I made a pumpkin spiced ale Saturday, which I've never done before, and when I tasted my wort's O.G. sample, it had a pretty harsh, bitter taste. Do you think that's because of the pumpkin (doubled from recipe) or spices (added a bunch more than recipe called for)? This was on suggestion from others that the beer turned out not spicy or pumpkin-y enough. I'm hoping everything will mellow out over time. I'll transfer to secondary on Saturday and take another reading/sample, but I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with pumpkin beers.
(N.B. filthy extract brewing peasant here. No space for all-grain where I live)
This is great, I've made 3 batches of my pumpkin ale so far (my base kit is from Midwest though). I would imagine that the pumpkin and spices would add some odd flavors before fermentation, but I've never tasted it before at least a couple days of ferm. It should mellow out with time. Usually my pumpkin comes into its own after six or eight weeks.
First, I tried out an all grain brew in a bag. I made a Belgian tripel, still bottle aging.
Second, I did a normal extract batch / specialty grain brewing of a nut brown ale, but I added some fall spices to the mix. Hopefully, I'll have a good strong tripel by the end of the month, and an awesome fall beer right after!
Yeah, the base kit was from Midwest and I used two big cans of pumpkin, 1½ tsp cinnamon, 1½ tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp clove, ¾ tsp allspice, and ½ tsp ginger.
EDIT: because I couldn't have decimal and fraction measurements in the same sentence.
Sounds, pretty similar to mine. I use 1 tsp each cinnamon, nutmeg, clove. No allspice or ginger though, interested in how that turns out. 2 big cans of pumpkin as well; 1 big can just doesn't seem to get all the pumpkin flavor I want. I'm hoping next time I brew it I can use fresh!
So, I brewed my first high alcohol beer last night, a Belgian Quad. Should come out to around 10% when it's finished. I ended up double pitching to be sure everything ferments in one go. Ended up putting the lid on around 2pm yesterday. Already letting some gas off around 11pm last night. I woke up to, uh, a healthy fermentation this morning.
Assuming a double is in the same category what are doubles, tripels, and quads?
Next on the brew schedule is the Zombie Dust clone and a porter recipe from Home Brew forums called Black Pearl. Might be inviting trouble doing two different batches on one day but the brewing itch is bad. It'll be a long brew day.
Imagine what "cheese' could exist if someone tried to copy Velveeta.
A quad sounds ambitious. I was thinking of making my next one a tripel. Anyone have any advise for that style? Secondary a necessity? Double pitch?
My experiment, I mentioned above, was a tripel. I simply re-hydrated, and pitched right from there. I was only doing a single gallon, though. I'm assuming you are doing more?
From what I've read and researched, if you use dry, refrigerated yeast, you should have a ton of healthy cells available (200 billion I think?). If any charts you find out there tell you to have 200,000,000 or less for your pitch, you should be set. If you need more, you'll need to do a starter.
Liquid yeasts are a little less viable coming out of the tube, I would definitely do a starter on those.
I have yet to do a secondary, myself. I haven't wanted to age anything on an addition (fruit, oak, etc). I would probably skip secondary on a Tripel.
I am so weak. I bought 2 carboys off Northern Brewer last night (2 for 1 deal). I don't even have ROOM for two more carboys.
Assuming a double is in the same category what are doubles, tripels, and quads?
Next on the brew schedule is the Zombie Dust clone and a porter recipe from Home Brew forums called Black Pearl. Might be inviting trouble doing two different batches on one day but the brewing itch is bad. It'll be a long brew day.
Wiki article on Tripel:
The term Tripel comes from the Low Countries - that is, the modern Netherlands and Belgium, though the origin of the term is unknown. The two main theories are that it indicates strength, either by a series of marks, such as crosses, on a cask - X for the weakest strength, XX for medium strength, and XXX for the strongest beer, or by reference to the original gravity of a beer which roughly corresponds to 3% abv, 6% abv and 9% abv.[2]
Basically it's a shorthand for trappist and trappist-style beers. The abbeys have a low gravity beer that they consume in-house, called patersbier. It's basically a very lightly fermented, low alcohol beverage, probably similar to Kvass. Enkel ("single") is a pretty low alcohol content (and not marketed as enkel, but usually "blonde" or something along those lines). Enkels are occasionally the abbey's patersbier. Dubbels are stronger versions, usually about 6% abv, tripels are even stronger, about 9% abv, and quadrupels top out over 10%. As the beer gets higher in gravity, it starts taking on a lot more fruity and malty flavors (since you need to really push the sugar content high to get a high gravity beer).
