Any UK brewers here??

[DonGavlar]

Hey guys,

I'll be brewing my first all grain beer in a few days. I've been looking around at recipes and messing about on beersmith and now have a recipe ready.

I've been looking around to gather up all my ingredients but I'm finding it hard to source them all in one place... ATM i need to buy crushed grains just until i get myself a mill and I can't seem to find all the crushed grains, hops etc that the recipe calls for on one site. Some sites have a few other don't have any! Also I've got the feeling the stores here in the UK are calling the grains different names than you guys call them over in the US.

I'm getting worried that im not going to be able to source all the ingredients as some I just cant find at all and others are scattered across multiple sites meaning the cost will be way to high for one batch when you factor in delivery costs.

I also don't have a LHBS near near me, well i do have a very small one about 30 mins away but it is shocking.. sells a very very small amount of ingredients and some pretty basic fermenting buckets etc. Our home brew scene obviously sucks compared to you guys in the US.

If anyone in the UK could point me in the direction of a site they use to source their ingredients id be extremely appreciative.

Thanks!

 

[Shenanigans]

Hi Don,

I'm from Ireland but living in Germany.
Since the Brexit vote and the fall of the pound lots of the german home brewers have started ordering stuff from here.

https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/

I haven't ordered anything there myself but I have only heard positive feedback on the German brew forum I use.

 

[DonGavlar]

Hi Don,

I'm from Ireland but living in Germany.
Since the Brexit vote and the fall of the pound lots of the german home brewers have started ordering stuff from here.

https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/

I haven't ordered anything there myself but I have only heard positive feedback on the German brew forum I use.

Thanks, I did briefly scan through this site but there were soem malts i couldn't find. however, i think they are just called different names.

This is probably going to be a really stupid question but the first malt o my list says 'pale malt 2 row US' However theres nothing with that name and when i search pale malt there is a lot of different options and when I search 2 row nothing really comes up. So what am I looking for?

Sorry if im being really stupid but the last brew I did the ingredients where the exact same as what they were called on the site I bought them from.

Thanks

 

[DonGavlar]

Also, the second malt calls for a brown malt (65 srm) however, the brown malt that is sold on the malt miller is 140-160 ebc meaning that its 71 - 81 rsm. Would that greatly affect the bear or? its all very confusing

 

[McKnuckle]

The 65L brown malt is a product of the U.K. maltster called Crisp. EBC is roughly twice SRM, but not exactly, so yeah - it's a pain. But check the maltster and it should clear things up.

 

[MSK_Chess]

Please post your recipe. Generally I use the worcesterhopshop as the prices on hops is super reasonable and they are quite fresh and also thehomebrewcompany which has a UK site and an Irish site.

http://worcesterhopshop.co.uk/
http://www.thehomebrewcompany.co.uk/

If your recipe calls for pale malt any pale malt will do. At present I have been using Irish Minch Malt for my pale ales, stouts and porters and its quite frankly superb. It makes sense to buy in bulk. Usually you can get up to 30KG's for about £6 shipping.

 

[DonGavlar]

Recipe is as follows:
7.5 lbs pale malt (2 row) US. (Dont know what this is)
13 oz brown malt (65 srm). (The brown malts im finding are a higher srm)
8.8oz of chocolate malt (350 srm)
2 oz fuggles (recipe calls for hops but i want to use pellets, do i use the same amount of pellets?)
1tsp of irish moss
Honey but i have this ofc
London ale yeast wyeast 1028

 

[DonGavlar]

The last recipe i was going to use called for some crystal malts with a certain L number that I couldn’t find anywhere! Also they had a hop that I couldn’t find anywhere but there was a hop with a similar name. i’ll ty find the recipe so I can recite it to you guys

 

[MSK_Chess]

It sounds like your recipe is trying to be a Fullers London porter recipe, as fine a British Ale as ever there was! If I was going to make Fullers London Porter I would use,

Pale Malt (Any Pale Malt) 4.5KG
Brown Malt (British Brown malt) 600g
Crystal Malt 500g (In the UK we cut to the chase with light, medium or dark crystal, technically these have been classified by Lovibond, thats what the L stands for, its a measurement of colour, medium crystal will do fine!)
Chocolate Malt 120g

2oz is 56grams I think, yes that's about right. You want the overall bitterness to be about 33IBU's. IBU's are the international measurement of bitterness I think.

