Ok fellow beer nerds, I have a challenge for you. I know that a lot of you are from the west coast so maybe you've brewed William's Brewing's Fireside Ale. It's an extract kit that I'm trying to clone. Williams doesn't disclose their ingredients claiming that it is "proprietary information". Here's what I do know.
The description on their site says that the kit includes 11 lbs of blended malt extract and that a large amount of crystal malt was used in addition to Maris Otter. When I received the kit it had no specially grains and two bags of extract. One large (8 to 10 lbs) and the other small (1 to 3 lbs). The large one was lighter in color than the small one and I assume it was the Maris Otter. It had two 1 oz bags of hops and a pack of Wyeast 1099 Whitbread yest. The instructions included say that you should have an OG of 1.068 and to bottle when the FG is below 1.032 (very high, I know). When I brewed it my OG was 1.072 and FG was 1.030. The beer had a lot of body and malt sweetness (hence the 1.030 FG) and very little hop character. Their site claims it has 6.2% ABV and 35 IBUs. I don't see any way possible for this to happen. I don't think that even if you used the highest alpha acid hops available you could get 35 IBUs from only 2 oz of hops.
Here's what I want from this beer. I want the great body and mouth feel and I want the great malty finish. Using Beersmith I can't figure out a way to get the beer to finish around 1.030 without it starting around 1.092 or higher. I don't mind the high OG but I don't really want it that high. I plan to mash at a high temp (around 158) and add cara-pils and lactose. I'm not sure that Beersmith takes into account lower attenuating yeast (like the 1099) or high mash temps when it calculates the FG.
Any help you can give me on this would be great! I have been working on this for a while and can't get many people to help me from other brewing boards. I know yall are some of the best there is so I know someone can help me. I don't have a lot of money to brew so I want the first effort at this clone to be as close as I can and then I can tweak it from there. Thanks in advance!!
Qeelin