Going to finally get around to brewing the porter. Caved recently and bought the equipment to brew all grain batches. The biggest gotcha was realizing the massive ten gallon steel kettle didn't fit in the sink after getting home. Had to go back to the store and buy the copper wort cooler.
Homebrewing has some pricing start up costs. Here's to hoping I won't need more equipment anytime soon.
Imagine what "cheese' could exist if someone tried to copy Velveeta.
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CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
Good on you for going all grain. I don't know if I'll ever get there...
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
Do it! Do it!
It's not that bad, it just makes the brewing process longer by like...two hours. Not sure how much you'll mind that, but that's really the biggest drawback.
So I am trying to come up with a Vanilla Spiced Oatmeal Stout and this is what I have so far:
Fermentables:
1.9kg Light Extract
0.65 Flaked Oats
0.4kg Biscuit Malt
0.4kg Chocolate Malt
0.4kg 2-Row Pale Malt
0.2kg Dextrine Malt
0.2kg Corn Sugar (I add this because of issues with extract fermentability)
Hops:
60g Goldings (B.C.) @ 60 Mins
60g Fuggles @ 30 Mins
30g Goldings (B.C.) @ 10 Mins
Spices:
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Allspice
1/4 tsp Ginger
1/2oz Sweet Orange Peel
*All the above at ~10mins from flame out*
To finish it off, I was intending to dump two vanilla bean pods I would have soaking in a small amount of vodka into the secondary/bulk aging carboy.
What I am looking for is some pointers, as I've never done a stout before, nor have I really used spices in brewing. I will probably want to reduce the amount I'm using, but I really have no experience in this area. My aim is to have a nice, deep flavoured oatmeal stout with a solid spice flavour, but not one which overrides everything.
In the pumpkin spiced ale I made (further up the page), I used 1½ tsp cinnamon, 1½ tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp clove, ¾ tsp allspice, and ½ tsp ginger, 1½ vanilla pods and about ¼ tsp of vanilla extract. The spices up to the pods were added 5 before flameout, the pods at flameout and the extract was added to the chilled wort into the primary.
I cracked open my first bottle this evening, and the profile is right where I wanted it, a solid pumpkin flavor with a very heavy pie-spice presence. It was delicious, and my favorite homebrew so far (beat out the maple porter I made 2 yrs ago). If I were you, I'd tone down the cinnamon and allspice to ¾ tsp each if you are aiming for "yes there is spice here but it's not overwhelming," which is what I think you're going for from your post.
That sounds like a good idea, 5 minutes to flameout had those spices produce a good flavour without a strong astringency? That is my primary concern with using spices, especially ones like cinnamon. Also, I changed my hops because I realized with a stout, I am aiming for virtually no hop character. Now I'm going to use 1oz admirals @ 60 mins and 1oz kent goldings @ 30 mins.
When I sampled my wort's OG sample (because you have to, even when you know it's going to be terrible) it was really harsh, and I was somewhat worried. When I tasted a sample after transferring to secondary, it was better, but still not very good and I was starting to get a little bit more worried. After aging in the secondary, letting the floating particulates settle then bottling, my ale still has a strong spice bite on the front end, but it isn't anywhere near as harsh as I was expecting it to be. I was really careful to leave any sludge behind during every transfer, even if it shorted me a bottle or three in the end.
If you're worried about astringency from cooking your spices, you can always soak them in hard liquor for a few days and dump it into your primary, but you may end up with a weaker spice taste.
EDIT: You can also spice during your secondary, which may provide a slightly different flavor profile. I guess putting vanilla in during secondary is pretty common
A quad sounds ambitious. I was thinking of making my next one a tripel. Anyone have any advise for that style? Secondary a necessity? Double pitch?