My recipe calls for two additions of Fuggles hops, 64g at 60 minutes and 21g at 10minutes to go, giving an overall bitterness of 33 IBU's

 

[DonGavlar]

It sounds like your recipe is trying to be a Fullers London porter recipe, as fine a British Ale as ever there was! If I was going to make Fullers London Porter I would use,

Pale Malt (Any Pale Malt) 4.5KG
Brown Malt (British Brown malt) 600g
Crystal Malt 500g (In the UK we cut to the chase with light, medium or dark crystal, technically these have been classified by Lovibond, thats what the L stands for, its a measurement of colour, medium crystal will do fine!)
Chocolate Malt 120g

2oz is 56grams I think, yes that's about right. You want the overall bitterness to be about 33IBU's. IBU's are the international measurement of bitterness I think.

My recipe calls for two additions of Fuggles hops, 64g at 60 minutes and 21g at 10minutes to go, giving an overall bitterness of 33 IBU's

It’s a actually saying its to be an irish red! Your recipe sounds great though, ill be sure to give it a go.

With the difference in srm/ebc to the malt the recipes are calling for and what i can actually get here in the UK, will it be a problem? Im guessing it’ll throw my beersmith off a bit.

Also as in the US they call for quite a range of crystal malts, whats my best bet when the crystal they call for is inbetween medium and dark?

Thanks for the help, both them sites you sent over seem pretty good

 

[MSK_Chess]

An Irish red, wow, usually it has flaked barley and a little roasted barley. Interesting. If you go to the worcesterhopshop site they actually have all grain kit recipes that are just about the same price that you can buy all the ingredients at. I brewed many of these and can highly recommend them.

I would just use a medium crystal for most thing - 60L is considered medium and fine.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I can't seem to find all the crushed grains, hops etc that the recipe calls for on one site. Some sites have a few other don't have any! Also I've got the feeling the stores here in the UK are calling the grains different names than you guys call them over in the US.

Don't sweat this - specialist grains depend on which company makes them, US brewers will have access to different companies and not only are the names different but many of the grains are different too. For instance, US brewers seem to struggle to get proper British crystal, at least in the range that we have access to, they tend to end up using German caramel malts instead which are slightly different. And FWIW, US recipes tend to overdo them in British-style beers, they seem to think they're sweeter than they actually are. There also seems to be some trademark issues which means the same grain can be called different things in different countries.

But regardless, if you're trying to make a British/Irish style beer you should be able to get all that you need to make a great one in one package from the major online stores like TMM and www.brewuk.co.uk - if you can't, then that implies you're using a recipe that has been bodged to simulate British/Irish ingredients using what's available in the US (or elsewhere). Since you're new to all-grain, avoid the temptation to overcomplicate things, simple is good. Don't try to micromanage ingredients, the beer won't be rubbish just because your crystal is 10SRM different or something, and part of the fun is creating recipes that are *yours* and not just a cover version of someone else's.

I also don't have a LHBS near near me, well i do have a very small one about 30 mins away but it is shocking.. sells a very very small amount of ingredients and some pretty basic fermenting buckets etc. Our home brew scene obviously sucks compared to you guys in the US.

OTOH you often hear of folks on these boards who have to drive 2-3 hours to their nearest LHBS, distances are much greater in the US. Real shops are losing out everywhere to the internet - the same is true if your hobby is golf or bookshops or whatever. If you're really stuck, most Wilkos have a small homebrew section which is geared to kits but has buckets, rebadged Nottingham yeast etc.

In many ways I'd argue that we're better off in the UK than in the US - we have better grain, outside SE England the tapwater is generally great for brewing, shiny German brewing kit is cheaper, and we import more hops so big online shops like BrewUK have a wider choice of British, European and antipodean hops than their US equivalents. Don't think the grass is greener....

Recipe is as follows:
7.5 lbs pale malt (2 row) US. (Dont know what this is)
13 oz brown malt (65 srm). (The brown malts im finding are a higher srm)
8.8oz of chocolate malt (350 srm)
2 oz fuggles (recipe calls for hops but i want to use pellets, do i use the same amount of pellets?)
1tsp of irish moss
Honey but i have this ofc
London ale yeast wyeast 1028

Simplifying massively :

In the US there's three main grades of malt - 6-row, US-produced (or "domestic") 2-row, and much more expensive, imported 2-row (generally from the UK and Germany, usually of named varieties like Maris Otter). 6-row and 2-row refer to the structure of the seed heads of the two main families of barley. 6-row is cheaper than 2-row and historically was regarded as inferior for brewing - it malted less consistently, was more prone to haze and off-flavours and has some technical differences. Intensive breeding has closed the gap with 2-row, but the fact that it is better for brewing adjunct lagers mean that it is tainted by association with the big US brewers, and homebrewers use either domestic or imported 2-row. So when a recipe calls for "US 2-row" it's just calling for "ordinary" locally-produced malt.

