King of Beers

Grains, malts, hops, yeast, water and other ingredients used to brew. Recipe reviews and suggestions.

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Budcar
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King of Beers

Post by Budcar »

Anybody has an allgrains Bud clone recipe?
I'm about to do one with half 2-row and 6-row plus
i will had about two pounds of cooked rice as adjunts.What do you all think! THANKS!!
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Mesa Maltworks
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AB Bud Clone....

Post by Mesa Maltworks »

To accurately reproduce this beer you should use all 6 row malt with the lightest possible color value. The target SRM color is ~2.5 SRM, so using most 2 row pale malt will end up exceeding this value, let alone impart inaccurate flavors. There are very lightly kilned 2 rows produced, but as far as I know, they are rarely stocked by homebrew stores. The only one I am aware of that is available to homebrewers is Great Western's 2 row (1.8L), but this color value is getting close to that of most typical 2 rows. The best choices are( in descending order) Cargill 6 Row Pale (~1.5L) that is used by a large number of domestic brewers, Latrobe Brewing for one example (Rolling Rock brand) or Briess 6-row (~1,7L).

The rice must be pre-gelatinized, not simply cooked to work as a fermentable source. Also, when you gelatinize the rice, make sure to throw in a handful of finely ground malt (enzymatic reasons). I can outline the steps required to gelatinze the rice if you wish to try it. A much easier option is simply to use rice syrup. You could also use rice flakes, but you will not get as many gravity points as you would using the syrup.

The mash should be conducted between 145 and 148 degrees F to ensure a highly fermentable wort with little residual dextrins.

Your IBU target should be between 8 and 9 IBU, Anheuser Busch's Budweiser is ~8.5 IBU. Target your SG to around 1.048 and finish the beer at 1.009. The best yeast to use is White Lab's WLP840 and ferment at 52 deg. F. This strain comes the closest in regards to it's ability to impart acetaldehyde notes (green apple) like the strain Anheuser Busch uses.

Eric
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Don't know what happened

Post by fitz »

I don't know what happened to my previous post, but I said almost exactly what eric said, just less technical. When you are doing an American mega brew clone, you need to stay away from anything with flavor. the ratio of adjuncts need to be increased also. Most American brews use between 30- to 40% adjuncts Flaked corn, and rice. Don't use corn sugar or syrup, or your brew will be cidery. The rice syrup won't do the cider taste though, so it is OK and a whole lot less labor intensive. I do stay away from most adjuncts anymore, but in the beginning of the brewing I used them often. I no longer have a taste for them except in small amounts.
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Hops???

Post by dartedplus »

What kind of hops do they use?? And what would your guess be for length of boil??
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Light, and lightly

Post by fitz »

I would figure a light hop such as saaz, or Hallertau. 3/4 oz for 60 min, and a 1/4 to 1/2 for 5 min. Bud isn't very bitter, or fragrant in the hop area.
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Hopweiser....

Post by Mesa Maltworks »

Funny you asked this... recently on the Institute for Brewing Studies Forum, a well respected but mis-informed pro brewer posted that due to "cheapness being the overall goal", Anheuser Busch uses high alpha hops to bitter their beers. If the did, doing so would mean that not only do they use less hops (cheaper) but the loose less wort after whirlpool since there is less hop residue fluffing up the trub. Evidently this brewer forgot that Mitch Steele, Master Brewer for AB, is also a forum subscriber. He quickly corrected this info stating that their focus is not producing beer as cheaply as possible but rather with consistency and quality. To that end he preceeded to explain some of the things they do that separates them from their direct competitors and I must say they are NOT doing things on the cheap ! One of these things is that they only use low alpha hops for all additions in their beer. In the case of Bud, he said they use German (not American) Hallertauer for bittering and flavor. He did not go into how they use the hops for aroma as that was not the topic of the thread. From the profile of the beer, I can assume that there are little to no aroma only hop additions. Instead, they may add the last addition at a point where they contribute mostly flavor and some aroma.

I later called him for some more technical info about what he said in his posts and as a result of our conversation, I have switched to using only low alpha varieties in everything except my AIPA. The beers now condition better and quicker and the flavor profiles come out very refined.

As far as the boil length, 90 minutes is what you should do, but they boil either under a vacuum or in collandria kettles (depends which brewery) both of which do not require as much boil time to produce the same results as our 90 minute boils.

I know this was more than you asked, but I thought there is alot to be learned from Mitch's responses that we can use in our brewing that I wanted to pass on. See... we CAN learn something from the megas!

Eric
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90 minutes???

Post by dartedplus »

Why would a 90 minute boil be necessary??
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why low alpha?

Post by Gravity Thrills »

I don't know if you could encapsulate any more of Mitch's insights into hop bittering - they must have had an impact if they led you to change the way you bitter.

I used only low alpha hops for most of my homebrewing life, getting into using high alpha varieties at lower quantities only in the last few years because it seemed to be the way most brewers were going. Overall I am happy with my results, especially in the use of galenas as my primary bittering hops. but it does take a full two weeks in the keg for the bitterness of these hops to sit down and come into balance with the rest of the beer flavors. As a rule, I hop my beers right in the mid-levels for a particular style's guidelines, so itis notthat I am over aggressive in bittering additions. I have come to accept the 2 week keg conditioning period, and actually enjoy the day-to-day tastings as the beers come into their own. But if I could knock that back by a week or so, all the better!

Cheers,
Jim
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Sorta Technical But...

