Custom Brewprints

[Rob Courtney]

On 16/06/2021 at 8:22 AM, Captain 3 Droids said:

Kegged today, 10days to EOF and held over for 24hrs. The hop aroma was exceptional, can’t wait to consume.

Interesting combination of hops, the base beer itself is quite solid and to be honest, I think the Hersbrucker isn't the right hops for it ( I mean it's still a nice lager with it) and as much as it is a solid citizen with Hallertau, mixing the hops with this one is giving me so much enjoyment. This is one of those lagers that drinks better the longer you leave it though.

[Captain 3 Droids]

6 hours ago, Rob Courtney said:

Interesting combination of hops, the base beer itself is quite solid and to be honest, I think the Hersbrucker isn't the right hops for it ( I mean it's still a nice lager with it) and as much as it is a solid citizen with Hallertau, mixing the hops with this one is giving me so much enjoyment. This is one of those lagers that drinks better the longer you leave it though.

Can’t wait for this one, the 15g combination of 15g each of Saaz, Columbus and Centennial should be a blast. Only 2 weeks in the keg as we speak.

[J P]

On 14/03/2021 at 12:14 PM, J P said:

 

It’s awesome.   If you like sours.   I would consider adding 15mL to one keg and 20 mL to the other and see what you reckon.   I soured a single keg of preachers HEFE (coopers can) just as a trial and had a mate come round and he reckons it was perfect.    We both thought dropping the acid just slightly could allow it to be more sessionable BUT it was just fine as is.    Might do a bit of homework on which beer is best soured (I wouldn’t normally sour a HEFE)

Additionally I would dry hop with Galaxy or something tropical next time …

[Captain 3 Droids]

On 05/06/2021 at 9:42 AM, Captain 3 Droids said:

I’ve had a look at the Australian Premium Lager recipe and reviews and thought this would be a good one to play a bit with. So I’ve done the following:-

E1, E5 per recipe, 3 x X1 substituted with 750g of purchased light dry malt extract, used Y8 yeast rather than Y9, will disregard recipe 2 x H5 (Hersbrucker) and will instead dry hop on day 6 with 15g each of Saaz, Columbus and Centennial.

Should be interesting 🤭🤫

At 6 weeks this has turned out exceptional. People you have got to give it ago (sub. 3 X1 for my light dry malt) if you like strong herbal/spice pleasant flavour, with an enjoyable aftertaste and tang to the slight bitterness with a hint of citrus. This will be done again.

Edited July 19, 2021 by Captain 3 Droids

[Captain 3 Droids]

In the Droid today, again Y8 instead of Y9, hops instead of 15g each will do 10g Saaz, 20g Columbus and 15g of Centennial 

[Captain 3 Droids]

On 12/08/2021 at 1:39 PM, Captain 3 Droids said:

In the Droid today, again Y8 instead of Y9, hops instead of 15g each will do 10g Saaz, 20g Columbus and 15g of Centennial 

Honestly you must try this recipe, I’m giving it 10 out of 10. 

[Captain 3 Droids]

On 19/7/21 at 2:10 PM, Captain 3 Droids said:

E1, E5 per recipe, 3 x X1 substituted with 750g of purchased light dry malt extract, used Y8 yeast rather than Y9, will disregard recipe 2 x H5 (Hersbrucker) and will instead dry hop on day 6 with 15g each of Saaz, Columbus and Centennial.

This was such a great drop, in the Droid again today.

[Captain 3 Droids]

On 29/11/21 at 8:31 AM, Captain 3 Droids said:

This was such a great drop, in the Droid again today.

What can I say, bragging yes, this is so bloody good. The hop combination is exceptional.

[Captain 3 Droids]

 Australian Premium Lager - Have put a light behind to shopworn the excellent carbonation. Love this with the hops of 20g Columbus, 15g Centennial and 10g Saaz. 5 weeks kegged.

