Who is brewing, right now?

[brewinhard]

Making some Munich Helles. Using a slurry of Wyeast 2124 that I have from a pilsner. Just 9.5lb of pilsner and a bit of perle hops for bittering.

Sounds good.

I just finished prepping for my big RIS stout brewday tomorrow. Shooting for a 1.110 OG with a modified recipe courtesy of Blatz over on the AHA forum. He posted his RIS and from the moment I saw his recipe I could tell it looked like a rich, roasty, bitter chocolate and coffee bomb. Just my kind of winter warmer.

[NateBrews]

On today's task list is a French Saison with 3711.

4.75lb pilsner
2.5lb vienna
1.25lb torrified wheat

Mt. Hood @ 50min
Super Styrian @ 10min
Super Styrian @ 0min

[brewinhard]

Classic American Blonde Ale with some citra and centennial. Half will be straight and the other half will get some apricot puree.

[NateBrews]

English bitter, using some Super Styrian and EKG instead of strait EKG this time and also trying out the Double Roast Crystal that Simpsons has started putting out. Definitely can taste it in there, and I like it.

Next time, Manderina Bavaria and Cascade pale ale.

[brewinhard]

Nate,

Have you been pretty much sticking to your classic bitter recipe you shared earlier? What lovibond does that double roast crystal come in (120?) and what contributions does it bring to the table?

[NateBrews]

Yeah, it is that same recipe over and over with occasional tweaks. It is sort of my known quantity that I can test out new things on (the styrian hops for example, or the DRC). They quote it at 105-120L, but I would swear that it came out darker than last time and I just replaced the regular C120 with it. It wasn't a ton darker, but maybe a bit more/deeper amber.

The flavor chewing on a handful of the malt is pretty good. The grain is really brittle, much easier to chew than amber malt or victory. The flavor of the grain in the mouth comes off as deep crystal then followed by a roasty character, maybe like putting some dark crystal chased with roast malt and pale chocolate in your mouth. After chewing on the grain, and tasting the wort while running the mash, I could definitely pick out that character in the wort. I will be curious to see what it is like after fermentation.

[brewinhard]

Sounds pretty good. I have to get my hands on some. Could probably go well in a dark mild too.

The kernels are probably a bit more "glassy" which makes them easier to crunch on.

[NateBrews]

So I poured a glass of that bitter, and the difference using the Double Roast Crystal is quite apparent. I would say that it's flavor intensity is probably 2x that of the C120 I was using before (simpsons I think). My first impressions of it are "This is like drinking liquid bread crust". It reminds me a lot of the Scottish 60 I made a few times based on Nate Smith's Loose Change recipe. That had 5% C40, 5% C120, and 2% pale chocolate.

The Super Styria (Aurora) hops are also apparent in the beer. I have used it 3 times now (pils, saison, bitter) and keep being surprised by the intensity of hop flavor that I get for very modest additions of that hop. For this beer, I did:

1oz SS Aurora @ 30min
0.5oz SS Aurora @ 5min
1oz EKG @ 1min

and the EKG is largely overpowered by the SS Aurora character. I think if I was going to use it again, I would leave out the 0.5oz @ 5min. It isn't offensive at all, but I think I like it a little less bold in this beer. In the pilsner I had the same experience, only doing 1oz @ 40 and 1oz at flameout and it was very hoppy. Good bang for the buck if you want that kind of character.