I made mine with liquid yeast. Made a 2 stage starter, so I pitched about 1.5L of yeast starter for my quad. I actually just checked it on Sunday, and boy oh boy, is it coming along. Taste is fantastic, and it's a great deep red brown color. Also, it's fermented down to 9.7% ABV. It might manage to make it to 9.8 or 9.9, but with temperatures here cooling off, it's probably done. I'm gonna give it about 2 more weeks before kegging it. It's the first time I drank all of the FG sample I pulled. So, so good.
@Comahawk
I would agree with @m!ttens. That spice profile is similar to my pumpkin ale, and it comes off pretty strong after fermentation. If you want it to be more subtle, back it off a little and let the vanilla/stout shine through. I add my spices at (10min) and it comes out pretty good after fermentation. Like was said, it doesn't taste good if you sample your OG reading, but it evens out in the end.
I add vanilla extract to my coffee-vanilla stout; 1tsp in with the secondary. It produces this great vanilla note without it being all vanilla.
Got the porter into the secondary and thieved some of it before it went back to the basement. The unfinished product takes pretty good. Sucks it'll be another three weeks before it's ready.
Imagine what "cheese' could exist if someone tried to copy Velveeta.
Do any of you have experience racking to secondary to age on something? Say, oak chips and good bourbon? My next planned beer is a vanilla bourbon porter, and I plan on making it soon, and letting it age until February!
My racking experience is limited to racking for the sole purpose of learning to tranfer to a secondary and to dry hop an IPA. Haven't racked to age a beer yet. Still green in the homebrewing arena and love doing it regardless.
Also haven't created my own recipes yet. They've been recipes from others that received good reviews on brew forums. Here's a link to the porter. Read through some of the post and this porter ages well. Plans right now are to bottle after the secondary is finished and put a portion of these bottles away for aging.
Imagine what "cheese' could exist if someone tried to copy Velveeta.
Man, yeast are crazy little critters. I took a break from brewing for about a year because I just didn't have the space or time. But I left my house strain of liquid yeast slants in the back of the fridge. I recently started up again so I spent last weekend culturing up a usable yeast starter from the colonies on the slants.
Almost 2 years those things sat in my fridge and wouldn't you know it, it took all of two days before they were eating sugar full bore.
Checked out the free download and was wondering if it's actually necessary. I can see it being helpful in guaging the numbers to determine the approximate amounts of grains but don't see it's usefullness beyond that.
Imagine what "cheese' could exist if someone tried to copy Velveeta.
I've tried it out.
It's a nice app, but not worth the $20 price tag.
All the recipes are online for free, I only really used it as a reference for mash profiles and the like that's included in those recipes.
I thought I should probably start posting something about my first attempts at this. Here is the last bottle of my second brew:
Calling it a blonde because I'm not sure what else to call it. I do small batches (five litres) so this was:
Original Gravity of 1.054, Final 1.011, so probably about 5.5% abv
293g Light DME, 498g Extra Light DME
10 IBU bittering hops (Challenger 6.9%AA for 60 minutes)
10 IBU aroma (Challenger 6.9% AA for 10 minutes)
Pitched onto the yeast cake of my first brew, which was a similar-ish Special Bitter - not as strong, more heavily bittered, less pale.
Bottled it up with enough priming sugar for 2.5 volumes of CO2, so it's quite fizzy.
Got an amber bottled up, which is basically the recipe of the Bitter with 10% of the sugar coming from 120EBC crystal malt and the same hops. Opened the first bottle of that last night. Just ordered a load of stuff so going to try the amber recipe next with Bramling Cross replacing the Challenger for aroma purposes, and maybe ease back on the bittering (although the amber seems to come out less noticeably bitter than the Special Bitter did, I'm guessing that's unfermentable sugar from the crystal malt balancing it out).
I use beer smith for crafting recipes and find it to be quite a useful tool. Unlike some of the free online ones, the math used by Beer Smith seems to be a bit more accurate and reflective of the final product.
Checked out BeerSmith again, it might help give a better idea of the beer profile for an upcoming recipe. Using the free download before ponying up the twenty dollars.
Bottling the porter tonight. Hoping there will be a half filled bottle near the end to sample how the brew turned out.
Cincitucky on
Imagine what "cheese' could exist if someone tried to copy Velveeta.
Tried making that half bottle happen but the batch had exactly 48 bottles... so I took one of them for sampling. Really like the flavoring of the porter, its akin to bread covered in chocolate. Using Northern Brewers hops also added a mint aspect to the brew.