[Hambone]

2 hours ago, Captain 3 Droids said:

 Australian Premium Lager - Have put a light behind to shopworn the excellent carbonation. Love this with the hops of 20g Columbus, 15g Centennial and 10g Saaz. 5 weeks kegged.

 

IMG_0377.MOV 18.31 MB · 0 downloads

Can't see your pic.

Edited January 9, 2022 by Hambone

[Captain 3 Droids]

1 minute ago, Hambone said:

Can't see your pic.

Mmm well I still can by clicking on, it’s not a pic but a short video, you should be able to click on the play arrow?

[Hambone]

1 hour ago, Captain 3 Droids said:

Mmm well I still can by clicking on, it’s not a pic but a short video, you should be able to click on the play arrow?

 

[Captain 3 Droids]

On 9/1/22 at 2:20 PM, Hambone said:

Australian Premium Lager - Have put a light behind to shopworn the excellent carbonation. Love this with the hops of 20g Columbus, 15g Centennial and 10g Saaz. 5 weeks kegged.

Have done this again, the hop combination was just great. Will dry hop on day 6.

[Nick Yunker]

Looking for some help on a clone for Fat Heads Hop JuJu (Imperial IPA) if anyone may have anything close, I’m all ears! Not sure if anyone in the community has had it but it is my #1, hands down! I can’t find anything steady anywhere. I’ve seen 2 row, US-05, loads of cascade and chinook. 

Here’s where my first experiment is going to lead me: 

2-E2,1-E3,2-X2,1-X3,1-D3,1-D-1,1-H1,1-H9,1-Y1

thanks all!

[Captain 3 Droids]

7 minutes ago, Nick Yunker said:

Looking for some help on a clone for Fat Heads Hop JuJu (Imperial IPA) if anyone may have anything close, I’m all ears! Not sure if anyone in the community has had it but it is my #1, hands down! I can’t find anything steady anywhere. I’ve seen 2 row, US-05, loads of cascade and chinook. 

Here’s where my first experiment is going to lead me: 

2-E2,1-E3,2-X2,1-X3,1-D3,1-D-1,1-H1,1-H9,1-Y1

thanks all!

Welcome to the forum and the brewers here. Haven’t had experience with this one but will do some digging. Your recipe looks good and at 6.5% should be good for a few.

[Nick Yunker]

6 hours ago, Captain 3 Droids said:

Welcome to the forum and the brewers here. Haven’t had experience with this one but will do some digging. Your recipe looks good and at 6.5% should be good for a few.

Thanks Capt. appreciate the warm welcome brother, cheers! 
I think I’ll throw some dextrose at it and shoot for 9-9.5L of water. Aiming to replicate the 9-10% juju is. I’ve leafed through a bunch, even some convos with the 3 brewers, they give very limited info, rightfully so but…..come on man, I want to enjoy it more than once a year! This thing is an absolute beaut. I will also have room in my 3rd droid by the time everything lands, then should be consumable right in the heat of the summer! 

[Captain 3 Droids]

6 hours ago, Nick Yunker said:

Thanks Capt. appreciate the warm welcome brother, cheers! 
I think I’ll throw some dextrose at it and shoot for 9-9.5L of water. Aiming to replicate the 9-10% juju is. I’ve leafed through a bunch, even some convos with the 3 brewers, they give very limited info, rightfully so but…..come on man, I want to enjoy it more than once a year! This thing is an absolute beaut. I will also have room in my 3rd droid by the time everything lands, then should be consumable right in the heat of the summer! 

Sounds good, 250g of dextrose will give you an extra 1%. Some brews (if not doing all grain) are hard to clone due to a lack of information however give your recipe a go, will be interested in the result. 
How’s things in Ohio?

[Wazza_wantsbeer]

18 hours ago, Nick Yunker said:

Looking for some help on a clone for Fat Heads Hop JuJu (Imperial IPA) if anyone may have anything close, I’m all ears! Not sure if anyone in the community has had it but it is my #1, hands down! I can’t find anything steady anywhere. I’ve seen 2 row, US-05, loads of cascade and chinook. 

