Well, I don't want to admit it, but I too altered this recipe a bit. It was all due to the pressure felt as a noob in the middle of the LHBS. Friend says, "Ah, that ain't enough grain... you'll want to boost it."
I say, "But, but, they really comment nicely on the web about this."
I'm in the shop to begin with because I trust the owner. I've bought winemaking supplies from him for quite some time now, and on top of his knowledge (worked in a east coast microbrewery for years), he gives me a decent professional discount.
Anyway, here's what we ended up with for (what was suppose to be) a 24 gallon mulitple of the original:
30# Maris Otter
5# 60L Crystal
1.5# Chocolate (Germain Dark)
3.8 oz Fuggle [4.0%] @ 60 min
4 oz Fuggle [4.0%] @ 15 min
LHBS guy adjusted the hops for me. Says they are more efficient on a larger boil. Figure he'd make out better if we'd just do straight multiplication, so how can I argue.
Well, that was the plan, then comes the
night of the brew, when I get a bit anxious. Somewhere in the process, I don't load enough liquor in the HLT and don't end up with the target volume. Something about 2 am putting me off my brew game (as if I have a brew game yet). So I adjust the brew kettle to 22 gallons by adding 2 gallons of plain water, getting a SG of 1050. Guess I could have gone all the way to 24 gallons and probably had an SG much closer to the recipe, but it seemed like the thing to do at the time. Didn't want to dilute the body out of it.
Anyway, nice ferment at 56F over 10 days in the primary brings me to 1008. Seems ok to this novice. Racked 3 cornies with priming sugar, and last 5 gal to a carboy. Couple days ago I racked the carboy to a corny and started chargin it at about 14 psi. I know it's still green, but nothing else to drink around here, so I draw a pitcher off. Here's a picture of the pitcher:
It still seems pretty mild to me, nice body, a bit more brown than I'm sure it's suppose to be, but what's the harm!? I really like the subtle hops combined with a bit o' malt character. I like a lot of flavor of beers, but could definitely drink a LOT of this!
I'm anxious to compare some of this keg with one of the primed ones.
Thanx, Orfy for the starting point. Perhaps next time I can get closer to the mark, but it's definitely a recipe to keep.