Theakston's Old Peculier Clone--questions and comments

Hi, all.

I just brewed this Theakston's Old Peculier clone recipe below. It's a bit of a strange recipe, as it doesn't list DME in the ingredients but calls for it on one of the steps, and it doesn't tell you when to add the liquid malts. This is my third batch of homebrew (two successful saisons previously), so I followed that basic procedure...boiled the grain "tea" for 40 minutes or so, then added the extracts and boiled all that together for about 25 minutes.

Thing is, I came out with an OG of 1.070 at 72 degrees when I pitched. The recipe calls for a target OG of 1.052. Any ideas what I might have done? Any ideas on how this will turn out? I'm sure it will be great, just interested.

(oh, and a "did I ruin my beer" question...I accidentally spilled about a tablespoon of OneStep sanitizer in my wort....nothing to worry about, right?)

Thanks,

CB



Theakston's Old Peculier Clone
by Byron Burch


Glorious, rich, full flavor, very popular, but hard to come by. (5 gallons)

Ingredients:

• 3.3 lbs. John Bull Amber malt extract
• 3.3 lbs. Muntons "Old Ale" malt extract
• 8 oz. Lyle’s black treacle syrup
• 2 oz. malto-dextrin
• 4 oz. wheat malt, 2° Lovibond
• 4 oz. light caramel malt, 20° Lovibond
• 4 oz. medium caramel malt, 60° Lovibond
• 4 oz. dark caramel malt, 90° Lovibond
• 4 oz. black roasted barley
• 1 oz. Willamette or Fuggle hops (7.7% alpha acid) for 45 min.
• 1 oz. Northern Brewer pellets for steeping
• 14 g. Nottingham dry ale yeast or Wyeast 1728 (Scottish ale)
• 3/4 cup brown sugar for priming

Step by Step:

Place cracked grains in 0.5 gal. of 158° F water. Steep for 40 min. and rinse through a
sieve strainer or mesh bag with 0.5 gal. of 175° F water, catching the run-off in your
boiling kettle. Discard the grain.

Add the dry malt extract, treacle, and dextrin powder along with enough water to make 5
gal. Heat to boiling and add Willamette or Fuggle hops. Boil 45 min. Turn off heat, add the
Northern Brewer pellets, cover, and cool in a cold water bath or use a wort chiller. Pitch
yeast at 60° to 70° F.

Ferment where temperature remains above 60° F. After primary fermentation, transfer to
secondary until settled (about one week). Prime with brown sugar and bottle. Age for one
to two months before drinking for fullest flavor.

OG = 1.052
FG = 1.012

I forgot to mention...as the recipe says "add dry malt extract" but doesn't specify what kind or how much, I consulted my LHBS and added a pound of light DME.

I also used Wyeast Irish Ale, as the shop was out of the Scottish Ale yeast.



Thanks again,

CB

The recipe said "add dry malt extract" because someone forgot to remove the word "dry" during editing. [facepalm] You overthought, instead of RDWHAHB . Did you enter the ingredients into brewing software of some sort?

There's part of your gravity error. Not enough to cover that much of a swing, though. Did you do a full boil, or a partial boil and top off?

Cheers,

Bob

Hey, thanks for writing back.

You know, I did RDWHAHB...cause if I didn't, I never would have gone ahead with the recipe. Since the saisons I'd made had two cans of extract plus a pound of DME, and because their OG was roughly the same as this one, I figured I was okay and didn't stress too much. In fact, I made a "Super" Fantome that had 6.6 pounds of liquid extract, 1 pound of DME, and 1 pound of corn sugar...so maybe this will be a "Super Theakston's"? I don't mind high ABVs generally.

I boiled two gallons with the top off...I'm thinking maybe the OG reading had to do with my sample. I got the thief deep in there, where maybe the heavier stuff had settled. After the krausen settles down I'll do another reading...it'll have been well mixed by then.

What do you think the eventual impact on the flavor of the beer might be? Should I dry-hop to offset sweetness?

And no, I didn't use a brewing software...can you suggest one?

Thanks,

CB

check out Jamil's old ale recipe- it's supposed to be close to Old Peculiar (I LOVE the Peculiar).

Thanks...though I want this one to work! What do you think?

climateboy said:

You know, I did RDWHAHB...cause if I didn't, I never would have gone ahead with the recipe. Since the saisons I'd made had two cans of extract plus a pound of DME, and because their OG was roughly the same as this one, I figured I was okay and didn't stress too much. In fact, I made a "Super" Fantome that had 6.6 pounds of liquid extract, 1 pound of DME, and 1 pound of corn sugar...so maybe this will be a "Super Theakston's"? I don't mind high ABVs generally.

Click to expand...

I see! You did indeed make a Super Peculier, and you'll enjoy drinking it!

I boiled two gallons with the top off...I'm thinking maybe the OG reading had to do with my sample. I got the thief deep in there, where maybe the heavier stuff had settled. After the krausen settles down I'll do another reading...it'll have been well mixed by then.

Click to expand...

Too late for an OG then. By the time kreusen falls, your ferment will be pretty much finished. I wouldn't worry about the OG anymore, were I you.

What do you think the eventual impact on the flavor of the beer might be? Should I dry-hop to offset sweetness?

Click to expand...