Here’s where my first experiment is going to lead me: 

2-E2,1-E3,2-X2,1-X3,1-D3,1-D-1,1-H1,1-H9,1-Y1

thanks all!

Welcome to the forum @Nick Yunker

Based on your recipe above, you are looking at 6% ABV before secondary fermentation if using primer or drops. Secondary adds 0.5%.

Adding 250g of Dextrose bumps that up to 7% and I see from a quick interweb search that Hop JuJu is 9% so you are some ways short of that.

From experience, I wouldn't add any more dextrose as that tends to make for a very dry beer. My suggestion would be to add more Elements or Enhancers.

Looking at reviews of the beer and some discussions about Hop JuJu in other forums, I see a thread where the head brewer at Fat Heads said "he uses tons of Cascade & Chinook hops". Their website gives a lot of details about it too:

HOPS: SIMCOE, CITRA, EUKANOT and MOSAIC

MALT: PALE, CARAHELL, C-15 and CARAPILS

YEAST: AMERICAN ALE

From the colour and descriptions, this look like a very good example of an American Imperial IPA, not quite a full West Coast IPA so a good malt backbone. Certainly would love to try one some day but looks impossible to get here in Australia.

Based on your starting recipe, I would look at adding:

E5x2 for 9% and if you want to hit 10% I'd go with an additional X1.

I also wouldn't recommend using less than the 10l in the Droid as you will lose some volume to trub and hop absorption and you will want to have as much of this to drink as possible.

In terms of hops, I would forget the liquid hops (H1 and H9) and go all out with 40-50g each of D1 (Cascade) and D3 (Chinook) and 20-30g of D6 (Citra) and D8 (Mosaic).

And finally Yeast, of the BrewArt yeasts, Y1 definitely looks your best bet. You could also look at sourcing something like Fermentis Safale US-05.

Good luck and happy brewing.  🍺

[Nick Yunker]

21 hours ago, Captain 3 Droids said:

Sounds good, 250g of dextrose will give you an extra 1%. Some brews (if not doing all grain) are hard to clone due to a lack of information however give your recipe a go, will be interested in the result. 
How’s things in Ohio?

@Captain 3 Droids Appreciate it brother, will be heeding the advise of @Wazza_wantsbeer below on the first attempt and reporting results back from there. 

Things in Ohio are good, weather appears to be trying to come around for spring! Working my nuts off to get these kegs filled to kick off spring, winter sucked! How is it in Onkaparinga? 

19 hours ago, Wazza_wantsbeer said:

Welcome to the forum @Nick Yunker

Based on your recipe above, you are looking at 6% ABV before secondary fermentation if using primer or drops. Secondary adds 0.5%.

Adding 250g of Dextrose bumps that up to 7% and I see from a quick interweb search that Hop JuJu is 9% so you are some ways short of that.

From experience, I wouldn't add any more dextrose as that tends to make for a very dry beer. My suggestion would be to add more Elements or Enhancers.

Looking at reviews of the beer and some discussions about Hop JuJu in other forums, I see a thread where the head brewer at Fat Heads said "he uses tons of Cascade & Chinook hops". Their website gives a lot of details about it too:

HOPS: SIMCOE, CITRA, EUKANOT and MOSAIC

MALT: PALE, CARAHELL, C-15 and CARAPILS

YEAST: AMERICAN ALE

From the colour and descriptions, this look like a very good example of an American Imperial IPA, not quite a full West Coast IPA so a good malt backbone. Certainly would love to try one some day but looks impossible to get here in Australia.

Based on your starting recipe, I would look at adding:

E5x2 for 9% and if you want to hit 10% I'd go with an additional X1.

I also wouldn't recommend using less than the 10l in the Droid as you will lose some volume to trub and hop absorption and you will want to have as much of this to drink as possible.

