Black Dog Ale - Recipe Help

[Mutilated1]

Any of you guys familiar with Black Dog Ale ?

I want to get pretty close to this beer with my next Ale.

Do you think these ingredients will get pretty close ?

8.5# Pale 2-Row
1.5# Malted Wheat
1# Crystal 60
6 oz Chocolate Malt

1 oz Mt. Hood (Bittering)

Safale US-05

 

[brewt00l]

I am not....is this Spanish Peaks Black Dog Ale?

If so, their site lists:
Munich, Carmel 40, Carmel 80 & Chocolate malts
Centennial, Northern Brewer & Chinook hops
36 IBUs, 5.2% ABV

 

[Mutilated1]

Yes Spanish Peaks Black Dog Ale, thats what I'm after.

Should I make the 8.5# of Pale into 8.5 # of Munich instead ?

Maybe drop the Malted Wheat entirely ?

 

[brewt00l]

Yes Spanish Peaks Black Dog Ale, thats what I'm after.

Should I make the 8.5# of Pale into 8.5 # of Munich instead ?

Maybe drop the Malted Wheat entirely ?

I have never tried it but it would appear from their info that they are using Munich as the base malt..dunno what percentages on the remaining specialty malts. You might shoot the brewery an email and inquire about percentages and hop schedule.

 

[Mutilated1]

Yeah I've tried the e-mail and that didn't go anywhere.

Anyone care to help me out with this ? I'd like to get a pretty good guess before tomorrow morning when I run to the homebrew store.

 

[Mutilated1]

OK, I'm going to make a second try at this beer some time in the next day or so. Based on some advice from the chatroom I decided to give ProMash a try and now here is my second version of the recipe which I hope will be a lot closer.

Ingredients are partially based on what I think are close to the actual ingredients and also influenced by what was available when I went to the Home Brew Store, and what ingredients I already have on hand.


Black Dog Clone #2
OG 1.053 26 SRM 29.4 IBUs

Grain
7# Pale Ale 2 Row
2# Light Munich
.5# Crystal 80
.5# Chocolate

Hops
1 oz Cascade (6.7% Alpha) 60 minutes
.25 oz Willamettes ( 5 % Alpha ) 30 minutes
.25 oz Willamettes ( 5 % Alpha ) 10 minutes

Yeast: Safale US-05

Provided the color on my computer monitor is accurate, this looks to be pretty damn close with respect to color, and with the Gravity and Bitterness I tried to hit pretty much the middle of the acceptable range for the American Brown Ale ( BJCP 10-C ) style.

I'd like to brew this one this week, and possibly try one more attempt third version of the recipe maybe this weekend sometime, and then take some time to drink and enjoy them and evaluate how close or how far I got from real Black Dog.

I kind of have two ideas in mind with this project, on one hand I'd like to get really darn close to making exactly the same beer as possible, on the other hand if I discover something that I really like and its good - I don't mind going with that either.

Anyone have any comments or suggestions to offer ? Somehow lately I've gotten it in my head that I'd like to make a beer that I could enter into a contest or something, even though I've never even been to a beer contest before much less considered actually entering one.

Since I've been getting in to this hobby and I discovered that I really like beers in this American Brown Ale style, naturally something along the lines of this is what I want to make, also as I might have mentioned before I'm a sucker for anything with "Dog" in the name.

 

[ScoutMan]

Black Dog was "the beer" that got me into craft brews and homebrewing in 1992. I haven't had it in quite some time as the brewery was sold and the recipe changed somewhat. Here is my version of the early Black Dog.



Black Dog Clone 1
English Pale Ale/Strong Bitter


Type: Partial Mash

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
3 lbs Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 35.3 %
4 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 47.1 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 5.9 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (60.0 SRM) Grain 5.9 %
8.0 oz Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 5.9 %
1.00 oz Northern Brewer [8.50%] (60 min) Hops 21.1 IBU
0.50 oz Chinook [13.00%] (30 min) Hops 12.4 IBU
0.50 oz Centennial [10.00%] (10 min) Hops 4.5 IBU
1 Pkgs California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) Yeast-Ale



Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.052 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.012 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.005 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.2 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 0.6 %
Bitterness: 37.9 IBU Calories: 43 cal/pint
Est Color: 10.5 SRM Color: Color


Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge Total Grain Weight: 5.50 lb
Sparge Water: 1.94 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

Name Description Step Temp Step Time
Mash In Add 6.88 qt of water at 165.9 F 154.0 F 60 min



Mash Notes: Simple single infusion mash for use with most modern well modified grains (about 95% of the time).
Carbonation and Storage

Carbonation Type: Corn Sugar Volumes of CO2: 2.4
Pressure/Weight: 3.8 oz Carbonation Used: -
Keg/Bottling Temperature: 60.0 F Age for: 21.0 days
Storage Temperature: 52.0 F

Notes

 

[Mutilated1]

Thanks very much.

 

[Mutilated1]

OK, I'm mashing the recipe #2 attempt right now. I'm going with the same grains, but I'm going to change up the hops a bit..

These are the hops I have on hand right now

Cascade(6 AA), Nugget(13.8 AA), Hallertau(?? AA), Galena(13 AA), I was hoping to have some Willamettes but they didn't arrive yet so I will try them next time.

I'm thinking something along the lines of...

.5 oz Galena at 60
.25oz Cascade at 60
.25oz Cascades at 30

Right about 38-39 IBUs ??

 

[Mutilated1]

ps... I just found out that Austin Homebrew Supply has an all grain clone kit for this beer. I'm going to order it and give it a try.

 

[Mutilated1]

Well I got a taste of my first two attempts over the weekend. Both were really good beers, #2 was actually kind of close to Spanish Peaks Black Dog. I think my version might have had the starting gravity too high, and next time I'm going to use less Chocolate.

I'm going to try another version somewhere between My Attempt #2 and ScoutMan's version later on this week, maybe this weekend and depending on how a few other things I'm working on right now work out, I might try the AHBS version at the same time.