Lazy magnolia Southern pecan Brown Recipe Critique

I just had Lazy Magnolia's Southern Pecan at GABF Saturday, and SWMBO and I agreed it would be wonderful with Thanksgiving dinner. Any suggestions? I was thinking I would do a partial mash, and mash high so it comes out sweeter.

Southern Pecan Nut Brown Ale Clone
23-A Specialty Beer
Author: Lazy Magnolia



Size: 5.0 gal
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 63.0%
Calories: 193.57 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.057 (1.026 - 1.120)
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Terminal Gravity: 1.021 (0.995 - 1.035)
|==================#=============|
Color: 13.31 (1.0 - 50.0)
|============#===================|
Alcohol: 4.72% (2.5% - 14.5%)
|==========#=====================|
Bitterness: 19.5 (0.0 - 100.0)
|===========#====================|

Ingredients:
1.5 lb Maris Otter
.25 lb Wheat Malt
2 oz Wheat Flakes
8 oz Pecans - added during mash
1.0 lb Crystal 60
6.0 lb Liquid Light Extract
.5 oz Target (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
.5 oz Tettnanger (4.5%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min
.5 oz Tettnanger (4.5%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
1.0 ea Fermentis S-33 SafBrew S-33

Schedule:
Ambient Air: 70.0 °F
Source Water: 60.0 °F
Elevation: 0.0 m


Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.3

Any suggestions? Also, I have 6 weeks on this recipe... should be enough, but are any of my ingredients problematic for that?

Would 8 oz. in the mash give you enough of the flavor you are looking for? Why not add it later in the process? I know there's issues with oil, but...

I'm about to attempt a pecan pie porter myself.

I'm basing the 8oz in the mash off of this thread-
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/lazy-magnolias-southern-pecan-58853/

How does the base recipe look?

Alright... read up on the other thread and Lazy's website. Looks pretty good. I'm not sure if I would bother with the MO if you're using DME for the majority of the base. I'm not sure its subtleties would come through. I might bump up the wheat flakes a little more; I think a nice creamy, nutty head would be awesome with this one. Are you roasting the pecans?

I think I want to keep the Maris Otter, just so I'm doing a partial mash for the first time.

I have a 34 qt turkey fryer- I guess I could do even more grains, most likely. How much Maris Otter would you suggest for me to be able to notice the difference?

I upped the wheat flakes to 8 oz.

Any other suggestions?

Roasting pecans as I type. Decided to up the amount slightly, because I know I'm going to have to taste test.

Don't have anything constructive to add to this conversation, other then that this beer is very tasty on tap and the guys are excellent about selling grain to locals who need a bag.

~r~

Damn! I just came back to this post. I actually brewed my pecan pie porter last night. I forgot I was going to roast the pecans. I used 7 1/2 oz in a 4 gal batch and figured I would add about that much more to the secondary... maybe I'll toast those.

So this is way after the fact, but I didn't even know that pecan porter existed till my dad just just brought it up.

How did it end up when it was all said and done?

Would adding pecans during dry hop give it more pecan flavor, or was putting it in the mash enough?

Thanks

It ended up pretty good. I'm not sure I can chalk the flaws up to the recipe or my bumbling process.

The pecan is definitely there, but like the original, doesn't blow you away. It's subtle. I'd definitely roast the pecans again next time, and probably add more.

I'm not sure dry-pecaning is the answer. I've heard good things about soaking nuts in vodka, and then adding that in. Let me know if you give it a shot!

I am more than a couple months too late to this thread, but I am bumping it b/c I am going to try a partial mash of this soon. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on adding some pecans in the boil somewhere, I know it was mentioned but no one ever gave a definitive reason not to. I might mash in 6 oz. or so and put 4 oz. or something at 15 min. of boil, or try the nuts in the vodka(i made hefe w/ orange zest in vodka at bottling that worked out well).
Also, was there a nice head retention, if not i may not bother with the wheat flakes and use cara-pils instead.
Thanks

corbomite said:

I am more than a couple months too late to this thread, but I am bumping it b/c I am going to try a partial mash of this soon. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on adding some pecans in the boil somewhere, I know it was mentioned but no one ever gave a definitive reason not to. I might mash in 6 oz. or so and put 4 oz. or something at 15 min. of boil, or try the nuts in the vodka(i made hefe w/ orange zest in vodka at bottling that worked out well).
Also, was there a nice head retention, if not i may not bother with the wheat flakes and use cara-pils instead.
Thanks

Click to expand...

I still haven't tried making this beer, but I finally had a lazy magnolia...which are really hard to get in Idaho I have to tell you. It was amazing.

