the use of foreign malt in beers brewed in single-infusion brewhouses. Of course with filtered beers, protein content is less important. A temperature-stepped brewhouse will also reduce the protein content.
One of the issues with the variation of diastatic power, is that impatient British home brewers see Americans using very short mash times and copy them. Of course Americans using their indigenous malt can get away with it - we can't, except by luck. A case of a little bit of knowledge being a dangerous thing.
Re: Old recipes from Shut up about Barclay Perkins
"Modern London pride is about 22 EBC. This indicates that a darker malt must be in there somewhere. "
Not true. Barclay Perkins had colour standards for all their beers and added caramel to hit them. Some of their brewing books from the 1920's have instructions on how much caramel to add to boost the colour by 1º Lovibond. They also state what colour the caramel was (22,000º Lovibond). I don't know how Graham has managed to forget about this, as there was a discussion on my blog about this very point.
As for the malt specs. The exact ones for the exact malts aren't there. But there are plenty of detailed analyses in brewing texts of the period. I've published many in my blog. Like here, for example:
http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/sear ... 00-08%3A00
You should take Graham's remarks about Kristen with a pinch of salt as the two have clashed on many occasions.
Not true. Barclay Perkins had colour standards for all their beers and added caramel to hit them. Some of their brewing books from the 1920's have instructions on how much caramel to add to boost the colour by 1º Lovibond. They also state what colour the caramel was (22,000º Lovibond). I don't know how Graham has managed to forget about this, as there was a discussion on my blog about this very point.
As for the malt specs. The exact ones for the exact malts aren't there. But there are plenty of detailed analyses in brewing texts of the period. I've published many in my blog. Like here, for example:
http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/sear ... 00-08%3A00
You should take Graham's remarks about Kristen with a pinch of salt as the two have clashed on many occasions.
Re: Old recipes from Shut up about Barclay Perkins
Or you could get my book "Peace!":Jerry Cornelius wrote:I guess I'd be better off getting the Durden Park book, but the ones that are on their site are all high gravity beers, and I'm interested in the 1.035 - 1.042 range beers, which Ron Pattinson has a few recipes for.
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/peace/12443597
It covers the 1920's and 1930's. There are 42 recipes (mostly fairly low-gravity stuff) and chapters discussing ingredients and brewing methods of the period. The recipes are not ones which have appeared in the Let's Brew series.
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mashweasel
Re: Old recipes from Shut up about Barclay Perkins
Classy as ever Graham.
Please, whatever you do, don't trust me or him. Just look at Ron and my work and form your own opinions.
Specific responses to comments...
Re how recipes are created and percents
Frankly recipes aren't created. I just translate the ingredients and process. Nearly all the information that is needed on the log. Gravity, color, grist, temps, etc etc. There are no guesses made. The information contained in each Let's Brew is more than enough to make the beer. We'll more than enough actually. There are a very good many 'expert clone' books out there that are not only utter drivel, they are completely wrong let alone provide zero process info. I do find it humorous that people are skeptical of recipes when they've never see the log. Ron does a very good job of providing so much gravity and beer details nearly every LB has, at sometime, been included in a table. Having said that, there is always fluctuation from beer to beer during the same year (definitely over years) but its pretty close. The suggestion that I'm conjuring numbers is asinine and offensive. My life is data and numbers. Data is data. I would be doing a disservice to all brewers if I changed anything.
Re use of multiple pale malts
The vast majority of brew logs I've seen (nearly 1000 now) always have a mix of pale malts. Graham is correct about why they would source so many. It also has to do with making a consistent product. I've seen recipes from the same year that never used the same malt. The point is that I give you the option of chosing your own. We frankly don't have all the old malts used for the numerous places. What we do have are definite 'able' replacements. Using a mix of malts will definitely get us closer than choosing a single malt. We are making recreations and doing the best we can at it. We are not trying to say, EVER, that these malts are exactly the same. They are not. That being said, I can absolutely suggest types of malt to use for future recipes. (eg Maris Otter, Optic, Cocktail, Halcyon, etc etc). That is putting the cart before the horse in my opinion as I undoubtably get numerous comments about substitutes... The point of 6-row malt causing haze is 100% absolutely conjecture and flatly wrong. I just got off the phone with Briess malting and they substantiated this. They even went as far to say that if any of their 6-row malt creates a haze it was make horribly wrong and should be returned.