Only thing I wasn't aware of is how long these need to bottle condition. While the taste was nice, there was zero body. Worried at first it was going to be a limp porter with good flavor, I read from another brewing forum these might have to condition up to 10-12 weeks. Is this true of porters and stouts?
Imagine what "cheese' could exist if someone tried to copy Velveeta.
My experience is that porters get a bit better with age. I had a maple finished porter (yes, it's as good as it sounds) I made about a year ago and one of the bottles somehow got buried in the back of the fridge. I cracked it open when I was making my pumpkin spiced ale several weeks back, and it made me wish I had let a few more bottles sit around
@Cincitucky, I purchased the Beersmith mobile app (I think this was 8 bucks), and so far I've had good luck with it. I mostly use it to track the recipe, track my results, and maybe leave a few quick notes on the results. I use a physical notebook as well, so the combo of the two of them covers everything I can think of tracking.
3DS friend code : 1375 - 7258 - 4504
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CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
So I received a catalog in the mail from a company called William's Brewing. Not sure how I got on their list, but I must say that I'm liking the layout and it has several offerings relevant to my interests. Anyone else get one from them or ever buy from them before? Their ingredient kits come with liquid yeasts and they have an attractive variety of LMEs (oatmeal stout LME!). Just wondering if there's trouble with this place or if it's as good as it looks.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
@Koldanar, it should help provide a game plan for brewing ideas. I was using it to change a mango recipe from a few months ago to tone down the ale and get a better fruit smell and taste. Must be in the phase where I'm trying to determine the best approach for me to keep track of recipes and formulate brews.
Peacock, William's Brewing site has a few tempting kits to try. Their products have good rating from other and appear similiar to the Brewer's Best kits at my local supply store. Are you making partial mash brews? They have a whiskey stout on their site.
Imagine what "cheese' could exist if someone tried to copy Velveeta.
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CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
Extract with grains is my limit at the moment.
Not sure how their site inventory compares to what I'm seeing in this catalog, but I saw near a dozen non-IPA kits that me likey.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
So, I just learned that ten smoked jalapenos in five gallons of porter will produce a pretty spicy beer.
Not at all undrinkable, mind you! But this one might not share as easily as some of my others. Next time I'll probably stop at five or seven or something.
Pale malt extract, with 10% of the sugar coming from steeped 120EBC Crystal Malt. 1.050 OG, 20 IBU Challenger for 60 minutes, 15 IBU Bramling Cross for 10 minutes. This is exactly the same recipe as my last brew but with Bramling Cross replacing Challenger as an aroma hop.
The last one came out pretty well. Nice and dark, the crystal malt seems to take a lot of the astringency out of the hop. Challenger has quite a spicy, resinous (almost oily) flavour so it definitely works better in a darker beer than in a pale. Held a head surprisingly well, too.
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This is great, I've made 3 batches of my pumpkin ale so far (my base kit is from Midwest though). I would imagine that the pumpkin and spices would add some odd flavors before fermentation, but I've never tasted it before at least a couple days of ferm. It should mellow out with time. Usually my pumpkin comes into its own after six or eight weeks.
EDIT: because I couldn't have decimal and fraction measurements in the same sentence.
First, I tried out an all grain brew in a bag. I made a Belgian tripel, still bottle aging.
Second, I did a normal extract batch / specialty grain brewing of a nut brown ale, but I added some fall spices to the mix. Hopefully, I'll have a good strong tripel by the end of the month, and an awesome fall beer right after!
Sounds, pretty similar to mine. I use 1 tsp each cinnamon, nutmeg, clove. No allspice or ginger though, interested in how that turns out. 2 big cans of pumpkin as well; 1 big can just doesn't seem to get all the pumpkin flavor I want. I'm hoping next time I brew it I can use fresh!
Here's a picture that is too big to inline.
Next on the brew schedule is the Zombie Dust clone and a porter recipe from Home Brew forums called Black Pearl. Might be inviting trouble doing two different batches on one day but the brewing itch is bad. It'll be a long brew day.
My experiment, I mentioned above, was a tripel. I simply re-hydrated, and pitched right from there. I was only doing a single gallon, though. I'm assuming you are doing more?
