sleepystevenson
Well-Known Member
I apologize in advance for the length of this post... but it is necessary to get the idea across!
So, my wife and I are having a big beer tasting in Sept to celebrate our wedding, with 250-300 guests. I am good buddies with a lot of local pro brewers, so we will have beer from about 6 breweries, along with beer from a couple of my homebrew buddies, and mine of course. Each beer will be paired with some sort of food. Will have a swing band - overall a great time, we hope!
Anyway, the centerpieces for the tables are glass vases filled (layered) with 3 different roasted/colored barleys - a light/med/dark. There will be hops and dried barley stuck into the top of the grain. She did a "mock up" and they look really great.
Naturally, I am in charge of procuring the grain and deciding what to get, etc. SO - my idea is to use 3 or 4 specialty grains (or 2/3 specialty grains and a base grain) in approximately equal amounts. After the party, I would like to dump all the grain into a container, mix it up, dole it out, and give it to my homebrew buddies with a recipe for a beer (recipe would be given in % of grain so they could make any size recipe they pleased). They would add their own base grain to the specialty grains from the centerpieces. Because she really wants to have a dark layer - this recipe will likely have to be a porter or a stout.
Originally, I was thinking a nice robust "Centerpiece Porter" - something along the lines of OhioBrewtus's Edmund Fitzgerald clone, as it is pretty close to what I am looking for in ratios of specialty grain. Here's a link to the full recipe:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f67/edmund-fitzgerald-clone-ag-46844/
And here's an excerpt showing the grains:
Amount Item Type % or IBU
21.50 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 86.00 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 4.00 %
1.00 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 4.00 %
1.00 lb Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 4.00 %
0.50 lb Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 2.00 %
Now, there is a small problem with this recipe for my purposes, and that is, it doesn't take much specialty grain in a batch, since the specialty grains only add up to 14% of the grain bill. Even for my one barrel (31 gal) batches, I would only need 10-12 lbs of the Crystal 60, Chocolate, Special B and Black patent combined. (at 85% efficiency).... I do have a bunch of buddies who brew, but still I am looking at a BUNCH of grain here...
So, I am looking to see if anyone else has some ideas.
And so, for the reward..... if I use your idea, I will send you, completely free of charge, your own "centerpiece porter" bag o' grains with recipe, etc! Doesn't matter if you make 5 or 10 gallon recipes - just let me know!
Thanks!!!
So, my wife and I are having a big beer tasting in Sept to celebrate our wedding, with 250-300 guests. I am good buddies with a lot of local pro brewers, so we will have beer from about 6 breweries, along with beer from a couple of my homebrew buddies, and mine of course. Each beer will be paired with some sort of food. Will have a swing band - overall a great time, we hope!
Anyway, the centerpieces for the tables are glass vases filled (layered) with 3 different roasted/colored barleys - a light/med/dark. There will be hops and dried barley stuck into the top of the grain. She did a "mock up" and they look really great.
Naturally, I am in charge of procuring the grain and deciding what to get, etc. SO - my idea is to use 3 or 4 specialty grains (or 2/3 specialty grains and a base grain) in approximately equal amounts. After the party, I would like to dump all the grain into a container, mix it up, dole it out, and give it to my homebrew buddies with a recipe for a beer (recipe would be given in % of grain so they could make any size recipe they pleased). They would add their own base grain to the specialty grains from the centerpieces. Because she really wants to have a dark layer - this recipe will likely have to be a porter or a stout.
Originally, I was thinking a nice robust "Centerpiece Porter" - something along the lines of OhioBrewtus's Edmund Fitzgerald clone, as it is pretty close to what I am looking for in ratios of specialty grain. Here's a link to the full recipe:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f67/edmund-fitzgerald-clone-ag-46844/
And here's an excerpt showing the grains:
Amount Item Type % or IBU
21.50 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 86.00 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 4.00 %
1.00 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 4.00 %
1.00 lb Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 4.00 %
0.50 lb Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 2.00 %
Now, there is a small problem with this recipe for my purposes, and that is, it doesn't take much specialty grain in a batch, since the specialty grains only add up to 14% of the grain bill. Even for my one barrel (31 gal) batches, I would only need 10-12 lbs of the Crystal 60, Chocolate, Special B and Black patent combined. (at 85% efficiency).... I do have a bunch of buddies who brew, but still I am looking at a BUNCH of grain here...
So, I am looking to see if anyone else has some ideas.
And so, for the reward..... if I use your idea, I will send you, completely free of charge, your own "centerpiece porter" bag o' grains with recipe, etc! Doesn't matter if you make 5 or 10 gallon recipes - just let me know!
Thanks!!!