Peroni Clone for Charity - Recipe & water questions

Brewing Processes
1

Good evening,
I’m making a Peroni clone for charity. (A woman bid to fight hunger, for me to make a beer for her husband and he loves Peroni and drinks it while in Italy.)

I did some research and saw some recipes in two homebrew forums, but wanted to stick to the details for Peroni, in my clone:
Brewed by: Birra Peroni Industriale S.p.A.
Country of origin: Italy
Style: Euro Pale Lager
Alcohol by volume (ABV): 5.10%
SRM: 2-4
IBU:  24

QUESTION 1: I made my yeast starter using Wyeast, 2007 Pilsen Lager, smack pack. Should I have used Bohemian Lager 2124? (I have time to make that yeast starter since I want to brew on Sunday, June 17.

QUESTION 2: Please take a moment to review my recipe. Thumbs up or thumbs down? If thumbs down, what would you change? (Fyi, I did build the recipe in brewtoad and hit close to the Peroni profile.)

Grain Bill:
1 lb Briess 2 Row Brewers Malt
3.15 lbs Maillard Malts Pilsen Malt Extract Syrup
4 lbs DME: Extra light
8.945 oz DME: Light
32oz (2.08 lbs) Belgian Candy Syrup
11.6 ozs Briess Carapils
Irish moss
2 oz of US Saaz
1 oz of German Hallertau

I’m making 5.5 gallons

  1. Put two pots of water on to boil:  Kettle 4 gallons and 2nd kettle 2 gallons.
      a. Bring 4 gal to 160° F and place 11.6 oz of carapils in water and let steep for 30 minutes until 170° F is reached. Take out bag and let wort drain into pot.
      b. Bring 2 gallons of water to 150° F. Place corn and 2-row in muslin bag. Immerse and let it steep for 30 minutes and then let the liquid drain.
      c. Add liquid from corn and 2-row steep to main kettle.
  2. START OF 90 MIN BREW SCHEDULE
  3. Add all DME and stir until completely dissolved. Add 1 oz of Saaz hops.
  4. Mash at 148 F for 45 minutes. Stir gently.
  5. Add 3.15 lbs of Pilsen extract.
  6. Bring to a boil for 15 minutes. Add Irish Moss
  7. Add 1 oz Hallertau and wort chiller and keep boiling for another 15 mins.
  8. Add final 1 oz of Saaz, Candi sugar, continue rolling boil, stirring vigorously to make sure candi isn’t scorching.
  9. Cool wort to 50 F.
  10. Add cooled wort to carboy.
  11. Add yeast starter. (I’ll decant the spent wort after crashing it in the frig overnight.)

QUESTION 3: I live in NYC and have the water report. For my area hardness(grains/gallon CaC03 is 6.8, semi hard, pH: 6.8- 8.2 (they note my neighborhood’s sample tested high, so I’m going to assume a pH of 8.2.) They say the water used to brew Peroni is soft.

Should I just swap a gallon of my main kettle water for distilled water and call it a day, or should I try to adjust my water to soften it to a Pilsner?

That’s the full set of questions. She donated $225 to charity for this beer, so I really want to hit a home run on this one.

Side notes, if this helps: I have all the equipment I need for the lagering, kegging and bottling process.  I own the Brewjacket system and can lager at step temps without issue. I own an oxygen stone to give the beer a good shot of oxygen at the start of fermentation. I own the filtration system down to 1 micron to give it an excellent appearance. I will force carbonate it and then bottle it.

2

I will only address one point, which I feel qualified on, the yeast.  2007 is similar (or identical) to Anheuser-Busch yeast, and in a very light lager such as this, the slight “green apple” note Budweiser displays will probably be quite evident.  I would use the 2124 to get the very clean, lightly malty character I find in Peroni.  2124 is a solid Euro-style yeast.

3

Thank you. That’s an easy fix.  I appreciate the input.

4

NYC water is typically very soft, pilsen level. Its typically Catskill water. It should be fine for brewing, especially if DME is used. Be sure to remove chlorine compounds from the water before brewing with it.

Why are you using Candy Syrup? That’s not a typical pale lager component. Is there a recipe that says it should be used?

5

This is something we talk about on the Brew Files due out tomorrow.  Despite the fact that we all associate Bud with acetaldehyde/green apple, it actually measures at about the lowest level of any beer out there.  So why do we all think it has it?  Could it be confirmation bias?  Could it be that the taste threshold is lower than thought?  I dunno…it’s a dichotomy.