In terms of hops, I would forget the liquid hops (H1 and H9) and go all out with 40-50g each of D1 (Cascade) and D3 (Chinook) and 20-30g of D6 (Citra) and D8 (Mosaic).

And finally Yeast, of the BrewArt yeasts, Y1 definitely looks your best bet. You could also look at sourcing something like Fermentis Safale US-05.

Good luck and happy brewing.  🍺

@Wazza_wantsbeer - first and foremost, WOW followed by a HUGE thank you!  Appreciate the callout on the dextrose. Id rather improve % thru enhancers and elements to focus on the profile. 

Beyond impressed with the entire breakdown, feel like a newspaper compared to encyclopedia you found! If you'd coach me on getting it through customs, I'd gladly send you a can brother.  Very rarely can I ever commit to multiple of cans of anything when grabbing some new releases but I kid you not, I've bought the ingredients and keg to store it twice over chasing these 4pks since Feb.18th when they dropped. Blowing an arm and leg @ 4.25 a pint! I have 3 droids and 6 10l kegs that I could fill with this and still not be satisfied! May need to find AA just because of Hop JuJu. I literally crave the taste at an instant!

Here is what I have now redrawn heeding your advice - 2-E2,2-E5,1-E3,2-X2,1-X3,1-X5,2-D1,2-D3,1-D6,1-D8,1-Y1. I want to try it all BrewArt to start and see where to tweak from there or do you recommend outsourcing the yeast and hops? Also, great call out on the water level, didn't think to compensate for hop absorption, will fill generously at the 10L mark! 

Do you have the app Untapped by chance? 

[Captain 3 Droids]

14 minutes ago, Nick Yunker said:

How is it in Onkaparinga? 

Just finishing our summer period, have had dry a number of days in the mid to high 30C. Only one heat wave to recall, 3 or 4 days over 40. 
Cheers

[Nick Yunker]

1 hour ago, Captain 3 Droids said:

Just finishing our summer period, have had dry a number of days in the mid to high 30C. Only one heat wave to recall, 3 or 4 days over 40. 
Cheers

Oh wow! Those 30C days sound pretty good right about now! Send it this way, please! Its 0-2C over here, wishing this pb,choco,coffee RIS (shitt'n your britches) didn't have 7 weeks left, I'd take a handle grab of it in this! Just snagged 8 more cans of Hop JuJu to get me through this week 😂

[Wazza_wantsbeer]

6 hours ago, Nick Yunker said:

@Captain 3 Droids Appreciate it brother, will be heeding the advise of @Wazza_wantsbeer below on the first attempt and reporting results back from there. 

Things in Ohio are good, weather appears to be trying to come around for spring! Working my nuts off to get these kegs filled to kick off spring, winter sucked! How is it in Onkaparinga? 

@Wazza_wantsbeer - first and foremost, WOW followed by a HUGE thank you!  Appreciate the callout on the dextrose. Id rather improve % thru enhancers and elements to focus on the profile. 

Beyond impressed with the entire breakdown, feel like a newspaper compared to encyclopedia you found! If you'd coach me on getting it through customs, I'd gladly send you a can brother.  Very rarely can I ever commit to multiple of cans of anything when grabbing some new releases but I kid you not, I've bought the ingredients and keg to store it twice over chasing these 4pks since Feb.18th when they dropped. Blowing an arm and leg @ 4.25 a pint! I have 3 droids and 6 10l kegs that I could fill with this and still not be satisfied! May need to find AA just because of Hop JuJu. I literally crave the taste at an instant!

Here is what I have now redrawn heeding your advice - 2-E2,2-E5,1-E3,2-X2,1-X3,1-X5,2-D1,2-D3,1-D6,1-D8,1-Y1. I want to try it all BrewArt to start and see where to tweak from there or do you recommend outsourcing the yeast and hops? Also, great call out on the water level, didn't think to compensate for hop absorption, will fill generously at the 10L mark! 

Do you have the app Untapped by chance? 