Re recipe information
As an experienced brewer, the only thing i need to make a recipe are the ingredient percents, gravity, bu, etc. However, I write these recipes for non-experienced and veteran brewers. You have all the beers numbers. Then you have a breakdown of the recipe by amounts and percents so you can adjust based on your system. I include the main mash temp and grist to water ratio. Fermentation temp and suggested yeast. What more does one need to brew a recipe? If I'm missing something you guys think important please let me know as it can definitely be added.
Caramel colorant vs caramel and its color
This is my mistake. I mean them to be both the same thing and interchange them. Sorry for the confusion. As for the color of the caramel, some breweries use a single caramel, some use numerous. What I do is translate the color of the caramel to things that are easy to find. So its true that not all caramel was the same color but having the actual color of the caramel a brewery used I can translate it to what you can get it most places. Also understand that I sometimes I don't include caramel when it is in a recipe as it was used to make a consistant product. Meaning that if the beer is 28EBC and the brewery added enough caramel to get it to 30EBC then i don't see a point in including it. Also note that caramel is just for the color and not for flavor. To Grahams point, caramel does not have anything to do with percent of the grist. However, when converting from a small batch to say 50bbl having the percent caramel added really does get you very close. This was added b/c a big brewery asked to to do it. Very few people use this number.
Re invert syrup
A mate of mine and I spent the better part of a month talking to very large producers of invert syrup to get the entire process and their thoughts on making it ourselves. Tons of great information that has solidified what we are doing at BP. Basically, the point was that you need to choose a very high quality blackstrap molasses. One that has a licorice character rather than bitter sugar. Once you choose your blackstrap, stick with the brand. Although there are fluctuations from batch to batch, there are much bigger differences between brands. A very simple blend with simple invert syrup is done on the specification of what number invert you are looking for. Its based on the color of the molasses but according to the invert syrup scientists, high quality blackstrap varies little compared to other molasses as to get the licorice character one needs to have a very similar practice. What we want to be able to do is make a reproducible product ourselves. Information on how to do this can be found on my buddies blog: http://www.unholymess.com/blog/beer-bre ... ers-invert
I made each invert as specified and had them analysed. Invert #1, #2 and #3 were 26, 68 and 124EBC respectively.
Re Durden parks book
I think the Durden park people do good work. I think they are extremely bright people. I have the book. My problem started when I had a log from a recipe from their book. One malt. One hop by volume. The log had many many more things. That's not to say some of the stuff they have isn't correct. Some beers were just one hop and malt. I've subsequently found many more issues with logs and their recipes. To me it seems that they are dumbing the recipes down too much. That being said, I'd still buy the book again
Final thoughts
In doing these logs, its my roll to translate the ingredients, techniques, etc. It is not my job to try and see through what is being done. These logs are direct notes from the brewers with changes and pen marks throughout indicating changes. If a recipe has 8% of a pale malt, then there was a reason. Its not my place to say they 'must' be wrong. As for techno-babble, I am a scientist. I apologize if I talk over some heads from time to to. What I really want is to try and cite whatever I reference scientifically so people can see for themselves and that its not just an opinion.
Please, whatever you do, don't trust me or him. Just look at Ron and my work and form your own opinions.
Specific responses to comments...
Re how recipes are created and percents
Frankly recipes aren't created. I just translate the ingredients and process. Nearly all the information that is needed on the log. Gravity, color, grist, temps, etc etc. There are no guesses made. The information contained in each Let's Brew is more than enough to make the beer. We'll more than enough actually. There are a very good many 'expert clone' books out there that are not only utter drivel, they are completely wrong let alone provide zero process info. I do find it humorous that people are skeptical of recipes when they've never see the log. Ron does a very good job of providing so much gravity and beer details nearly every LB has, at sometime, been included in a table. Having said that, there is always fluctuation from beer to beer during the same year (definitely over years) but its pretty close. The suggestion that I'm conjuring numbers is asinine and offensive. My life is data and numbers. Data is data. I would be doing a disservice to all brewers if I changed anything.
Re use of multiple pale malts
The vast majority of brew logs I've seen (nearly 1000 now) always have a mix of pale malts. Graham is correct about why they would source so many. It also has to do with making a consistent product. I've seen recipes from the same year that never used the same malt. The point is that I give you the option of chosing your own. We frankly don't have all the old malts used for the numerous places. What we do have are definite 'able' replacements. Using a mix of malts will definitely get us closer than choosing a single malt. We are making recreations and doing the best we can at it. We are not trying to say, EVER, that these malts are exactly the same. They are not. That being said, I can absolutely suggest types of malt to use for future recipes. (eg Maris Otter, Optic, Cocktail, Halcyon, etc etc). That is putting the cart before the horse in my opinion as I undoubtably get numerous comments about substitutes... The point of 6-row malt causing haze is 100% absolutely conjecture and flatly wrong. I just got off the phone with Briess malting and they substantiated this. They even went as far to say that if any of their 6-row malt creates a haze it was make horribly wrong and should be returned.