In Europe, and in Britain in particular, we're lucky that we've a long history of brewing uninterrupted by nonsense like Prohibition, and a very sophisticated barley breeding programme in support of the industry. So our big breweries don't bother with 6-row (it's almost all used for animal feed), they use a 2-row barley on an official list, with varieties being continually superceded by new ones with better yields or better disease resistance. These are our equivalent of "US 2-row", most shops will just refer to them as "ordinary" malt in some way, TMM is a bit geekier than that and actually uses the variety names - Propino, Flagon and Optic are some of the current ones but that will change every few years.

Typically this kind of "cooking" malt costs £23-25 for a 25kg sack (or ~£1.50/kg, spot the difference when buying by the 1kg) whereas for £30-32 you can get a sack of the premium varieties like Maris Otter or Golden Promise. Most people would say that for any beer where malt flavour is important (like most European styles) then the better flavour of Otter etc is worth the extra £1 per brew. I just buy Otter by the sack and use it for everything, it's cheaper to buy the good stuff by the sack than messing around with a few kg here or there of lesser malts.

On hops, the US is very pellet-oriented, over here we use much more leaf. There are all sorts of technical differences but to a first approximation, they're the same from a recipe point of view. When you say "hop with a similar name" - can you be more specific? Often it doesn't matter but eg the 19th-century fame of Goldings meant all sorts of unrelated hops got Goldings-y names that implied a relationship or equivalence.

Just as a comment - worcesterhopshop.co.uk is selling hops going back to 2014. Hops decline with time, and depending on how they're stored they can go downhill quite rapidly, I certainly wouldn't buy hops that old unless I was confident they'd been stored well (and even then only at a great price). It also makes me wonder how fresh their other stock is, Maris Otter at <£25/sack seems too good to be true which makes me wonder if that too is not very fresh.

[no affiliation to any of the above shops other than as an occasional customer of some of them]

 

[DonGavlar]

Don't sweat this - specialist grains depend on which company makes them, US brewers will have access to different companies and not only are the names different but many of the grains are different too. For instance, US brewers seem to struggle to get proper British crystal, at least in the range that we have access to, they tend to end up using German caramel malts instead which are slightly different. And FWIW, US recipes tend to overdo them in British-style beers, they seem to think they're sweeter than they actually are. There also seems to be some trademark issues which means the same grain can be called different things in different countries.

But regardless, if you're trying to make a British/Irish style beer you should be able to get all that you need to make a great one in one package from the major online stores like TMM and www.brewuk.co.uk - if you can't, then that implies you're using a recipe that has been bodged to simulate British/Irish ingredients using what's available in the US (or elsewhere). Since you're new to all-grain, avoid the temptation to overcomplicate things, simple is good. Don't try to micromanage ingredients, the beer won't be rubbish just because your crystal is 10SRM different or something, and part of the fun is creating recipes that are *yours* and not just a cover version of someone else's.



OTOH you often hear of folks on these boards who have to drive 2-3 hours to their nearest LHBS, distances are much greater in the US. Real shops are losing out everywhere to the internet - the same is true if your hobby is golf or bookshops or whatever. If you're really stuck, most Wilkos have a small homebrew section which is geared to kits but has buckets, rebadged Nottingham yeast etc.

In many ways I'd argue that we're better off in the UK than in the US - we have better grain, outside SE England the tapwater is generally great for brewing, shiny German brewing kit is cheaper, and we import more hops so big online shops like BrewUK have a wider choice of British, European and antipodean hops than their US equivalents. Don't think the grass is greener....



Simplifying massively :

In the US there's three main grades of malt - 6-row, US-produced (or "domestic") 2-row, and much more expensive, imported 2-row (generally from the UK and Germany, usually of named varieties like Maris Otter). 6-row and 2-row refer to the structure of the seed heads of the two main families of barley. 6-row is cheaper than 2-row and historically was regarded as inferior for brewing - it malted less consistently, was more prone to haze and off-flavours and has some technical differences. Intensive breeding has closed the gap with 2-row, but the fact that it is better for brewing adjunct lagers mean that it is tainted by association with the big US brewers, and homebrewers use either domestic or imported 2-row. So when a recipe calls for "US 2-row" it's just calling for "ordinary" locally-produced malt.

In Europe, and in Britain in particular, we're lucky that we've a long history of brewing uninterrupted by nonsense like Prohibition, and a very sophisticated barley breeding programme in support of the industry. So our big breweries don't bother with 6-row (it's almost all used for animal feed), they use a 2-row barley on an official list, with varieties being continually superceded by new ones with better yields or better disease resistance. These are our equivalent of "US 2-row", most shops will just refer to them as "ordinary" malt in some way, TMM is a bit geekier than that and actually uses the variety names - Propino, Flagon and Optic are some of the current ones but that will change every few years.