Post by Mesa Maltworks »

The alpha acid level of a hop is FAR from the be-all-end-all in defining it's character and that it will impart in the final product. There are many, many other compounds and oils... humulene epoxides & diepoxides, humulol, linalool oxides, myrcene, caryophylene, cadinenes, beta-selinene, faresene... and many others, some understood and many not. The alpha rating and subsequent IBUs imparted into a beer only describe just that.... how many alpha acids per litre you managed to get into solution in your beer. It does not relate to hop flavor at all. The higher the alpha rating, generally, the higher other compounds are going to be in evidence as well. THESE are the compounds that will impart flavor that cannot be quantified through IBU calculations.

There are some high alpha varieties (Pheonix for one) that lack some of this relationship with some of these other the compounds, but still have high levels of others. By choosing lower alpha hops (<6%), you will entrain less of these other compounds in your wort. When using the higher alpha varieties, many of these compounds lend an unrefined, sometimes harsh flavor in the finished beer. Some of these compounds are fairly permanent that no amount of aging can change, others can soften with aging. If you have a wort that is aggressive in malt flavor to start with, like my IPA, this is not such a big deal as they tend to yield to the overall beer profile. But most beers are not this way and benefit from the use of a lower alpha hop variety. This is why I changed my practices.

I hope this helped... going any farther might interest some readers, but I would have to outline around 23 known chemical attributes of hops and their effects and interplays.

The heck with all the chemistry anyway, it is not required to know all that crap in a homebrew setting. The point is to get good flavor in as short of a conditioning time as possible. If this topic interests you, the easiest way to experience this concept is to try dual batches of the same beer with equal IBU levels... one bittered high alpha and one low. I think the results are very obvious.

Eric
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90 Minute Boils...

Post by Mesa Maltworks »

It is widely accepted within the brewing community (and taught at all brewing schools) that the minimum boil time at ambient pressure that an all-grain or partial grain wort should experience is 90 minutes because that is the time it takes to produce an appropriate protein break as well as drive off most of the undesirable volatiles contained in the wort. If not undertaken, the results will be a less microbiologically stable beer with high haze potential and off flavors. The most common of the undesirables is DMS which tastes and smells like cooked corn. This minimum boil time also precludes a number of precursors to off flavors to be inactivated. DMS is an exception though... even with an adequate boil and appropriate evaporation (8~10%, LEAVE THE KETTLE LID OFF FOLKS!), DMS can still appear in the final product if the wort was held too long in the whirlpool prior to chilling. This is because SMM, a DMS precursor, converts into DMS if the wort is not chilled rapidly enough.

In the case of the Bud clone, the full boil is imparative because all 6 row and lager malts have much higher native DMS levels that Pale Ale malts due to their kilning differential. Other than in the case of Rolling Rock, which features this flavor (cooked corn) on purpose, it is not appropriate to have this flavor be in identifiably perceptable levels in a lager. If so, it gives not only the corn flavor, but also a false impression of higher body, which destroys the intended light palate these beers are supposed to exhibit.

In other beer styles, a 90 minute boil is also undertaken to maximize the yield from bittering hop additions. In some styles, the Framboise recipy I recently posted for example, a longer boil is necessitated to remove any trace of hop flavor, hop aroma and to caramelize the wort appropriatly.

Eric
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I hear you

Post by jayhawk »

Interesting how you brought this up. I just finished drinking two batches of lighter ale (straight 2 row and hops) and man am I hammered!!! No, just kidding, I've been drinking them over the last 5 months. Anyhow, I also just sampled a batch that is ready for bottling that used low alpha hops and was very impressed by how far the beer has come along in the last 2.5 weeks. The previous two batches used hi alpha bittering hops and I was forced to let them mature for months until they became good beer. However, the bottle ready batch that used the low alphas is very nice indeed, and should be hitting its prime much earlier.

Of course, this all happened by fluke. I was not intending to study the effects of hi alpha hops vs low alpha hops, but now that you have supplied the above info I will be reevaluating my hop choices. Thanks Mesa.

Chris
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And To Think...

Post by dartedplus »

this is a good thread, and to think it started by talking about sludgeweiser....

drink well...
Ed
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any favorites?

Post by Gravity Thrills »

Thanks for the info, Eric. I have only gotten as deep into hops chemistry as the brief introduction in Lee Janson's Brew Chem 101, so your insights have added to that limited understanding.

Do you have any favorite low alpha hops that you regularly use for bittering? I switched from perle and chinook to galena for most hop-heavy, APA type beers because it seemed to clean up the best with conditioning. I have nearly always used kents and fuggles with Brit styles. so I'm good there. I have used 5% AA clusters for low IBU, malt-accented blond ales and such, but I have not bittered beyond 22 IBU or so with it. I tend to finish those with Willamettes, so I guess I could use those all the way through. Thanks.

Cheers,
Jim
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Great Thread

Post by fitz »

I thought I was nuts. Well maybe I am, but not because of my hop choices. I started a thread a few months back which I said, I like hallertau and Saaz, and Fuggle and Willamette, and even though I try others, I keep coming back to these 4. I guess, whithout all the chemistry, I found they just seem to taste better to me. Now, I know why.
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Hop Favs..

Post by Mesa Maltworks »

For my Blue Eyed Moose IPA: 1st. Bittering - 11 AA Pheonix (90 min), 2nd bittering - 5.7 AA First Gold, 7.5% Cascade (both for 30 min.) There are 5 other hop additions to this beer all of which, other than the whirlpool addition, do contribute to the bittering a good bit due to the shear volume as the total hop bill is 9.75# in 7.5 bbl ( Equal to ~3.36 oz. total in a 5 gallon batch). This beer ends up at 92.6 IBU !

The rest of the beer I produce is bittered either with 4.4 AA Hallertauer Mittlefruh or 4.5 AA German Spalter Spalt.

Eric
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