Re recipe information
As an experienced brewer, the only thing i need to make a recipe are the ingredient percents, gravity, bu, etc. However, I write these recipes for non-experienced and veteran brewers. You have all the beers numbers. Then you have a breakdown of the recipe by amounts and percents so you can adjust based on your system. I include the main mash temp and grist to water ratio. Fermentation temp and suggested yeast. What more does one need to brew a recipe? If I'm missing something you guys think important please let me know as it can definitely be added.
Caramel colorant vs caramel and its color
This is my mistake. I mean them to be both the same thing and interchange them. Sorry for the confusion. As for the color of the caramel, some breweries use a single caramel, some use numerous. What I do is translate the color of the caramel to things that are easy to find. So its true that not all caramel was the same color but having the actual color of the caramel a brewery used I can translate it to what you can get it most places. Also understand that I sometimes I don't include caramel when it is in a recipe as it was used to make a consistant product. Meaning that if the beer is 28EBC and the brewery added enough caramel to get it to 30EBC then i don't see a point in including it. Also note that caramel is just for the color and not for flavor. To Grahams point, caramel does not have anything to do with percent of the grist. However, when converting from a small batch to say 50bbl having the percent caramel added really does get you very close. This was added b/c a big brewery asked to to do it. Very few people use this number.
Re invert syrup
A mate of mine and I spent the better part of a month talking to very large producers of invert syrup to get the entire process and their thoughts on making it ourselves. Tons of great information that has solidified what we are doing at BP. Basically, the point was that you need to choose a very high quality blackstrap molasses. One that has a licorice character rather than bitter sugar. Once you choose your blackstrap, stick with the brand. Although there are fluctuations from batch to batch, there are much bigger differences between brands. A very simple blend with simple invert syrup is done on the specification of what number invert you are looking for. Its based on the color of the molasses but according to the invert syrup scientists, high quality blackstrap varies little compared to other molasses as to get the licorice character one needs to have a very similar practice. What we want to be able to do is make a reproducible product ourselves. Information on how to do this can be found on my buddies blog: http://www.unholymess.com/blog/beer-bre ... ers-invert
I made each invert as specified and had them analysed. Invert #1, #2 and #3 were 26, 68 and 124EBC respectively.
Re Durden parks book
I think the Durden park people do good work. I think they are extremely bright people. I have the book. My problem started when I had a log from a recipe from their book. One malt. One hop by volume. The log had many many more things. That's not to say some of the stuff they have isn't correct. Some beers were just one hop and malt. I've subsequently found many more issues with logs and their recipes. To me it seems that they are dumbing the recipes down too much. That being said, I'd still buy the book again
Final thoughts
In doing these logs, its my roll to translate the ingredients, techniques, etc. It is not my job to try and see through what is being done. These logs are direct notes from the brewers with changes and pen marks throughout indicating changes. If a recipe has 8% of a pale malt, then there was a reason. Its not my place to say they 'must' be wrong. As for techno-babble, I am a scientist. I apologize if I talk over some heads from time to to. What I really want is to try and cite whatever I reference scientifically so people can see for themselves and that its not just an opinion.
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Jerry Cornelius
Re: Old recipes from Shut up about Barclay Perkins
Blimey chaps, I don't want to start a war herepatto1ro wrote:Or you could get my book "Peace!":
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/peace/12443597
It covers the 1920's and 1930's. There are 42 recipes (mostly fairly low-gravity stuff) and chapters discussing ingredients and brewing methods of the period. The recipes are not ones which have appeared in the Let's Brew series.
...
You should take Graham's remarks about Kristen with a pinch of salt as the two have clashed on many occasions.
Ron, I will buy your book and take a look at the recipes.Kristen, thanks for the link to making invert sugars.
I've been brewing all-grain for a couple of years, following Graham's recipes for the most part and I'm very pleased with the the results. Apart from following recipes, i don't have a great deal of technical knowledge. I can't say who is right or wrong here, I dunno!
