AG#76 – Steaming, Brown & Sticky

Posted by: pdtnc on: March 11, 2012

• In: Brewing
• 10 Comments

Brown and Sticky – brewing again today because I want to test out my new Mesh-Hop-Stopper after yesterday’s fiasco with my US-Brown Ale, so today I’m doing another American Brown and throwing a shed load of Columbus at it again and a further shed load of pellet hops just to try and screw it up. This could lead to another crappy end to an otherwise good brewday, we shall see… fingers crossed!

I’m worried that the stainless mesh resting on the base of the Gas-fired copper is going to have a damping effect on the rolling action of the boil, it certainly does when tested with boiling water, so this brew is also to see if it kills the roll with wort too.

Seeing as this is a very impromptu brewday I might even throw in 2 packs Safelager W-34/70 and make it a Steam Beer, so instead of being called ‘Brown & Sticky’ it would be ‘Steaming Brown & Sticky’ 😉 I quite like the latter naming option 😉  Its obviously going to be a cross-over style American Brown vs Steam Beer.

Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 74%
Flaked Barley – 10%
Caramalt – 9%
Crystal Malt, Extra Dark – 3%
Chocolate Malt – 2%
Chocolate Wheat Malt – 1%
Chocolate Malt, Pale – 1%

Hops:
Columbus (Tomahawk) Whole – 16.5 % @ 60 mins – 10g (First Wort Hop)
Columbus (Tomahawk) Whole – 16.5 % @ 30 mins – 25g
Chinook Pellet – 12.9 % @ 0 mins – 20g
Cascade Pellet – 5.9 % @ 0 mins – 20g
Columbus (Tomahawk) Whole – 16.5 % @ 0 mins – 80g
Rakau (Organic) Pellet – 11.5 % @ 0 mins – 89g (all Late hops will have a 20-30min steep)

Dry Hops:
Maybe…

Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.045
Final Gravity: 1.012
Alcohol Content: 4.3% ABV
Total Liquor: 33.4 Litres
Mash Liquor: 12.3 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 70 % (reduced as I only just hit 75% yesterday)
Bitterness: 47 EBU (25% Utilisation)
Colour: 75 EBC

Malt & Temp:

Lots of Pellet hops:

New mesh Hop-Stopper with first wort hops:


First batch spargings running onto the new Hop-stopper and First Wort Columbus hops:

Its an altered boil alright, it rumbles around to its self and splatters occasionally, seems active enough:

In go 80g of Whole Columbus and 129g of Pellet hops:

OG: 1043/44, Refractometer said I was right on the money at 1045:

Torch held at the back of the trial jar, wort was nice and clear in comparrison to some of the wort I’ve had lately:

Loads of sludge in the copper, the new Mesh Hop-Stopper worked a treat and drained right down with the syphon effect sucking loads of wort out of the pellet sludge:

Maybe not the nicest looking soldering but it blooming well worked:

The Mash was on at 12:25 and I was all cleaned up by about 17:00, it all went rather smoothly.  Maybe its time to start using my Plate Chiller as leedsbrew suggested! 2 packs of Saflager W34/70 Yeast pitched at 19-20c I’ll leave it on the cold garage floor to cool down overnight and let it go from there.

*24th Mar ’12 – FG 1011-12 put in fridge to warm up a little for a, probably un-needed, diacetyl rest. No dry hopping this tastes fantastic and clean as it is with a nice bit of bitterness coming through, I may actually transfer to a secondary FV and Lager this for a while (must ask a few Lagering questions on JBK).

*7th Apr ’12 – Bottled with 75g of White Sugar, tasting rather nice it has so far exceeded my expectations 🙂 I never bothered with any Dry hopping, I’ll be looking forward to this once its Carbonated up.

Tags: american brown, beer, Brewing, brown, brown ale, caramalt, cascade, Chinook, Chocolate Malt, chocolate wheat malt, Columbus, extra dark crystal malt, Flaked Barley, garage brewer, homebrew, hops, lager malt, malt, pale chocolate malt, Rakau, steam, steam beer, sticky, Tomahawk