I suggest racking this to a clearing vessel once fermentation is finished. Taste the beer at racking by critically tasting your gravity sample. If it's cloyingly unbalanced, you might find the addition of some Fuggles or Goldings an improvement, though it won't provide bitterness to mask the sweetness. If it's cloyingly sweet, the only real way to add bitterness is to brew another batch of beer and blend it with the Super Peculier.

And no, I didn't use a brewing software...can you suggest one?

Click to expand...

If all you're doing is estimating gravity and color, there are several online resources. The Beer Recipator is one, Tasty Brew is another. If you're after a piece of software that'll do what the above calculators do, try QBrew; I used that for about a year a couple of years ago, and it worked fine. If you want a powerful piece of software that you can use at all levels of your brewing career, I prefer ProMash. I've used it for, gosh, ten years now, so I'm used to and comfortable with it. There are other apps available, but know nothing of them, so I'll let others weigh in on them.

Cheers,

Bob

climateboy said:

This is my third batch of homebrew (two successful saisons previously), so I followed that basic procedure...boiled the grain "tea" for 40 minutes or so, then added the extracts and boiled all that together for about 25 minutes.
...
Step by Step:

Place cracked grains in 0.5 gal. of 158° F water. Steep for 40 min. and rinse through a
sieve strainer or mesh bag with 0.5 gal. of 175° F water, catching the run-off in your
boiling kettle. Discard the grain.

Click to expand...

Which did you actually do - steep the grain as specified "step by step" or boil it for 40-minutes (tannin city - yucky beer time coming up!).

I steeped the grains and rinsed them as directed. Came out beautifully black and rich-smelling. So no, no grain boil, thank goodness.

Bob, thank you very much for your assistance.

"I suggest racking this to a clearing vessel once fermentation is finished. Taste the beer at racking by critically tasting your gravity sample. If it's cloyingly unbalanced, you might find the addition of some Fuggles or Goldings an improvement, though it won't provide bitterness to mask the sweetness. If it's cloyingly sweet, the only real way to add bitterness is to brew another batch of beer and blend it with the Super Peculier."


I'll do that, thanks.



CB

I made a Theakston clone from a very similar recipe (although a little weaker as I didn't add the extra DME, and without the steeping hops: I don't remember much hop aroma in the original?) a few months back. It took a LONG time to mellow, although in an unusual way: the first couple of bottles I tried (3 and then 4 weeks after bottling) were just kind of bland and meh tasting. Not offensive in any way, just not very interesting and almost watery. But after three months in the closet, it turned out great. The treacle/molasses flavor is really coming through now, which was totally missing at first, and blends beautifully with the malts. So don't be afraid to let this one sit a while!

I racked an O.P. clone to the secondary today. The recipe came from the Best of BYO mag's 150 Classic Clones recipes. I'll be dry hopping this in a couple of weeks. This recipe uses molasses, cane sugar, and invert sugar. I substituted for the invert sugar. Hope it works OK.

This is the OP...

So, I let it sit in the primary for about two weeks, and I racked it to the carboy last night. It tasted fine, not too sweet...but the SG is 1.020. What should I do? Should I repitch, or just bottle it once it clears and then leave it in the bottle for a month or two?

Comments appreciated...



CB

According to my calculations, your OG was 1.061. Your yeast - Wyeast Irish Ale - has an attenuation range of 71-75%. Under ideal conditions, your FG could be 1.015. But we need to consider a couple of things.

Only rarely can the homebrewer expect the upper end of the attenuation range. More likely they end up at the lower end. Given that, your FG could be 1.018.

Now consider that John Bull extracts are mashed to produce high dextrins; a dextrinous wort is less fermentable than otherwise, which also impacts attenuation. Moreover, the addition of malto-dextrin enhances the non-fermentable impactors on gravity.

All this is to explain why I'm not at all surprised at your FG reading. Leave it a week and take another gravity. I'll bet you dollars to donuts it's still at 1.020. Hell, you wouldn't get this beer to 1.012 with Nottingham. I don't know what Burch was thinking.

1.012...sheesh.

Bob

Thanks, Bob, as always. That was a very thorough answer. I'm not yet advanced enough to know that much about dextrines, although I do know that John Bull has gone out of business. Do you think another company will take up the job of producing unique liquid extracts?

So if I have your advice right, even if the gravity doesn't go down in a week, bottle anyway?


Thanks,

CB

Well, I'd leave it in the secondary until it drops bright. Two weeks, three weeks won't hurt it. You racked it, what, yesterday? Leave it a couple of weeks. Take a gravity this weekend, see if it's dropped any further. Take one every day for three straight days. If they don't change, it should be stable enough to bottle.

Bob

This is the OP again...

well, I got it down to 1.018, and beautifully clear. I bottled it on Saturday (Oct. 11), after about two weeks in the secondary. The flavor, from the test flask, is developing well, with the molasses flavor a bit more forward than in previous tests, when hops (probably from the hopped malt extract) were over-dominant. It will flower nicely in the bottle, I think, and I'm going to give it at least three weeks before checking in again.

Thanks to all for the advice and attention.


CB

If anyone's still watching this thread, this is the OP again. I just tasted my first bottle (after 15 days) and it is fully carbonated, with a great head, and more importantly, it's delicious. It will certainly benefit from more time in the bottle, but this is going to be one great beer.

Excellent! I'm glad it turned out nicely.

Cheers!

Bob