For myself I would ask for some suggestions as to the grain bill, rather than English 2 row No 1 etc. I'm looking at a recipe now (Barclay Perkins - 1923 - XLK ) and it lists 3 English 2 rows and American 6 row. I don't know where to start - many people may. I'm experienced enough to know how to brew with the info you give, except I don't know how to source the grist. I would be interested in what you used yourself. Certainly make a caveat that this isn't absolute, but give me a starting point, please?mashweasel wrote:Re recipe information
As an experienced brewer, the only thing i need to make a recipe are the ingredient percents, gravity, bu, etc. However, I write these recipes for non-experienced and veteran brewers. You have all the beers numbers. Then you have a breakdown of the recipe by amounts and percents so you can adjust based on your system. I include the main mash temp and grist to water ratio. Fermentation temp and suggested yeast. What more does one need to brew a recipe? If I'm missing something you guys think important please let me know as it can definitely be added.
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mashweasel
Re: Old recipes from Shut up about Barclay Perkins
Absolutely. The only reason I stayed away from doing that was I wanted to give people options of what to use b/c a lot of people don't have access to numerous malts and such. However, i can do that no problem.
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Graham
Re: Old recipes from Shut up about Barclay Perkins
Ah well, as defensive as ever. As usual, many dozens of words to defend your incompetence. By pseudo scientific techno-babble I meant talking crap. You are about as much of a scientist as knowing that a kick up the arse happens to hurt. Charlatan is the word that immediately comes to mind.
I could have helped you so much if you were prepared to take advice, but your self-centred ,superior, "I am never wrong" attitude, made that not possible. I have been doing this recipe translation lark for an awfully lot longer than you have, and I am an awfully lot better at it than you are.
You said:
"<i>Please, whatever you do, don't trust me or him.</i>
Well, now you can put it to the test. This site is capable of supporting polls. Shove up a poll to see whether the readership would rather trust your recipes or mine.
Of course, I could come seriously unstuck here.
Ron Pattinson
22,000 EBC caramel at one point in time. That does not mean that they used 22,000 EBC caramel throughout their history. Nevertheless, do you have any idea about what 1.6% of 22,000 EBC caramel is going to do to a beer? - Obviously not.
Actually, you and I have clashed. Kristen and myself have not. It is impossible to clash with Kristen because he too proud to be wrong and spouts pseudo-babble in defence, at which point I give up.
I could have helped you so much if you were prepared to take advice, but your self-centred ,superior, "I am never wrong" attitude, made that not possible. I have been doing this recipe translation lark for an awfully lot longer than you have, and I am an awfully lot better at it than you are.
You said:
"<i>Please, whatever you do, don't trust me or him.</i>
Well, now you can put it to the test. This site is capable of supporting polls. Shove up a poll to see whether the readership would rather trust your recipes or mine.
Of course, I could come seriously unstuck here.
Ron Pattinson
22,000 EBC caramel at one point in time. That does not mean that they used 22,000 EBC caramel throughout their history. Nevertheless, do you have any idea about what 1.6% of 22,000 EBC caramel is going to do to a beer? - Obviously not.
Actually, you and I have clashed. Kristen and myself have not. It is impossible to clash with Kristen because he too proud to be wrong and spouts pseudo-babble in defence, at which point I give up.
Re: Old recipes from Shut up about Barclay Perkins
"Nevertheless, do you have any idea about what 1.6% of 22,000 EBC caramel is going to do to a beer? - Obviously not."
I do actually: 1.5 lbs of 22,000 EBC caramel raises the colour of 100 barrels by 1º Lovibond. At least that's what Barclay Perkins reckoned. As they were doing this every day of the week. I think I'll trust them.
I do actually: 1.5 lbs of 22,000 EBC caramel raises the colour of 100 barrels by 1º Lovibond. At least that's what Barclay Perkins reckoned. As they were doing this every day of the week. I think I'll trust them.
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steve_flack
Re: Old recipes from Shut up about Barclay Perkins
Fetch your popcorn and hard hats everyone...this should be a good 'un.
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Graham
Re: Old recipes from Shut up about Barclay Perkins
Oh bugger - now I have to sit down and do the calculations - hang on I can approximate it mentally, looking at your post.
100 barrels weighs about 36000 pounds. So we are talking 0.0042% per degree Lovibond. Barclay Perkins may well be right, which means that 'you know who' isn't. At 10 or even 100 degrees Lovibond, we are stilll an effing long way from 1.6%.
QED
100 barrels weighs about 36000 pounds. So we are talking 0.0042% per degree Lovibond. Barclay Perkins may well be right, which means that 'you know who' isn't. At 10 or even 100 degrees Lovibond, we are stilll an effing long way from 1.6%.
QED