I have to tell you man, putting them in the mash sounds brilliant. Are you going to bake them in the oven before you put them in the mash? From what I've gathered this is the way to get rid of the oils that ruin the head retention.

Originally I planned to only put the pecans in with dry hop, but now mashing sounds good. Let me know how it goes!

ordered the ingredients today to make this brew, using nugget instead of magnum as the bittering hop b/c i already had some. I think I am just going to do all the pecans in the mash b/c that is what lazy magnolia does and so that is more likely to be good. I love the beer(drinking one at the moment). A gas station in walking distance from my house sells it, but it is a lil on the pricey side even though I am in their distribution area.

Since there's been a bit of interest in this recipe, I thought I'd post the recipe I actually ended up brewing, as my first AG.

10 lb Maris Otter
.25 lb Wheat Malt
.5 lb Wheat Flakes
.25 lb American Chocolate Malt
.5 lb Roasted Pecans - added during mash
1.0 lb Crystal 60
.75 oz Tettnanger (4.8%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
.25 oz Tettnanger (4.8%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
1.0 tsp Irish Moss - added during boil, boiled 15.0 min
1.0 ea Fermentis US-05 Safale US-05

Basically, added some chocolate malt, and replaced LME with MO. I did get 52% efficiency, and had to add some DME to make up for that, but otherwise, this is what I did.

alright, so I brewed a week ago and my mash efficiency was a lil ****ty but I hit just under 1.050 OG and I used WL002. It has stopped at 1.016 and I'm sure it won't go lower with a lb of crystal in there. However, my last hydrometer sample had some sort of a fruity taste too it, I couldn't place it but it was definitely out of place in this style, but it wasn't there at my last sample. This is my malt bill:
36% 3 lb 0 Light Dry Extract
36% 3 lb 0 Pale Malt, Maris Otter
12% 1 lb 0 Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L
6% 0 lb 8 Wheat Malt
6% 0 lb 8 Cara-Pils/Dextrine
4% 0 lb 6 Chocolate Malt (US)
I roasted the pecans and put ~6 oz. in mash, then I put ~4 oz. in a grain bag in the wort while it was cooling. Anyone got any idea where an estery/fruity taste could have came from?

I repitched some white labs cream ale yeast, added a pound of amber dme, and after it got to 1.012 I am letting it sit for a couple days at 50 degrees F, hydrometer sample was out of this world,I used to much chocolate malt but it really complements the beer. The ester taste is completely non existent now and can't wait to bottle this bad boy.

I'm about to brew this, this week. I'm right now in the middle of deciding the grain bill. I've seen that a few people have included chocolate malt, I want to try and avoid this if possible. Mostly just because lazy magnolia doesn't include it. So my question is for the people who have already brewed this, did the pecans add any color?

I'm trying to decide if this is a dumb question or not, but have come to the conclusion that the only person who would know is a person who has done it already.

No, I don't think that the pecans added much color. I think the 4 oz of chocolate malt i put in were a good addition.
It looks like corbomite added 6oz, and says while it was too much, it still complemented the beer. It will add a bit more nuttiness to the beer.
If you don't add the chocolate malt, you'll have a slightly lighter beer than Lazy Magnolia's. But 13.92 vs 15- it's not a huge difference. I'd say feel free to try it without, and report back on how it tastes.

jamesnsw said:

Since there's been a bit of interest in this recipe, I thought I'd post the recipe I actually ended up brewing, as my first AG.

10 lb Maris Otter
.25 lb Wheat Malt
.5 lb Wheat Flakes
.25 lb American Chocolate Malt
.5 lb Roasted Pecans - added during mash
1.0 lb Crystal 60
.75 oz Tettnanger (4.8%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
.25 oz Tettnanger (4.8%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
1.0 tsp Irish Moss - added during boil, boiled 15.0 min
1.0 ea Fermentis US-05 Safale US-05

Basically, added some chocolate malt, and replaced LME with MO. I did get 52% efficiency, and had to add some DME to make up for that, but otherwise, this is what I did.

Click to expand...

I'm looking at brewing this but want to do a partial mash instead of AG. How would I convert this? I know that I need to substitute some of the Maris Otter with extract just not sure how much or what kind. Also I prefer DME over LME. Thanks for the help, I'm looking forward to brewing this, have some pecans from my grandparents trees.

I just finished

4 lbs maris otter
5 lbs 2 row (because the store ran out of maris otter)
1/2 lb flaked wheat
1/2 lb carapils
1 lb 120L
1 lb pecans 30 minutes
1 lb pecans at burnout
.125 oz magnum 60 minutes
.125 oz magnum 30 minutes
.25 tettnanger 15 minutes
.25 tettnanger 5 minutes
safbrew s-33 yeast

I used a roasting schedule I found here (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/lazy-magnolias-southern-pecan-58853/index3.html) on the pecans. Using the 120L gave me the color i was looking for. Final gravity was 1.052...

