The recipe I made up for Daniel’s brew smelled and looked so good, I had to make a variation before I’d even tasted the final result. In particular I used different grains for the consumable sugars and picked some with a bit more aroma. Also, I used a different yeast and hops, so while I had a similar goal in mind, I changed a lot of the recipe along the way. Initial brix 17.4, which could lead to an ABV as high as 9.7%. By the time it went into secondary, the brix was down to 10.5.
Yeast was Nottingham, started in a canning jar with honey, which was a great way to use up the last of the honey as well as speed up the start of fermentation.
Ingredients
- Czech saaz 3% alpha, 4.8% beta
- Nugget 13.5% alpha, 4.5% beta
- 5 lbs. Vienna
- 5 lbs. Maris Otter
- 2 lbs. roasted barley
- 2 lbs. 20L
- 1 lbs. Belgian special aromatic
- 1 lbs. Belgian biscuit (FrancoBelges)
- 1 lbs. chocolate
This had a lovely flavor and an excellent smell.
Cooling was done directly in the brew kettle