Posts Tagged ‘brown ale’
AG#97 – Brown Ceas
Posted on: March 17, 2013
- In: Brewing
- 4 Comments
Brown Ceas – This is my NCB / Saltaire Brewery brew for the bar, an American Style Brown Ale, loosely based on my previous ‘Steaming, Brown & Sticky‘ of last year, this is going to be a little lighter in colour as the other version was almost black, or at least a very dark brown.
‘Brown Ceas’ its like the 3-Cs Cascade, Columbus, Chinook and its brown! Bittering will hopefully be nice & spicy from the Aramis & Saaz, and I’ll have a Hop-freezer rummage for American Pellets and give it some dry in the fermenter.
Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 72%
Wheat Malt – 10%
Crystal Malt – 5%
Caramalt – 5%
Carapils (Weyermann) – 5%
Chocolate Malt, Pale – 2%
Chocolate Malt – 1%
Hops:
Aramis – 8.9 % @ 65 mins – 36g
Saaz – 3.95 % @ 35 mins – 40g
Columbus (Tomahawk) – 16.5 % @ 0 mins – 30g
Cascade – 7.9 % @ 0 mins – 30g
Chinook – 12.5 % @ 0 mins – 60g
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.045
Final Gravity: 1.012
Alcohol Content: 4.3% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 77 % (Its too late now, I punched in 77 rather than 75%!!!)
Bitterness: 45 EBU
Colour: 46 EBC
Mash: 68°c for 60-90mins
Yeast: Safale us-05
The Malts:
First Wort Aramis Hops:
Recirculating the Mash for Clarity:
The Hops all weighed out and ready:
85°c Steep Hops in for 30mins:
Top-Down view of the copper running off to FV, I got 1052 Gravity:
The spent hops in the copper, they soaked up a good couple of litres:
Bit of a late start but all done and dusted, liquored back just short of 3L from 1052 to 1045 getting a 21.92 Litre yield so only 1L short of target volume.
I almost forgot to add the Protafloc ‘cos I was messing about on Twitter too much, extended boil by 5 mins to account for lack of concentration!
I may dry hop this with Cascade Pellets, we shall see… 😉
*24th Mar ’13 – Dry Hopped with 20g each of Cascade & Amarillo, so approx 2g/litre, Gravity at 1011. I also skimmed the yeast to use in my Robust Wheat Porter.
*Racked to Box 31st Mar ’13 with just 20g White sugar primings, Alkleer Finings also added as this is to be served from Handpull on the bar at work. Smells nicely dry hopped 🙂
AG#76 – Steaming, Brown & Sticky
Posted 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.
AG#75 – Mr Brown Hawk
Posted on: March 10, 2012
- In: Brewing
- 2 Comments
Mr Brown Hawk– A Columbus Hopped American Brown Ale (Brown IPA!) My first American brown, all Columbus hopping with a substantial Dry Hop in the FV with a bit of vague reference from the ‘Brewing Classic Styles’ book, the recipes in there use a heck of a lot of Crystal so I’ve sort of gone for the middle-ground as i don’t think a 6.3% beer needs all that. I’m using liquor treatment for ‘Sweet Pale Ale’ which will hopefully bring out the maltiness.
I started and realised I didn’t have enough Pale malt so some of it is sub’d with Vienna & Lager malts, I’ll give it at least a 90min mash to try compensate for a: crap Bairds Pale & Lager, b: the less convertibility of Vienna malt.
Fermentables:
Pale Malt – 36.2%
Vienna Malt – 17.2%
Wheat Malt – 17%
Lager Malt – 16.6%
Carapils (Weyermann) – 5%
Caramalt – 3%
Chocolate Malt, Pale – 3%
Crystal Malt, Extra Dark – 1%
Chocolate Malt – 1%
Hops:
Columbus (Tomahawk) – 16.5 % @ 60 mins – 25g (FWH)
Columbus (Tomahawk) – 16.5 % @ 10 mins – 29g
Columbus (Tomahawk) – 16.5 % @ 0 mins – 41g
Columbus (Tomahawk) – Dry Hop 84g
Final Volume: 20 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.065
Final Gravity: 1.017
Alcohol Content: 6.3% ABV
Total Liquor: 30.8 Litres
Mash Liquor: 14 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 % (actually got 75.8%)
Bitterness: 66 EBU (BeerEngine Hop Utilisation set to 25%)
Colour: 76 EBC
Mash: 90mins @66c
Boil: 60mins
Yeast: Safale US-05 (2 packs)
The usual malts shot:
Checking for starch to see if fully converted, other than bits in the husks it was good after 2 hours:
First Wort Hops:
Flame-out hops steeped for about 20mins:
1057-ish, should have been 1065:
It was a total pain, running off to the FV it clogged up really quickly and I had to resort to a jug and a sieve, these Columbus hops have some fine particles! Pitched 2 packs of us-05 even though I didn’t hit my gravity 1058 vs 1065, the quicker the yeast gets going the better after all that sieve and jug malarkey! It looks as though I got about the right volume in the fermenter even if some of it looks rather murky from break material and some hop debris. Another reminder that I should make a big mesh hop-stopper!
So… presuming I’ve not infected it with a shed load of extracurricular home brewing activity, I’ll be giving this a nice big dry hop once its got to FG.
*17th Mar ’12 – after reaching FG 1012 and being chilled in 2 stages (17c for 24hours then 11c for 24 hours) I had a 50mm thick layer of hop debris, trub and yeast at the bottom of the FV, I’ve racked the clear beer off the top into a 15L bucket and dry hopped with 84g Columbus, I gave the bucket a blast of co2 prior to racking onto the hops. This has been put back in the FV Fridge and I’m cooling to 5c, I’ll give the hops a stir in later on.
*Bottled 24th Mar ’12 with 30g sugar to 15 Litres of beer, this should be around 2 volumes of co2 @ 5°c tastes very Dry-Hopped, quite possibly too much flavour and Lovely colour.
*29th Mar ’12 – Very Early taster bottle 😉
A little under carbonated, its a Juicy fruit bomb maybe too too fruity as I’d actually like to taste some of the Choc malts underneath the hop flavour. Tiny bit of sweet alcohol on the nose, I’m surprised the dry-hop character seems to have mellowed out quite soon though this is my first time with a singled hopped Columbus beer. I’m thinking I should have reserved myself more than half a kilo from the 5kgs I had, I think I could have given it a bit more bitterness which would off-set the fruitiness a little.
*5th Apr ’12 – Just having a glass of this… even though its carb’d pretty low, if i splash it into the glass it gives a lovely head that clings down the glass and the carbonation actually fits pretty well with the beer.
Fruitiness is settling back, bitterness is starting to come through, tasty beer…. I’m happy with this 🙂
Probably Due To Network Congestion 