Typically this kind of "cooking" malt costs £23-25 for a 25kg sack (or ~£1.50/kg, spot the difference when buying by the 1kg) whereas for £30-32 you can get a sack of the premium varieties like Maris Otter or Golden Promise. Most people would say that for any beer where malt flavour is important (like most European styles) then the better flavour of Otter etc is worth the extra £1 per brew. I just buy Otter by the sack and use it for everything, it's cheaper to buy the good stuff by the sack than messing around with a few kg here or there of lesser malts.

On hops, the US is very pellet-oriented, over here we use much more leaf. There are all sorts of technical differences but to a first approximation, they're the same from a recipe point of view. When you say "hop with a similar name" - can you be more specific? Often it doesn't matter but eg the 19th-century fame of Goldings meant all sorts of unrelated hops got Goldings-y names that implied a relationship or equivalence.

Just as a comment - worcesterhopshop.co.uk is selling hops going back to 2014. Hops decline with time, and depending on how they're stored they can go downhill quite rapidly, I certainly wouldn't buy hops that old unless I was confident they'd been stored well (and even then only at a great price). It also makes me wonder how fresh their other stock is, Maris Otter at <£25/sack seems too good to be true which makes me wonder if that too is not very fresh.

[no affiliation to any of the above shops other than as an occasional customer of some of them]

Wow thank you for the very detailed response. That has helped me a lot!

I'm not so concerned about price, I'm happy to pay more for better/fresher ingredients, i just don't want to pay multiple delivery costs getting ingredients from different shops. At the end of the day, I'm on a quest to be able to produce beer better than I can buy so I can show my old man that home brew isn't just sh*t So yes finding a shop that sells consistently good quality produce is what I am after.

You are right though, I don't know why I'm worrying. I can always just follow a recipe loosely and put in my own ingredients that are available to me that are similar and stick them into beersmith. Perhaps the beer could even turn out better!

As for the hops I think was was called kent goldlings or something and the other was called something else goldlings. I could only find one and not the other.

Thanks again for all the info, really appreciate it.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Perhaps the beer could even turn out better!

That's the attitude! One thing to bear in mind that most recipes assume 70% or 75% brewhouse efficiency, you're likely to get less than that on your first batch or two so I'd bump up the grain bill by 10-15% or so. Also it's useful to have a spare bucket handy during all-grain - not just for sanitiser but for somewhere to dump your bag (if you're doing BIAB), also heat-proof silicone gloves are handy for holding/squeezing BIAB bags.

As for the hops I think was was called kent goldlings or something and the other was called something else goldlings. I could only find one and not the other.

Thought it might be Goldings - it gets complicated, I'll simplify a little bit. Goldings is one of the classic English hop varieties, and "UK Goldings" refers to that variety when it's grown anywhere in the UK. It's particularly associated with East Kent, and East Kent Goldings (EKG) is a protected designation (like Jersey Royals or Champagne) for that variety when it's grown east of the M20 (ish). You sometimes see Hereford Goldings which isn't a legal designation but is referring to where they are grown - there are some definite flavour differences between the different areas, EKG have a definite spiciness to them and are a bit more expensive, some people prefer Hereford Goldings. 2016 was a terrible vintage in Kent, but better out west, so if you're buying 2016s I'd probably go for Hereford if you have the choice.

Where it gets complicated is that Goldings became so famous that when Fuggles was transplanted to the Habsburg Empire, it became known as Styrian Goldings despite not being (closely) related to Goldings. These days the EU is trying to discourage that name, and Fuggles-in-Slovenia is now known as Savinjski Goldings. US shops in particular haven't got the memo from the EU and persist with the designation Styrian Goldings, but these days it gets applied to anything that is vaguely Savinjski-ish from Slovenia, and is often a blend of Savinjski and its offspring. Those offspring also get referred to as eg Styrian Goldings (Celeia), when it would be more accurate to call them Celeia (or whatever) grown in Slovenia. It's a mess.

To further confuse things there's also a British variety called Whitbread Goldings Variety (WGV), which is only distantly related to Goldings but has more Fuggles character. It was introduced in the 1950s to replace Fuggles that had been devastated by wilt, but wilt resistance is about the only thing it's got going for it. You may see it in historical recipes but it's not much used in modern ones, and can be safely substituted by something like First Gold.

Oh one other thing - I know you wanted to minimise packages, but if you do get into buying sacks of malt on a regular basis, it can be worth getting friendly with your local brewery as they buy malt at half the retail price. I've just come across Staffs Brewery who look like they are more organised than most at selling malt on at a small premium to wholesale price, but your local brewery can probably oblige.