That's pretty much it. I'll let you know how it comes out here in a week or two!

molson said:

I'm looking at brewing this but want to do a partial mash instead of AG. How would I convert this? I know that I need to substitute some of the Maris Otter with extract just not sure how much or what kind. Also I prefer DME over LME. Thanks for the help, I'm looking forward to brewing this, have some pecans from my grandparents trees.

Click to expand...

You may be able to find Maris Otter extract, but if not, a light extract will do.

You have 2.5 lbs of specialty grains (and pecans) you'll want to mash, so if you can mash a total of 5 lbs, you can do 2.5 lbs of MO and about 3.5 pounds of DME.

A bit off topic, but I want to make sure that people reading this understand-

• I posted this recipe for critique, not as a tried and true recipe.
• I have only tasted a 1 oz sampler of the actual beer (and I'll be repeating that again this year at GABF), and then brewed this a month later. So I'm not sure how close this is at all.
• My version was my first AG and really was not a success (terrible efficiency).
• No one has brewed this and posted back, "Yes, this is an excellent clone, and quite tasty".

I'm not trying to scare anyone away, just wanting people to know this recipe hasn't really been tested. I'm hoping to brew this again this fall, and see how this recipe actually tastes without my brewing mistakes.
Also, I know several people have now brewed this- I'd love to hear what you thought- results & suggested changes. There doesn't seem to be a good clone recipe for this beer out there, so maybe this can be a community effort to nail this thing.
Will this make beer, and probably darn good beer? Yes. Will it make an excellent beer, an exact clone of Lazy Magnolia's Pecan Nut Brown Ale? That's a question without a clear answer... although hopefully we figure it out!

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/oak-aged-pecan-porter-146549/
Here's a thread from Saccharomyces for a recipe he's tried and according to him tastes great.

"The head retention with the nuts in there is probably lower but head be damned. Once you taste this beer, you will not care if it is foamy."

i'm about to try a pecan pie beer myself. while i've never actually drank one it sounds delicious. i recently ground up 24 oz of pecans and they're soaking in a huge amount of jim beam. the pecans soaked up so much bourbon it was rediculious. unfortunately i forgot to roast the pecans before soaking so i'm gonna get an additional 12 oz bag of pecans to roast up and toss into the batch.

my question is should i squeeze all the bourbon out of the pecans or just dump the whole jar of pecans bits and bourbon in the batch? the pecans are ground up pretty fine so i don't want them to get into the bottles. will the pecans float or sink? anyone know?

jamesnsw said:

You may be able to find Maris Otter extract, but if not, a light extract will do.

You have 2.5 lbs of specialty grains (and pecans) you'll want to mash, so if you can mash a total of 5 lbs, you can do 2.5 lbs of MO and about 3.5 pounds of DME.

Click to expand...

Cool, thanks for the help and the recipe. I'll probably try this next month and will let you know how it turns out. Thanks again.

I'm bumping this thread! I already have a porter recipe that I am very happy with but adding pecans sounds phenomenal. I've never had Lazy Magnolia, so I've got nothing to compare it to, but this is definitely going on the upcoming winter brews list! I've never toasted/roasted nuts before, so can anyone give me an idea of temp and for how long?

ClutchDude said:

Taken from Chriso's Scottish 80/- Pecan Ale

Pecans were toasted at 300F for 10 minutes in a single layer, then poured into a paper bag to sit out overnight, hopefully getting some of the oils out of them. Pecans were roasted 10 minutes at 400F till slightly smoking. Poured into another paper bag.
Pecans were finally roasted for 10 more minutes at 350F for about 8 minutes, again, just until slightly smoking.
Between each roast, I used a flat-style crowbar and smashed as many whole nuts as I could in order to expose the maximum amount of surface area.

Click to expand...

I used this and it worked out pretty well. I didn't have any paper bags so I layered paper towels with the pecans. I was pretty surprised by the amount of oil they soaked from doing this. Now that I think of it though, the pecans were still kind of oily after the 3rd time through the oven....maybe another time through? I dunno.

jamesnsw said:

...
I'm not trying to scare anyone away, just wanting people to know this recipe hasn't really been tested. I'm hoping to brew this again this fall, and see how this recipe actually tastes without my brewing mistakes.
Also, I know several people have now brewed this- I'd love to hear what you thought- results & suggested changes. There doesn't seem to be a good clone recipe for this beer out there, so maybe this can be a community effort to nail this thing.
Will this make beer, and probably darn good beer? Yes. Will it make an excellent beer, an exact clone of Lazy Magnolia's Pecan Nut Brown Ale? That's a question without a clear answer... although hopefully we figure it out!