Hey @Nick Yunker you are very welcome. I enjoy that sort of thing so very happy to help much like I received and receive help and guidance from the old heads in this forum. You have picked a good place to ask questions as this is one heck of a knowledgeable community.

I think your recipe makes a lot of sense and like you are doing, I started purely with BrewArt BrewPrints, then BrewArt Ingredients and now I'm doing my own all grain brews which I have to say that I love.

In terms of hops and yeast, I have been buying mine from the various Home Brew stores in Sydney, either walking in or ordering on line and I do find the selection/range and price is quite different from BrewArt but that isn't to say their hops and yeasts are inferior or anything like that.

I just like going big on my hops and buying in larger quantities makes sense in terms of economies of scale. @Dustin Frothman takes that even further purchasing in 1kg lots but my wife will explode if there are 1kg bags in our fridge/freezer 😂

So I think your recipe looks good and you should get a good result from that. It certainly will be a tasty American Imperial IPA for sure. From there you can look to adjust the recipe. You've inspired me in fact to do a West Coast All Grain next after the one I've planned for.

If you want to see some details around the Elements and Enhancers, check out this link. From there you can start adjusting your recipe to the taste profile you are seeking and what Element or Enhancer may assist with that.

Cheers

[Nick Yunker]

16 hours ago, Wazza_wantsbeer said:

Hey @Nick Yunker you are very welcome. I enjoy that sort of thing so very happy to help much like I received and receive help and guidance from the old heads in this forum. You have picked a good place to ask questions as this is one heck of a knowledgeable community.

I think your recipe makes a lot of sense and like you are doing, I started purely with BrewArt BrewPrints, then BrewArt Ingredients and now I'm doing my own all grain brews which I have to say that I love.

In terms of hops and yeast, I have been buying mine from the various Home Brew stores in Sydney, either walking in or ordering on line and I do find the selection/range and price is quite different from BrewArt but that isn't to say their hops and yeasts are inferior or anything like that.

I just like going big on my hops and buying in larger quantities makes sense in terms of economies of scale. @Dustin Frothman takes that even further purchasing in 1kg lots but my wife will explode if there are 1kg bags in our fridge/freezer 😂

So I think your recipe looks good and you should get a good result from that. It certainly will be a tasty American Imperial IPA for sure. From there you can look to adjust the recipe. You've inspired me in fact to do a West Coast All Grain next after the one I've planned for.

If you want to see some details around the Elements and Enhancers, check out this link. From there you can start adjusting your recipe to the taste profile you are seeking and what Element or Enhancer may assist with that.

Cheers

Really appreciate it, I see there is a wealth of knowledge in here. So impressed with BrewArt and what they did with all this, the community that has been built from brewing, freaking awesome! Im stoked there are people like yourself and @Captain 3 Droids  and all the others that Ive seen so willing to jump right in!

I think I like the pace and path of exploring right now, building out a recipe, learning and understanding each characteristic and then stepping into the next avenue with this beaut. I will certainly be seeking some of that all grain guidance here soon enough!

We have some brew shops around here within an hours drive, I will pay them a visit and see about some bulk materials - I'm all for scales of economy, I will gladly trim any and every penny of each pint I can. Im in the same boat though with the wife and bulk materials, I mean I could always use the garage freezer. Im already in trouble when she discovers the hidden brew closet with 2 of my droids, 6 kegs, loads of equipment.....shes aware of the droid in the kitchen for obvious reasons but that will be joining the brew closet in the next week or so when this ipa finishes up. I think she is going to ask where'd the droid go....... so morale of the story is I should buy hops by the kg, got it! 😂

Im anxious to get this one in, would you recommend dry hopping at the start of the brew or 2-3 days in? Ill be using a hop bomb. Youll have to let me know how your brew turns out! What are you brewing now?

I'll give the section above a nice look through! Thanks again for the generous helping hand here! I'll keep everyone posted.  Cheers!