 

[DonGavlar]

That's the attitude! One thing to bear in mind that most recipes assume 70% or 75% brewhouse efficiency, you're likely to get less than that on your first batch or two so I'd bump up the grain bill by 10-15% or so. Also it's useful to have a spare bucket handy during all-grain - not just for sanitiser but for somewhere to dump your bag (if you're doing BIAB), also heat-proof silicone gloves are handy for holding/squeezing BIAB bags.



Thought it might be Goldings - it gets complicated, I'll simplify a little bit. Goldings is one of the classic English hop varieties, and "UK Goldings" refers to that variety when it's grown anywhere in the UK. It's particularly associated with East Kent, and East Kent Goldings (EKG) is a protected designation (like Jersey Royals or Champagne) for that variety when it's grown east of the M20 (ish). You sometimes see Hereford Goldings which isn't a legal designation but is referring to where they are grown - there are some definite flavour differences between the different areas, EKG have a definite spiciness to them and are a bit more expensive, some people prefer Hereford Goldings. 2016 was a terrible vintage in Kent, but better out west, so if you're buying 2016s I'd probably go for Hereford if you have the choice.

Where it gets complicated is that Goldings became so famous that when Fuggles was transplanted to the Habsburg Empire, it became known as Styrian Goldings despite not being (closely) related to Goldings. These days the EU is trying to discourage that name, and Fuggles-in-Slovenia is now known as Savinjski Goldings. US shops in particular haven't got the memo from the EU and persist with the designation Styrian Goldings, but these days it gets applied to anything that is vaguely Savinjski-ish from Slovenia, and is often a blend of Savinjski and its offspring. Those offspring also get referred to as eg Styrian Goldings (Celeia), when it would be more accurate to call them Celeia (or whatever) grown in Slovenia. It's a mess.

To further confuse things there's also a British variety called Whitbread Goldings Variety (WGV), which is only distantly related to Goldings but has more Fuggles character. It was introduced in the 1950s to replace Fuggles that had been devastated by wilt, but wilt resistance is about the only thing it's got going for it. You may see it in historical recipes but it's not much used in modern ones, and can be safely substituted by something like First Gold.

Oh one other thing - I know you wanted to minimise packages, but if you do get into buying sacks of malt on a regular basis, it can be worth getting friendly with your local brewery as they buy malt at half the retail price. I've just come across Staffs Brewery who look like they are more organised than most at selling malt on at a small premium to wholesale price, but your local brewery can probably oblige.

Again, thanks for the info! Appreciate it.

Yeah the hops were called whitebread goldings and kent goldings, confusing! Is there a spreadsheet of some sort where I can see hops different names or hop equivalents? I just don't want to be bugging the guys on here every time I can't find a certain hop or something.

I do actually have a really nice brewery down the road that produces some great natural unpasteurized beers, they are making quite a name for themselves around the UK. I'll head over there and see what they say about buying grains from them.

Thanks.

 

[ESBrewer]

^ For UK hops check this
https://www.britishhops.org.uk/varieties/

WGV is the shorthand for Whitbread Goldings.

 

[SanPancho]

hey folks- dont mean to hijack the thread here, but ive been looking for a good clone recipe for old speckled hen. the ones that i've found and seem to have a lot of good reviews are for extract brews unfortunately. and the ones i've found that are all grain have no reviews.

anybody here have a good recipe for the old hen? or an opinion on a recipe found herein? the AG grain bill i saw was basically just maris otter, medium crystal and invert 2. hops as challenger, goldings, and EKG.

anybody able to point me in the right direction, or confirm one of these recipes as being a good match for OSH?

 

[DonGavlar]

hey folks- dont mean to hijack the thread here, but ive been looking for a good clone recipe for old speckled hen. the ones that i've found and seem to have a lot of good reviews are for extract brews unfortunately. and the ones i've found that are all grain have no reviews.

anybody here have a good recipe for the old hen? or an opinion on a recipe found herein? the AG grain bill i saw was basically just maris otter, medium crystal and invert 2. hops as challenger, goldings, and EKG.

anybody able to point me in the right direction, or confirm one of these recipes as being a good match for OSH?

On beersmith you can input an extract recipe and covert it to all grain.

If you don’t have BS id be happy to do it for you if you link me the extract recipe with the good reviews.

The BS coversion would produce an all grain version that produces a similar end product, id asume. Someone correct me if im wrong.