From what I've read and researched, if you use dry, refrigerated yeast, you should have a ton of healthy cells available (200 billion I think?). If any charts you find out there tell you to have 200,000,000 or less for your pitch, you should be set. If you need more, you'll need to do a starter.
Liquid yeasts are a little less viable coming out of the tube, I would definitely do a starter on those.
I have yet to do a secondary, myself. I haven't wanted to age anything on an addition (fruit, oak, etc). I would probably skip secondary on a Tripel.
I am so weak. I bought 2 carboys off Northern Brewer last night (2 for 1 deal). I don't even have ROOM for two more carboys.
Wiki article on Tripel:
Basically it's a shorthand for trappist and trappist-style beers. The abbeys have a low gravity beer that they consume in-house, called patersbier. It's basically a very lightly fermented, low alcohol beverage, probably similar to Kvass. Enkel ("single") is a pretty low alcohol content (and not marketed as enkel, but usually "blonde" or something along those lines). Enkels are occasionally the abbey's patersbier. Dubbels are stronger versions, usually about 6% abv, tripels are even stronger, about 9% abv, and quadrupels top out over 10%. As the beer gets higher in gravity, it starts taking on a lot more fruity and malty flavors (since you need to really push the sugar content high to get a high gravity beer).
Homebrewing has some pricing start up costs. Here's to hoping I won't need more equipment anytime soon.
It's not that bad, it just makes the brewing process longer by like...two hours. Not sure how much you'll mind that, but that's really the biggest drawback.
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I'll upload a photo soon. Took one of the kitchen loaded with kettles and the mash tun.
Edit: The kitchen overrun with brewing equipment
Fermentables:
1.9kg Light Extract
0.65 Flaked Oats
0.4kg Biscuit Malt
0.4kg Chocolate Malt
0.4kg 2-Row Pale Malt
0.2kg Dextrine Malt
0.2kg Corn Sugar (I add this because of issues with extract fermentability)
Hops:
60g Goldings (B.C.) @ 60 Mins
60g Fuggles @ 30 Mins
30g Goldings (B.C.) @ 10 Mins
Spices:
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Allspice
1/4 tsp Ginger
1/2oz Sweet Orange Peel
*All the above at ~10mins from flame out*
To finish it off, I was intending to dump two vanilla bean pods I would have soaking in a small amount of vodka into the secondary/bulk aging carboy.
What I am looking for is some pointers, as I've never done a stout before, nor have I really used spices in brewing. I will probably want to reduce the amount I'm using, but I really have no experience in this area. My aim is to have a nice, deep flavoured oatmeal stout with a solid spice flavour, but not one which overrides everything.
In the pumpkin spiced ale I made (further up the page), I used 1½ tsp cinnamon, 1½ tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp clove, ¾ tsp allspice, and ½ tsp ginger, 1½ vanilla pods and about ¼ tsp of vanilla extract. The spices up to the pods were added 5 before flameout, the pods at flameout and the extract was added to the chilled wort into the primary.
I cracked open my first bottle this evening, and the profile is right where I wanted it, a solid pumpkin flavor with a very heavy pie-spice presence. It was delicious, and my favorite homebrew so far (beat out the maple porter I made 2 yrs ago). If I were you, I'd tone down the cinnamon and allspice to ¾ tsp each if you are aiming for "yes there is spice here but it's not overwhelming," which is what I think you're going for from your post.
That sounds like a good idea, 5 minutes to flameout had those spices produce a good flavour without a strong astringency? That is my primary concern with using spices, especially ones like cinnamon. Also, I changed my hops because I realized with a stout, I am aiming for virtually no hop character. Now I'm going to use 1oz admirals @ 60 mins and 1oz kent goldings @ 30 mins.
If you're worried about astringency from cooking your spices, you can always soak them in hard liquor for a few days and dump it into your primary, but you may end up with a weaker spice taste.
EDIT: You can also spice during your secondary, which may provide a slightly different flavor profile. I guess putting vanilla in during secondary is pretty common
I made mine with liquid yeast. Made a 2 stage starter, so I pitched about 1.5L of yeast starter for my quad. I actually just checked it on Sunday, and boy oh boy, is it coming along. Taste is fantastic, and it's a great deep red brown color. Also, it's fermented down to 9.7% ABV. It might manage to make it to 9.8 or 9.9, but with temperatures here cooling off, it's probably done. I'm gonna give it about 2 more weeks before kegging it. It's the first time I drank all of the FG sample I pulled. So, so good.
