inthesound
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2013
- Messages
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Hey all, first post, though I've been lurking for the past couple of months. I'm a new brewer, I started new year's day, and have been faithfully brewing a 5 gallon all-grain batch every week.
I came up with this idea for a chocolate orange beer. My aim was to keep it drinkable with just a light chocolate flavor with the citrus/orange flavor being mostly aromatic. Here's the recipe I brewed:
10.5# maris otter
.55# crystal 40L
.55# mild malt
.32# pale chocolate
.32# victory
.32# carafa 1
boil 60 min 1oz Cascade
boil 30 min 1oz Ahtanum
boil 15 min 1oz Amarillo
boil 15 min 1oz Cascade
dry hop 7 days 1oz Amarillo
dry hop 7 days 1oz Cascade
2oz orange zest at flameout
wyeast northwest ale yeast
I use hopville for punching in and keeping track of all my recipes, and it said my target og was 1.069, and a target fg of 1.021. I ended up with 1.072 and 1.016 respectively. It went from being a 6.4%abv beer to 7.5%. As far as tasting goes, it kinda ventures into porter/cda territory. It's a little too dark, and I think I added more bitterness with the orange zest, because it was only half zest, and the rest was peel. The finish is probably the biggest hang-up, it's very dry, much drier than I would like. Balancing out the soft chocolate and toasted flavors with citrusy hops is the real trick here, I suppose.
In my revision, I've cut out the carafa special 1 altogether. I may double the orange zest addition, but I'll be mindful to use only zest, and not the whole peel. Not sure if I should add cocoa powder. I may tweak the entire recipe to drop the abv a little lower. I haven't decided.
Oh, and any tips for achieving a specific final gravity? Just being mindful of the fermentation and racking when it's reached? And is there any real benefit of pulling the beer off the yeast when I hit a specific final gravity, or should I just let the yeast do its thing and take it down as far as it goes?
Sorry, that's a lot! I appreciate any feedback.
.chris
I came up with this idea for a chocolate orange beer. My aim was to keep it drinkable with just a light chocolate flavor with the citrus/orange flavor being mostly aromatic. Here's the recipe I brewed:
10.5# maris otter
.55# crystal 40L
.55# mild malt
.32# pale chocolate
.32# victory
.32# carafa 1
boil 60 min 1oz Cascade
boil 30 min 1oz Ahtanum
boil 15 min 1oz Amarillo
boil 15 min 1oz Cascade
dry hop 7 days 1oz Amarillo
dry hop 7 days 1oz Cascade
2oz orange zest at flameout
wyeast northwest ale yeast
I use hopville for punching in and keeping track of all my recipes, and it said my target og was 1.069, and a target fg of 1.021. I ended up with 1.072 and 1.016 respectively. It went from being a 6.4%abv beer to 7.5%. As far as tasting goes, it kinda ventures into porter/cda territory. It's a little too dark, and I think I added more bitterness with the orange zest, because it was only half zest, and the rest was peel. The finish is probably the biggest hang-up, it's very dry, much drier than I would like. Balancing out the soft chocolate and toasted flavors with citrusy hops is the real trick here, I suppose.
In my revision, I've cut out the carafa special 1 altogether. I may double the orange zest addition, but I'll be mindful to use only zest, and not the whole peel. Not sure if I should add cocoa powder. I may tweak the entire recipe to drop the abv a little lower. I haven't decided.
Oh, and any tips for achieving a specific final gravity? Just being mindful of the fermentation and racking when it's reached? And is there any real benefit of pulling the beer off the yeast when I hit a specific final gravity, or should I just let the yeast do its thing and take it down as far as it goes?
Sorry, that's a lot! I appreciate any feedback.
.chris