 

[SanPancho]

i actually thought about that, but decided against. maybe i'm overemphasizing the grain bill in the flavor of the beer- but i'd think if you replaced amber extract with maris otter, vs ashburne mild, or amber malt, pale ale malt, or a two row-munich mix, each would have a different result. and to me, uk ales always seem to have a ton of malt character, which i assume would mean you'd really want to get that part right.

the all grain recipes seem to all focus around maris otter and med crystal pretty closely, plus invert 2, so maybe i should just take the malt bill from the AG recipes, and combine it with the hops/yeast recommendations from the extract recipes, and just hope its accurate. either way, its beer. we'll drink it.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Yeah the hops were called whitebread goldings and kent goldings, confusing! Is there a spreadsheet of some sort where I can see hops different names or hop equivalents? I just don't want to be bugging the guys on here every time I can't find a certain hop or something.

Goldings is the only one where there's that much confusion, because it was such a well-established "brand" in the 19th century. You get the odd variety getting renamed to avoid existing trademarks, but they tend to stick pretty close to the original - Equinox becoming Ekuanot, Victoria Secret (as in the Australian state) became Vic Secret. First Gold in theory should be called Prima Donna but noone in the brewing community does, you see it a bit with rhizomes though.

There's loads of lists of hops around, see eg
http://www.homebrewstuff.com/hop-profiles
http://www.hopslist.com/hops/ is probably the most comprehensive
https://ychhops.com/varieties (has lots of biochemical details)
http://scottjanish.com/hop-replacement-calculator/ uses biochemistry to suggest replacements. It's far from perfect, but it can give you an idea, and the chart is interesting.

@SanPancho You're probably better off on one of the dedicated Speckled Hen threads, AIUI Orfy's recipe isn't bad, my only comment would be that the modern Greene King version AIUI uses Challenger rather than Northern Brewer. Greene King use UK 2-row for pretty much everything (they're too cheap to use Otter, and it's just not grown on the scale they need) - so if you're in the US, perhaps US 2-row cut with a fraction of Otter?. Then crystal and invert/golden syrup. I'd guess the amber extract is an attempt to replicate crystal.

 

[DonGavlar]

Goldings is the only one where there's that much confusion, because it was such a well-established "brand" in the 19th century. You get the odd variety getting renamed to avoid existing trademarks, but they tend to stick pretty close to the original - Equinox becoming Ekuanot, Victoria Secret (as in the Australian state) became Vic Secret. First Gold in theory should be called Prima Donna but noone in the brewing community does, you see it a bit with rhizomes though.

There's loads of lists of hops around, see eg
http://www.homebrewstuff.com/hop-profiles
http://www.hopslist.com/hops/ is probably the most comprehensive
https://ychhops.com/varieties (has lots of biochemical details)
http://scottjanish.com/hop-replacement-calculator/ uses biochemistry to suggest replacements. It's far from perfect, but it can give you an idea, and the chart is interesting.

Will have a look at those links. Thanks again!

 

[yourlastchance89]

Coming on these forums really made me realize how lucky I am to have 2 LHBS nearby. I can typically just swing by them on the drive home if I need to grab something. I think what makes these stores standout and stay in business to the online stores is, one of them is both local and online, and both of them have taphouses inside. They get pretty packed with people coming in to sit, talk, and drink beer.

 

[DonGavlar]

Coming on these forums really made me realize how lucky I am to have 2 LHBS nearby. I can typically just swing by them on the drive home if I need to grab something. I think what makes these stores standout and stay in business to the online stores is, one of them is both local and online, and both of them have taphouses inside. They get pretty packed with people coming in to sit, talk, and drink beer.

Sound great! I’d love to have that option.
Atm i have all the ingridents for a nice extract amber ale and a free fermenter. I was going to quickly brew it up tonight as I’d completely forgot i even had the ingredients. However, i dont have any spare yeast lying about! So annoying that i can’t just pop down to a LHBS and pick some yeast up, id have to order it and pay delivery costs.
It will have to wait till my next ingridients order now. Lesson learnt though, order yeast in bulk!!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

It's always a good idea to have a pack or two of dry yeast in the fridge to cover emergencies, like if your starter doesn't grow or something. And something high-attenuating like Nottingham can help out if a fermentation gets stuck. Or get into yeast storage, then you always have it "in stock"!

At least if you just put in a yeast order, many places will send it in the post so the p&p isn't too bad. Or there's always the rebranded Nottingham from your local Wilko...

 

[DonGavlar]

It's always a good idea to have a pack or two of dry yeast in the fridge to cover emergencies, like if your starter doesn't grow or something. And something high-attenuating like Nottingham can help out if a fermentation gets stuck. Or get into yeast storage, then you always have it "in stock"!