@Comahawk
I would agree with @m!ttens. That spice profile is similar to my pumpkin ale, and it comes off pretty strong after fermentation. If you want it to be more subtle, back it off a little and let the vanilla/stout shine through. I add my spices at (10min) and it comes out pretty good after fermentation. Like was said, it doesn't taste good if you sample your OG reading, but it evens out in the end.
I add vanilla extract to my coffee-vanilla stout; 1tsp in with the secondary. It produces this great vanilla note without it being all vanilla.
Also haven't created my own recipes yet. They've been recipes from others that received good reviews on brew forums. Here's a link to the porter. Read through some of the post and this porter ages well. Plans right now are to bottle after the secondary is finished and put a portion of these bottles away for aging.
Almost 2 years those things sat in my fridge and wouldn't you know it, it took all of two days before they were eating sugar full bore.
Porters and Stouts are on the menu for the upcoming cold weather.
Checked out the free download and was wondering if it's actually necessary. I can see it being helpful in guaging the numbers to determine the approximate amounts of grains but don't see it's usefullness beyond that.
It's a nice app, but not worth the $20 price tag.
All the recipes are online for free, I only really used it as a reference for mash profiles and the like that's included in those recipes.
BF3 Battlelog | Twitter | World of Warships | World of Tanks | Wishlist
Calling it a blonde because I'm not sure what else to call it. I do small batches (five litres) so this was:
Original Gravity of 1.054, Final 1.011, so probably about 5.5% abv
293g Light DME, 498g Extra Light DME
10 IBU bittering hops (Challenger 6.9%AA for 60 minutes)
10 IBU aroma (Challenger 6.9% AA for 10 minutes)
Pitched onto the yeast cake of my first brew, which was a similar-ish Special Bitter - not as strong, more heavily bittered, less pale.
Bottled it up with enough priming sugar for 2.5 volumes of CO2, so it's quite fizzy.
Got an amber bottled up, which is basically the recipe of the Bitter with 10% of the sugar coming from 120EBC crystal malt and the same hops. Opened the first bottle of that last night. Just ordered a load of stuff so going to try the amber recipe next with Bramling Cross replacing the Challenger for aroma purposes, and maybe ease back on the bittering (although the amber seems to come out less noticeably bitter than the Special Bitter did, I'm guessing that's unfermentable sugar from the crystal malt balancing it out).
Bottling the porter tonight. Hoping there will be a half filled bottle near the end to sample how the brew turned out.
That's better.
Only thing I wasn't aware of is how long these need to bottle condition. While the taste was nice, there was zero body. Worried at first it was going to be a limp porter with good flavor, I read from another brewing forum these might have to condition up to 10-12 weeks. Is this true of porters and stouts?
@Koldanar, it should help provide a game plan for brewing ideas. I was using it to change a mango recipe from a few months ago to tone down the ale and get a better fruit smell and taste. Must be in the phase where I'm trying to determine the best approach for me to keep track of recipes and formulate brews.
Peacock, William's Brewing site has a few tempting kits to try. Their products have good rating from other and appear similiar to the Brewer's Best kits at my local supply store. Are you making partial mash brews? They have a whiskey stout on their site.
Not sure how their site inventory compares to what I'm seeing in this catalog, but I saw near a dozen non-IPA kits that me likey.
Not at all undrinkable, mind you! But this one might not share as easily as some of my others. Next time I'll probably stop at five or seven or something.
I attended a wedding this weekend, and the groom is a home brewer. As a wedding favor to his guests, he brewed up a really great beer.
It was delicious.
Pale malt extract, with 10% of the sugar coming from steeped 120EBC Crystal Malt. 1.050 OG, 20 IBU Challenger for 60 minutes, 15 IBU Bramling Cross for 10 minutes. This is exactly the same recipe as my last brew but with Bramling Cross replacing Challenger as an aroma hop.
The last one came out pretty well. Nice and dark, the crystal malt seems to take a lot of the astringency out of the hop. Challenger has quite a spicy, resinous (almost oily) flavour so it definitely works better in a darker beer than in a pale. Held a head surprisingly well, too.