Doubling of crystal when going from commercial to home brew?

[kal]

In the March-April 2011 issue of BYO Fuller's brewing director John Keeling states the following about their ESB, London Pride, Golden Pride, and Chiswick Bitter beers:

"It's the same grist for each of these beers. 95% British pale ale malt with 5% crystal 75L malt. We mash it for 60 minutes between 64-65C (147-149F)"

In the magazine's clone recipes they tell us to use 91% pale and 9% crystal 75L for both the London Pride and ESB clones. That's almost twice as much crystal as what Kelling mentions they use commercially. The London Pride recipe says to mash at 149F, the ESB at 153F. That also seems odd as according to Keeling, they mash at one temp.

That all seemed odd. I figured it's a typo so I emailed BYO. They tell me it's normal as they need to 'tweak' percentages of grist from commericial recipes for home use and because Fuller's does parti-gyle and the recipes as printed for home use do not call for parti-gyle.

Some recipe tweaking is often required (like flame out hop additions timing), but a nearly doubling of the amount of crystal from 5 to over 9%? That seems excessive. It doesn't make any sense to me.

And I don't understand why parti-gyle would make a difference. All that affects is the gravity of the runnings. No matter when Fuller's would draw off a sample (either early in the runnings or late), the wort would still feature the 95% / 5% ratio would it not? All that changes is the amount of sugar (gravity).

I'm confused.

Kal

 

[flipper51]

Well, there are things other than the ratios of grain types used that affect the flavor and color of the finished product, like boil length, water chemistry, all sorts of things. So one possibility is that the makers of the clone recipe for some reason expect their readers' techniques to differ from those used by Fullers generally in the direction of needing more crystal. Unfortunately I have no idea what the techniques of Fuller's are, and of course what they're expecting their readers do only they could know.

 

[kal]

Good point.

I would imagine that Fuller's uses fairly high carbonate water.

Fuller's says they do a one hour boil.

Still seems surprising to me that to mimic their product, that most home brewers would have to double the amount of crystal 75L.

Kal

 

[kappajoe]

Kal,

check out the CYBI Fuller's ESB/london pride rebrew episode... they talk about upping the crystal if you are not going to do the partigyle method.
if you are going to do the partigyle to make both brews... keep the crystal @ 5%

http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/692

 

[kal]

Interesting. Thanks for the link! I learnt something!

Pasturization seems to have an affect too which will make a brewer alter their level of crystal malt. They suggest upping the 75L crystal from 5% to 6%. 9% still seems high which is what I thought. It really seemed like a massive jump.

I did brew the ESB clone yesterday and went with 7.5% crystal 55L. Should be tasty.

Kal

 

[kappajoe]

no problem...