6

I know it’s not acetaldehyde, the numbers show that.  I’ve always assumed it’s the ester profile of the yeast.  Anyway, for the OP’s purposes, 2124 is best suited to international lager styles.  Look forward to the podcast, if I get time to listen!  (You sound funny at 2x speed…)  :slight_smile:

7

Yes, yes, and yes!

8

I also thought NY water was relatively soft, until I downloaded the water report and it specifically mentioned that due to ongoing water pipe repairs NYC source water would now be coming from 2 different places and the very neighborhood I live in was one of two locations that tested high throughout the sampling. Go figure.

I push all my brewing water through a standard carbon RV filter that removes: chlorine, chloramines, VOCs. If I have the time, I sometimes forgo that easy filtering method and fill my kettle from the Pur filter I have attached to my kitchen faucet, using a small 1 gallon food grade bucket. Tedious but Pur filters have such an excellent rating, with a documented list of what it strips out of water, I like to use it if I’m able.

The candy syrup is because the recipe without it (and I do find Brewtoad to be pretty accurate) didn’t quite get to the 5% alcohol I need for a Peroni clone, but I wanted to stick to an SRM that fit the beer. More malt started to put me in the more 7 range, which Peroni certainly is not (more a Golden/pale yellow-closer to 3 SRMs in my opinion.) Peroni, has mostly sweetness and the Pilsen syrup and DME should get me the OG I seek, put I didn’t want it to end up being sickly sweet.

I’m open to recipe suggestions given I don’t want to brew this beer all-grain and I have to make the yeast starter over again, and I’m shooting for brewing on Sunday. If it helps, I have most kinds of malts in inventory.

Thank you for taking the time to respond and for any other guidance you have to offer.

9

I’ve done some looking and as far as I can tell Peroni is a pretty standard grist of Pils malt and corn grits, no other malts or sugars.  If you need to boost gravity, can you use a sugar with a neutral flavor instead of candi syrup?  Like dextrose?  Or can you get brewers corn syrup?  That would even get you a wee bit of corn flavor.  But candi syrup sounds out of character.

10

Simplicity candi syrup is pretty much tasteless, like sugar.

11

Okay, never mind. As long as it’s neutral.

12

We always drank Moretti. Many warm evenings were spent on the patio of a little cafe near our home in Pordenone with a glass (wife drank wine) while trying to carry a conversation with the locals.  Not sure we ever bridged the communication gap but we sure had 3 years of fun trying.

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13

Just to quickly explain, for anyone looking in the future, if this was an all-grain batch I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have the ABV problem predicted by the software, but because I don’t have the time to manage the complexity of an all-grain lager beer, I opted for the “cheat” of candi syrup for the reason Denny states. (I’ve used this trick before in a pale ale, when on a bet someone tasked me with making a very pale, pretty dry american ale for a party. They wanted to see if I could achieve 8% alcohol without the now ubiquitous SRM 7 color.)

14

I don’t have problems with hitting ABV in my extract beers, but they tend to finish high (1.019-1.020).  I use small amounts of dextrose to lower my FG and dry the beers out.  I’ve never had a problem with adding dextrose in my beers although someone recently was pretty appalled by it.

I guess part of the question with the why add the candy sugar, and I believe what Denny and Robert were trying to get at, is not why you’re using it, I understand that part, but why use Candi syrup itself.  It’s a much more expensive ingredient than dextrose.  At my LHBS (YMMV) 2 lb of Dextrose would cost me like $3, while 2 lb of Candi syrup would cost like $9-$16 (depending on color, brand etc).  I use Candi in my Belgian dark strong, but just to dry out an IPA I use just straight dextrose, usually not much, 1/2 lb or so in a 3 gallon recipe.  Just to drop the FG a couple points.

If you don’t NEED the flavor of a candi, as in a Belgian or English style beer, even if the clear/extra light syrup is mostly flavorless, why pay so much extra for it?

Also, why the three types of extract? Liquid, Light and Extra light? I’m assuming the small amount of light DME (compared to the Extra light) is for color adjustment?

I’ve never had Peroni and I’m not that familiar with Euro Lagers, so apologies, but that’s why most of my comments are focused on the ingredients themselves and not the recipe.

Cheers!

15

Isn’t there a Peroni clone in Dave Line’s Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy that’s pretty good? My memory tells me that it has rice in it ( I don’t have the book with me right now). His recipes are really pretty close to the real thing.