At least if you just put in a yeast order, many places will send it in the post so the p&p isn't too bad. Or there's always the rebranded Nottingham from your local Wilko...

Yep, in hindsight i should have just ordered a large batch of good ale yeast that can be used with many different types like Nottingham or us-05.
I'm ordering a stir plate and flask and possibly a tilt hydrometer in the next week or so, so I'll chuck in a load of priming sugar and yeast with that order!

OT but anyone ever used a tilt hydrometer? They look amazing! FG and OG taken without even having to open the lid/ get the siphon out. Not to mention tracks your internal temp.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Personally I wouldn't go too mad with any one yeast - I'm having a lot of fun at the moment playing with different yeasts in split batches. It's more about just having the odd packet in reserve.

And while I fully understand the appeal of toys, you can go a long way without them, just with eg dry yeast or smack packs, and I've made starters in a well-shaken jamjar with UHT apple juice before now. I would never argue against getting things like a stirplate, just I might get a few more brews under my belt before buying lots of "nice to have" kit, that's all.

There's been a couple of threads about Tilt, although given that they've only recently arrived in the UK, this thread is probably not the place for them! Seem like fun toys, although there is a DIY equivalent kicking around, from some guys in Germany from memory.

 

[MSK_Chess]

I made a stir plate from a Cadburys chocolate box and a 12v computer fan with two earth magnets glued onto it with epoxy, works awesome. Never even heard of a tilt hydrometer, must check it out now.

 

[DonGavlar]

I made a stir plate from a Cadburys chocolate box and a 12v computer fan with two earth magnets glued onto it with epoxy, works awesome. Never even heard of a tilt hydrometer, must check it out now.

Check it out, looks great. It connects to any device with bluetooth so You just sanitize it and pop it in your fermenter then you can take a gravity/ temp reading anytime you want from your phone.

And while I fully understand the appeal of toys, you can go a long way without them, just with eg dry yeast or smack packs, and I've made starters in a well-shaken jamjar with UHT apple juice before now. I would never argue against getting things like a stirplate, just I might get a few more brews under my belt before buying lots of "nice to have" kit, that's all.

Haha you’re probably right. Im probably nust getting a bit excited, always been one for new shiny things

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I made a stir plate from a Cadburys chocolate box and a 12v computer fan with two earth magnets glued onto it with epoxy, works awesome. Never even heard of a tilt hydrometer, must check it out now.

I like the idea of the Lego stir plates, although they presumably are sods to clean if you get a spill.

The Malt Miller has just got Tilts at £146.40 and BrewUK at £149 (but free p&p), the DIY one I was thinking of was iSpindle (software) at €47.40 for the bits.

[no affiliation]

 

[MSK_Chess]

a lego stir plat, sounds great. I think i will stick to my refractometer and hydrometer, I like to taste my samples

Actually I am having some weird effects with my original and final gravity. The efficiency has gone through the roof. I mean its like 90% efficiency according to my software. I did not think that was possible. The trouble is I am overshooting my targets by at least 10 gravity points. The upshot of this is that my beers are finishing with a higher gravity than I want. I am not sure if its the malt or the yeast or my instrumentation. It could be that since I have been doing low oxygen brewing that the yeast have not had enough oxygen, I don't know. It could be that my mash schedule has resulted in a lot of less fermentable sugars, again I don't know. I tend to mash for ninety minutes, 45 min low 60's, 30min in the low 70's and 15 min mash out at 75C. It could by that my cheapo refractometer needs calibration, again i don't know. The beer is not sweet, but they are not as dry as I want. My last batch I deliberately used invert sugar and WLP007 yeast to get a dry profile, pitched a healthy 1 liter starter but the beer still finished higher than i wanted.

Next batch I am gonna use a single malt and mash in the low 60's with no step up to the 70's except for a mash out. I also order a new hydrometer to make sure its not my instrumentation. All i want is a dry British bitter, how hard can it be?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

The efficiency has gone through the roof. I mean its like 90% efficiency according to my software. I did not think that was possible. The trouble is I am overshooting my targets by at least 10 gravity points. The upshot of this is that my beers are finishing with a higher gravity than I want. I am not sure if its the malt or the yeast or my instrumentation. It could be that since I have been doing low oxygen brewing that the yeast have not had enough oxygen, I don't know.

You need to split the problem. The obvious thing to do is to calibrate your kit, as that's easy to do with plain water and a 10% sugar solution (dissolve 10g table sugar in a bit of water and make it up to 100ml = 10 Plato = 1.040) - there's been plenty of threads on how to do it (or eg BYO).

Don't forget gravity readings should be either taken at 20C or adjusted for temperature!

