I’ve got some Thomas Fawcett Maris Otter laying around and I’d like to use it up. I know that Pils malt is the traditional base for a BDS, but what about MO?
Here’s my recipe - the only thing that has changed is the Pils → Maris Otter from the award winning beers I’ve produced with it.
10 gallons:
22.00 pounds TF Maris Otter
6.00 pounds German Munich Malt
2.00 pounds German Wheat Malt Light
1.50 pounds Belgian Special B Malt
1.50 pounds German CaraMunich Malt I
1.50 pounds Belgian Caravienne Malt
0.25 pounds British Pale Chocolate
2.00 pounds Dark Candi Sugar
OG: 1.094
FG: 1.014-6 or so
I’m thinking if I use it I may need to cut down a bit on the character malts - not much, though. Just enough to account for the extra character MO brings as opposed to Pils.
WLP530 Abbey (pitched atop cake from a Patersbier)
I personally feel that Pils is the better option but since I have never tried it I couldn’t swear one way or teh other. Tripel would be a different story.
That said, just looked over your recipe and there are a few things I would change. Definitely lower the crystal down. You want some chewy crystal malt but you also want the beer to attenuate to a lower gravity (what belgian’s call “digestable”). I’d use some sugar in there for sure, simplify the recipe a good deal (no need for 3 different crystal malts, probably keep crystal around 5%) and consider some of the dark belgian Candi syrup - that stuff rocks. If you use that you won;t need any special B, which I don;t particularly care for anyway.
I think you should just go for it, and try it . A great philosopher once said “…you’ll never know until you check it out…”
It’s your beer after all, and it may wind up being a genius idea. You may even wind up liking the result better than if you used a more traditional choice for the style, or, depending on other factors, it may not make a bit of difference.
Either way, that recipe should make a pretty tasty beer.
I’d do it. If you’re not certain, make a five gal batch rather than ten gal.
But based on personal experience with similar questions (albeit different styles), my guess is you’ll wish you’d made the ten.
just sayin’…
Sorry should have put in there that I plan to use two pounds of candi sugar. I’ve used table sugar successfully as well, but I agree, the dark candi sugar does bring a nice raisiny contribution.
As for the Special B - that’s definitely staying in; I rather enjoy the raisiny flavors it imparts. Interestingly, the amount of caramel (Caramunich and Caravienne) malts do seem high, but in the finished product, you get this richness and not a sweetness particularly. Good advice, though - I don’t think I’ll go as low as 5% total for those particular malts just because I’ve had so much success with the recipe in the past, but a reduction, especially with MO introduced, is in order.
Color inside the lines if you’re going into competition…that’s fun too… but if not, fugheddaboudit…brew what suits ya.
Who knows…you may stumble upon something great.
Here’s what I’ve settled on - kinda the median if you will…
10 gallons:
22.00 pounds TF Maris Otter
6.00 pounds German Munich Malt
2.00 pounds German Wheat Malt Light
0.50 pounds Belgian Special B Malt
0.50 pounds German CaraMunich Malt I
0.50 pounds Belgian Caravienne Malt
0.13 pounds British Pale Chocolate
I’m no base malt Nazi. I have subbed 2-row for pils and pils for 2-row and US 2-row for MO and vice versa… and I have never thought, “damn, the beer is ruined!” from the decision.