Click to expand...

I didn't really brew your version but from what I did I can draw some conclusions.
I used a little more chocolate malt than yours, I love it and if I make it again I may even up it, but it has more chocolate roasty flavor than lazy magnolias.
I used crystal 40 instead of 60, not sure how this changed much.
I repitched with some extra DME, and mine turned out a lil drier than lazy magnolias.
I mashed with the pecans, and it has great flavor, so I don't know if I would add it to the boil.
The wheat flakes would be good for head retention but I would also recommend the carapils, you are going to have some oil no matter how much you roast the pecans and let them soak in a bag.
I used .5 oz nugget for bittering and 1 0z tettnanger for aroma, and I think my IBUs are great but if mine were a lil sweeter(like the commercial version) I would want a little more hops.
I love mine, it isn't an exact clone and I think jamesnsw might be closer, but it is definitely worth a try

I want to bump this thread and ask if there's any more updates on this recipe or suggestions for one like it. I want a pecan brown ale, not a pecan porter. I plan on brewing it in a couple weeks (first partial mash) and let it age until Thanksgiving. Thoughts?

It will probably be Monday before I can get the recipe and post it but I did a pm last year that turned out really good. didn't hace a lazy magnolia to compare it side by side but from memory it wasn't far off.

I roasted the pecans in 3 stages, putting them in paper bags to help extract the oil each time. I would up the pecans to a lb, maybe lb half since they were there, but not real noticable.

5 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM) Extract 61.52 %
1 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 16.78 %
12.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 8.39 %
11.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 7.72 %
5.0 oz Wheat, Torrified (1.7 SRM) Grain 3.47 %
3.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 2.13 %
0.38 oz Magnum [14.00 %] (30 min) Hops 11.3 IBU
0.38 oz Liberty [4.30 %] (10 min) Hops 1.6 IBU
0.25 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
10.00 oz Pecans (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs SafBrew Ale (DCL Yeast #S-33) Yeast-Ale


Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.058 SG Measured Original Gravity: 1.054 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.015 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.018 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.58 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 4.69 %
Bitterness: 12.9 IBU Calories: 244 cal/pint
Est Color: 16.0 SRM Color:
Color


Mash Profile
Mash Name: Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out Total Grain Weight: 3.44 lb
Sparge Water: 1.74 gal Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F TunTemperature: 72.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE Mash PH: 5.4 PH

Well this is a very old thread at this point, so I figured I'd bump it to the top. I'm am a noob to AG(1 batch) and only 4 batches of extract. How big of a difference will it make if I used 2-row instead of Maris Otter? It seems like there are some variations on hops used too, so who feels like their recipe turned out above average?

Well rjb84, I can say from commentary on this site that a lot of people really prefer Maris Otter. Having just started my first AG brew using it, I can't provide a lot of feedback myself, but it's just a higher quality base malt. As far as I could tell the cost difference was negligible, so I'd say go for it if you can.

I'm wondering something else on the topic of flavoring with nuts. What if you used something like a pecan syrup - perhaps something you'd use to flavor coffees or pies with? I'd assume it'd be mostly fermentable, probably just leaving behind the extracts used to provide the flavor, while not leaving any oils to worry about.

I'm mentally preparing myself for a "hazelnut coffee ale" and am trying to figure out the same issue with hazelnuts. I just can't imagine soaking them in hot water for an hour is really going to extract much flavor.

Thoughts?

What about just adding in pecan extract at bottling? it would get around the problem with the oils and give a stronger flavor profile than putting in pecans into the mash.

my thought was to bottle with maple syrup and pecan extract. thoughts?

The oils aren't an issue if you roast the pecans a few times putting them in a paper bag overnight between roastings. Other things just won't give you the same flavor. I haven't done this in a couple of years but may be time to do it again. Got to check my files for my recipe

jamesnsw said:

1.5 lb Maris Otter
.25 lb Wheat Malt
2 oz Wheat Flakes
8 oz Pecans - added during mash
1.0 lb Crystal 60

Click to expand...

So that is 2 3/4 lb of specialty grain in an extract recipe. That's double what I have ever used before. I realize that some of that "specialty" grain is maris otter which is really just base malt. My concern is that I wont be able to steep this effectively in 3 gallons of water. Do you do full boils? Is it just fine to do that much grain in a partial boil?

FYI, I'm geting ready to brew this (A\G) and I've found the best way to get the oil out is to vacum seal the nuts in a paper bag after roasting. you can also just heat them up in the microwave for 30 to 40 sec. if you don't want to keep roasting them. this heats the nuts up so you can get more oil out.