When you say "90% efficiency" I assume you mean brewhouse efficiency, so eg 4kg of Maris Otter is making 19 litres of 1.060 wort? That's commercial levels of efficiency, so the eyebrows do rise a bit at that and it might hint at a measurement problem - although one certainly hears of Grainfather-type systems getting into the high 80s so not completely impossible.

Or are you talking about attenuation being 90%? As in 1.050 goes down to 1.005?

Or when you say "overshooting my targets by at least 10 gravity points" are you saying that you're aiming for 1.010 and getting 1.020? So a much lower attenuation than expected? Yes that could be a stall due to low oxygen - easy enough to test, just take a sample out and aerate it thoroughly, then see how its FG compares.

 

[MSK_Chess]

My last batch used 3.5KG's of pale malt, 350g of torrified wheat, 150g of crystal malt, 70g of acid malt and 300g of invertsugar. I just wanted to make something, light, dry, creamy and hoppy. It was supposed to finish at 1045 and ended up at 1055. I had my efficiency setting at 75% on my software but its more than that, way more. I should say that the finished gravity is around 1020 when I expected it to be 1010 from 1045. The thing is the beer is not overtly sweet.

Thank you so much for these excellent suggestion I must solve this and will apply them diligently.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Well Brewer's Friend reckons that 19 litres of 1.055 from that grist represents 73% brewhouse efficiency so it looks like the mash has worked "normally", even if your forecast was out. You might want to check the calibration of your volumes, and that your software is set up correctly - or is it just allowing for the pale malt and not the other components of the grist? The 3.5kg alone would get you near 19l of 1.045 at 75% efficency.

1.045 to 1.010 is 77% attenuation which is reasonably high (WLP007 is quoted at 70-80% on the WL spec), 1.055 to 1.020 is 63% attenuation. So yes, it looks like you have a fermentation problem - oxygen could be limiting, I'd also look at the health of the yeast you're pitching, and how much you're pitching.

 

[MSK_Chess]

Ok I understand. Yeast was healthy, made a starter from a fresh pack of WLP007, best before date was like March 2018, roughly about a litre, smelled and looked excellent, took off excellently. Checked the calibration of my refractometer last night after your suggestion, was pretty close to 1040, 10 BRIX. Yes it does sound like an oxygen problem being as you say a limiting factor. Will draw about a 500ml aerate it and see if i can get the OG down. Thanks so much Northern Brewer its really helpful.

 

[MSK_Chess]

I must report that the problem was my refractometer, I bought a new hydrometer and the final gravity was 1014, beer is excellent, dry and bitter. Invert has thinned the body excellently and it has a creamy fluffy head due to the wheat. I would say it was a success.

 

[stz]

When you get some experience you start to see structure within what previously appeared chaotic. Most maltsters produce a typical range with a few speciality grains unique to them though most of the more common and popular ones are copied and an own version is produced which may or may not have a different name depending on trademark/branding.

You just need to break it down to base malt by colour. Flaked adjunct. Crystal. Dark. Toasted. Roasted. Smoked. A lot are interchangeable depending on local market and availability and you have to kind of know what the goals are and the aim of the brewer in order to know which ones are optional and which are essential to the finished beers character. Minor differences in SRM/EBC result in minor colour differences, but big differences should be accommodated for up to and including a change of malt variety if deemed necessary. Compounding this are differences in seasonal variation/spec from batch to batch. 9/10 when we see a home brew recipe with a convoluted grist we simplify it, tweaking some things up or down to get an approximation. Actually going to the hassle of using brown malt (especially when you buy by the ton!) is very rare, but we will if it makes a beer.

The biggest irritation is they blend malt to bring the numbers into typical ranges on the spec sheets, but while the numbers are the same, the beer isn't the same. We use a lot of crisp best ale malt and I swear it is just a blend with a wider tolerance than their more premium offerings. We blend it back with extra pale (exactly the same as their lager malt with wider tolerance) when it turns up looking particularly dark and malty.

A lot of british base malt throws a sweet/toffee/caramel/malty character when used in beers above 5.5% which I swear is the reason why so many american home brewers seem to love putting crystal in our pales (we aren't putting crystal in our pales and crystal doesn't taste like that!). We blend extra pale/lager/pilsner malt back with it to reduce this british character in bigger modern IPA. On the subject of crystal you will get more mileage out of light crystal than dark. Dark crystal is very potent and dominating and I'm hesitant to use more than 2% where as light crystal is grand all the way up to 8-10%.

I'm fond of the phrase you might have the recipe and even the yeast, but you haven't got the beer because you haven't got the plant and process. As a result you can't get too hung up on 'exact' clones, you just set out with the same intent to produce the best version of something you can and enjoy owning it.