Help with brewing

[Mont]

I feel like I follow the directions very well and I make sure everything is exact. However, I always find my recipes off and usually either very hazy or/and high ABV. Malty and Sweet is usually a big flavor profile too. Let me know what I am doing wrong.

[Ferrous]

If you are following an extract recipe, don't worry, because those are shortcut recipes that were never meant to be a 100% fit to the beer style.

If you are doing an all-grain recipe well... let's just say the game have quite a bit of inconsistency. You will need to experiment and nudge the stat in the right direction yourself.

[Ferrous]

btw some of the style check is straight up impossible, so it might be easier to just tell the forum if you think a style is too difficult, it could be it's just bugged. So far I know that Piwo Grodziskie and American Wheatwine more or less cannot be 100%'d.

[Brew_Core]

If looking for a more clear finished product, use low protein grains and extracts.
For lower ABV, using a yeast with lower attenuation will help.
The Brewpedia and just cursor over ingredients to read on their traits have been helping me out. Still learning a lot myself but hope that helps.

[Ferrous]

You can also use adjunct sugars instead of grain to get even high clarity. Honey and Corn Sugar works pretty well.

I would suggest you not changing the recipe designated yeast, oftentimes their are needed for yeast-only flavors (ester chiefly), if you want lover ABV it's better to just have less fermentable sugar, if you need higher final gravity still just chuck in a few bags of lactose.

[Mont]

Thanks so much everyone! Yeah I just got it and having a really hard time - but learning slowly. I'm very new.

[Brew_Core]

Originally posted by Mont:

Thanks so much everyone! Yeah I just got it and having a really hard time - but learning slowly. I'm very new.

Working on the competition "Stoutest Of Hearts" and its kicking my arse! So I know the feeling.

[Ancient]

Originally posted by Brew_Core:

Originally posted by Mont:

Thanks so much everyone! Yeah I just got it and having a really hard time - but learning slowly. I'm very new.

Working on the competition "Stoutest Of Hearts" and its kicking my arse! So I know the felling. :crazy_lif:

It's definitely possible: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2873037777

That one won me 1st place.

I'd share a recipe for it, but I sadly had to save scum so much to get mine just right I didn't record one. It took many tries with minor adjustments to get the mash grains, not just which ones, but amounts to mash, just right.

I'll give you some hints though, the grains I used were Belgian Pale Ale base, probably about 1kg or so of it. Then a whopping 4kg of Roasted Barley to get the Dark & Roasted and then like 220g of Chocolate roasted malt to get the chocolate where it needed to end up.

The other key was to basically babysit the fermentation and conditioning phases for time so they didn't eat up all the sugars and I added a ton of corn sugar ( like a bag and a half or 800g maybe) before conditioning to then get the Malty & Sweet to match what I had for Dark & Roasted, though you can also use the coffee additive before conditioning to do the inverse if needed. I really had to fine tune the conditioning time perfectly to grab the keg and go taste it before all the sugars got used up for carbonation.

You can always mix some water and sugar (or coffee, etc.) together in a pot and then pump it into the conditioning container too, so just because it's conditioning doesn't mean it's too late, so long as you leave some space. You only need 18L/21L to begin tasting, so leaving some room for necessary last minute additions is a good idea.

You also don't want to use much flavoring hops at all. Just a bittering like Cluster to ensure your IBUs are within the range for a proper stout and then maybe a small amount of Maurauder (5-10G) for flavoring if you even use a flavoring hops.

For yeast, I used Sixtus Ale II, hence the Ester and Plum notes.

[halfbaked2001]

I did one for first brewery pale ale followed recipe exactly that ale wasn't pale it was stout and dark 2nd time though I whipped a batch up only using job details and recipe as guide kind of had to keep srm low I succeded in comming under what they wanted so don't be afraid to read stats on ingredients and make substitutions.

[Brew_Core]

Originally posted by Ancient:

Originally posted by Brew_Core:

Working on the competition "Stoutest Of Hearts" and its kicking my arse! So I know the felling.

It's definitely possible: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2873037777

That one won me 1st place.

I'd share a recipe for it, but I sadly had to save scum so much to get mine just right I didn't record one. It took many tries with minor adjustments to get the mash grains, not just which ones, but amounts to mash, just right.

I'll give you some hints though, the grains I used were Belgian Pale Ale base, probably about 1kg or so of it. Then a whopping 4kg of Roasted Barley to get the Dark & Roasted and then like 220g of Chocolate roasted malt to get the chocolate where it needed to end up.

The other key was to basically babysit the fermentation and conditioning phases for time so they didn't eat up all the sugars and I added a ton of corn sugar ( like a bag and a half or 800g maybe) before conditioning to then get the Malty & Sweet to match what I had for Dark & Roasted, though you can also use the coffee additive before conditioning to do the inverse if needed. I really had to fine tune the conditioning time perfectly to grab the keg and go taste it before all the sugars got used up for carbonation.

You can always mix some water and sugar (or coffee, etc.) together in a pot and then pump it into the conditioning container too, so just because it's conditioning doesn't mean it's too late, so long as you leave some space. You only need 18L/21L to begin tasting, so leaving some room for necessary last minute additions is a good idea.

You also don't want to use much flavoring hops at all. Just a bittering like Cluster to ensure your IBUs are within the range for a proper stout and then maybe a small amount of Maurauder (5-10G) for flavoring if you even use a flavoring hops.

For yeast, I used Sixtus Ale II, hence the Ester and Plum notes.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2873582230

I've completed the competition at this point. That's a good tip to leave some wiggle room in the conditioning container for some last minute adjustments though. I'll keep that in mind for future brews. Thanx for the heads up.