ChiechiBrouw
Well-Known Member
I've finally registered after months of Google telling me that this was the place to be for home brewing, so this is my first post And I'm pretty new to AG brewing, so forgive me for being green.
I live in Holland, so my focus is on brewing all the tasty American beer styles that I can't find here. However, this presents a problem, as I cannot find American grains. Hops are less of a problem because anything I can't find here can be shipped from the US, but shipping rates increase exponentially past 2.25 lbs. Setting aside for a moment the headache of sorting out SRM, Lovibond, and EBC, I'm wondering how big of an impact grain substitutions have on the final flavor and feel of the beer.
For example, Mirror Pond Pale Ale will forever remain my first love (I grew up in Oregon) and I've tried to clone it here about five or six times, with varying degrees of success. Right now I have my "Spiegel Pond Pale Ale" on tap, and it's a very good beer, but it has a very wet, dense feel, while Mirror Pond is a clean, light beer. The recipe called for 3 kg of pale malt and 0.454 kg of 20 °L crystal malt. The selection of malts I have available to me (without ordering from the UK) is summarized here. I used Brewferm Pale 7 EBC for the base malt, and Cara-amber 60 EBC for the crystal malt. The color is spot on (though it darkened a bit during the dry hopping, which was a first for me) and the flavor is close, but it just doesn't "feel" right. I'm still working on sorting out all the unit and language conversions for my local city water report, but I can say that it has no taste and no anomalously high or low minerals, and it is not treated with halogens--so water is not my prime suspect at the moment.
I suppose what I'd appreciate help with is separating out the effect of the grain substitution from all of the other quirks of my home brewing workflow so I know at least how close I can expect to get, particularly with such a simple recipe (just pale malt, crystal malt, cascade hops).
I live in Holland, so my focus is on brewing all the tasty American beer styles that I can't find here. However, this presents a problem, as I cannot find American grains. Hops are less of a problem because anything I can't find here can be shipped from the US, but shipping rates increase exponentially past 2.25 lbs. Setting aside for a moment the headache of sorting out SRM, Lovibond, and EBC, I'm wondering how big of an impact grain substitutions have on the final flavor and feel of the beer.
For example, Mirror Pond Pale Ale will forever remain my first love (I grew up in Oregon) and I've tried to clone it here about five or six times, with varying degrees of success. Right now I have my "Spiegel Pond Pale Ale" on tap, and it's a very good beer, but it has a very wet, dense feel, while Mirror Pond is a clean, light beer. The recipe called for 3 kg of pale malt and 0.454 kg of 20 °L crystal malt. The selection of malts I have available to me (without ordering from the UK) is summarized here. I used Brewferm Pale 7 EBC for the base malt, and Cara-amber 60 EBC for the crystal malt. The color is spot on (though it darkened a bit during the dry hopping, which was a first for me) and the flavor is close, but it just doesn't "feel" right. I'm still working on sorting out all the unit and language conversions for my local city water report, but I can say that it has no taste and no anomalously high or low minerals, and it is not treated with halogens--so water is not my prime suspect at the moment.
I suppose what I'd appreciate help with is separating out the effect of the grain substitution from all of the other quirks of my home brewing workflow so I know at least how close I can expect to get, particularly with such a simple recipe (just pale malt, crystal malt, cascade hops).