Nosferatu Clone

I was poking around on Google the other day, looking for a Nosferatu clone. While I did find an ancient post on here about it, it didn't seem like anyone nailed down a recipe.

I went to the GLBC website to get the ingredients needed. Since they don't give exact quantities, I had to mess around in QBrew to get it right. I ended up getting pretty damn close.

Nosferatu Clone

Brewer: Valhalla Brew Hall
ABV: 8.0%
IBU: 72
OG: 1.082
FG: 1.021 (I think? I haven't messed too much with calculating gravities yet...so I don't know if gravity is supposed to go up or down during fermentation. And QBrew doesn't really clarify)

Ingredients:

American 2-row - 11.25 pounds
Crystal 60L - 3 pounds
Belgian Special "B" - 1 pound

Hops:

Chinook (1 oz. @ 60 min. .5 oz @ 30, 10 and 5 minutes. .5 oz @ 7 day dry hop)
Cascade (.5 oz @ 30, 10 and 5 minutes. .5 oz @ 7 day dry hop)

Yeast:
British Ale Yeast

According to the GLBC site, ABV should be 8.0% (spot on), IBU: 70 (I'm slightly higher), and gravity should be 18*P (I'm not sure what that means, so I have no idea if I'm close to that or not).

If anyone was looking for a clone, I hope this helps!

Three pounds of crystal 60 is a lot to be using in a 5(?) gallon batch, you're going to end up with something that's cloyingly sweet since it only contributes unfermentable sugars ie sweetness. I'd say you're going to want to cut that down to a pound or maybe a pound and a half max. Maybe consider dropping the special B too, it just seems like a lot to be adding. The 18P refers to plato, another way of expressing gravity of a beer. I assume that 18P refers to a starting gravity (1.074) and to end up with the ABV at the end that you're shooting for, you'll want your final gravity to be right around 1.012. In my experience, English ale strains haven't gotten much lower than 1.015 (S-04 which is the only english ale strain I've really tried). You may have better luck with a neutral American ale strain like S-05. Just my 2 cents on the matter, hope it helps.

Edit: PS Gravity is supposed to go down during fermentation.

Cheers

I'll go back in and adjust the Crystal and Special B. The site didn't give ratios, so I just guessed at how much of each should be used.

Ok, after messing around a bit more I came up with this:

American 2-row: 13.25 #
Crystal 60L: 1.5 #
Special B: .5 #

ABV is now 8.1%

This is my first attempt at an all-grain recipe. I've only done extract brewing so far; any help and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I would suggest this:

12lbs 2-row
.75lbs crystal 80
.5lbs special B

That should give you a starting gravity of 1.073 (very close to the 18P great lakes posts about nosferatu, while assuming a 75% efficiency). Your ABV will most likely end up being lower than the 8.1% you're wanting, but hey good beer can be made with lower alcohol. Your hop schedule should be just fine, so I wouldn't mess with it too much. I will say that going with an american ale strain like S-05 may give you better attenuation so it's not too cloying at the finish. Plus with all the flavors you're going to get from the crystal 80 and special B, the esters produced by an english ale strain may get muddled up anyways.

So much adjusting! lol the only thing I knew going into this was that I needed somewhere around 15 pounds of grain total for a 5 gal. batch and that 2-row should make up the bulk of that.

will the. 75 lbs of crystal and. 5 lbs of special still give me thedeep red color i'm looking for? color, gravities and IBUs are what I want to focus on. ABV doesn't really matter right now, as long as the clone comes close in flavor.

Could add 2 oz of chocolate malt, won't add too much flavor wise, but'll get your SRMs close to what you'd want

Also don't sweat it if it doesn't come out exactly like nosferatu, you can make a damned fine beer that isn't the same but is still delicious!