[Captain 3 Droids]

1 hour ago, Nick Yunker said:

would you recommend dry hopping at the start of the brew or 2-3 days in? Ill be using a hop bomb.

You certainly will enjoy it here, great bunch and responses usually very quick. With our American friends there is usually someone up early down under to assist. Thanks for your kind words.

With hops unless known and tried it’s best to purchase smaller amounts so your then comfortable in buying bulk.

Adding hops at the start tends to increase bitterness. There is a hop program via the custom mode on the Droid that tells you when to add the hops. I personally don’t use it and dry hop generally 2 to 3 days prior to the end of fermentation. I have kept notes on the fermentation times for each brew and therefore have a good idea as to adding them. It doesn’t have to be exacting so 5 to 6 days after fermentation start is a good start. A minimum or 24 hours is really needed for good hop effect.

Now the good wife, does she enjoy a beer? If so name a Droid after her and tell her she is in charge of the goodies in the freezer and may help in sorting out the brew closet (ha good luck). If not hide as much as you can but always point out how much money your saving against purchasing beer. 😁🤭

 

 

[Wazza_wantsbeer]

3 hours ago, Nick Yunker said:

Im anxious to get this one in, would you recommend dry hopping at the start of the brew or 2-3 days in? Ill be using a hop bomb. Youll have to let me know how your brew turns out! What are you brewing now?

 

In terms of Dry Hopping, I would start with using the Dry Hop function within the Ppp. Takes the guess work out of it and you get used to the method of putting the hops into the Droid.

Once comfortable with that, the world of Dry Hopping is your oyster.

You can start looking at Double Dry Hopping (DDH) which is doing a first hop addition at High Krausen, which is a fancy way of saying during the peak of fermentation. High Krausen is when the stuff on the top of the beer gets all bubbly and active and using the Droid, a good time to do the first addition is if it spews out the port on the side.

Dry hopping at high krausen is supposed to result in "biotransformation" of the hop oils by the yeast. Now the amount of and effectiveness of biotransformation very much depends on the type of yeast and the hops used as only a particular type of hop oil is biotransformational and only certain yeasts have the properties to achive this.

The second hop addition is the standard dry hop and is done near the end of fermentation. Up until recently, I still useed the Dry Hop function within the App to tell me when to do this.

However, I am thinking to move away from using the Dry Hop function in order to get the best out of my hops. A lot of modern research around dry hopping shows that the lower the temperature when dry hopping, the better. And also, a shorter time seems to be better than a longer time exposing the beer to the hops. This works particularly well for more East Coast styles of beer such as Hazy IPAs and NEIPAs where you want the fruity, tropical flavours without the bitter or grassy flavours.

Noting that there are standard brewing programs for both larger and ales and that you can also use a customised brewing program:

Using the App, you can customise the temperatures for the following zones:

Propagation, Fermentation, Storage and Kegging

When using the Droid Dry Hop function, a fermentation goes thru these phases:

Propagation - 12 hours (standard and not changeable)

Fermentation - as long as it takes. Your droid will tell you when Fermentation start is detected.

Dry Hop - 48 hours and importantly, it automatically drops the temperature to 17°C (62.6°F)

Cold Crash - 48 hours and defaults to Storage zone @ 4°C (39.2°F)

From there you can keg or store.

My thoughts on Dry Hopping once I get my Droid back as it died recently, is that I will not use the Dry Hop function but rather use the functionality within the BrewArt App to change the temperatures to desired levels and then do only a 3 day dry hop/cold crash.

That is, when I think or guess that fermentation is coming to an end (you can look thru the viewing port to see if there is much activity and if there is much krausen remaining, or take daily hydrometer readings which I have done when my Droid died mid-fermentation.

The plan is, when I determine it is time to dry hop, I will use the App to drop the temperature to say 15°C (15°F) or even lower, once it reaches that temp I will dry hop and keep at that temperature for 24 hours and then down to 3-4°C (37-39°F).

Cheers

Edited March 8, 2022 by Wazza_wantsbeer