Posts Tagged ‘pale chocolate malt’
AG#102 – Gods of War
Posted on: August 18, 2013
Gods of War – An impromptu brewday and a half-baked earlier idea to use Warrior & Zeus hops for the first time, I’m going all out with the Cara/Crystal with some Melanoidin Malt to make up for me not having any Munich which was substituted by Dark Wheat Malt.
Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 69%
Crystal Malt – 8%
Caramalt – 8%
Wheat Malt Dark (Weyermann) – 8%
Melanoidin (Weyermann) – 5%
Chocolate Malt, Pale – 2%
Hops:
Apollo – 19.5 % @ 60 mins – 30g (FWH)
Zeus – 16.7 % @ 10 mins – 20g
Apollo – 19.5 % @ 10 mins – 20g
Warrior – 17 % @ 10 mins – 20g
Warrior – 17 % @ 0 mins – 30g (5-10mins Steep at 90c)
Zeus – 16.7 % @ 0 mins – 30g (5-10mins Steep at 90c)
Apollo – 19.5 % @ 0 mins – 30g (5-10mins Steep at 90c)
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.058
Final Gravity: 1.016
Alcohol Content: 5.5% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 91 EBU (55 EBU if you discount the 10min additions)
Colour: 60 EBC
Mash: 67°c for 60mins
Yeast: The Malt Miller’s West Coast Style yeast
The malts:
The Apollo hops really made the garage stink:
I’ve not used this yeast before, I’d be interested to hear others findings:
First batch sparge running into the copper:
A good rolling boil and the 10min hops go in:
Flameout hops go in at 90°c for a 5-10min steep after which I turned the Immersion cooler on:
Yeast was rehydrated in cooled boiled water as instructed, it will be fermenting at the ambient temp of the garage to start with as last weeks brew is still in the brew-fridge.
*24th Aug ’13 – Dry Hopped today with 30g of each hop, Apollo, Warrior & Zeus (almost 4.3g per litre) Hopefully bottle mid week.
*Bottled 29th Aug ’13 – with 80g white sugar, tastes sort of like a weird liquorice, unsure of this hop combo so far, maybe it will improve with some time in bottle.
*8th Sep ’13 – Taster bottle, this is coming along quite nicely, the colour is good and it has just enough dry hop presence, it could use a little more body but otherwise a pretty easy drinker. The hop flavours I was unsure about have gone and its light “Pithy” character (*Pithy used courtesy of @hopzine).
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 🙂
AG#55 – Imperial Smoked Porter
Posted on: May 15, 2011
- In: Brewing
- 3 Comments
Imperial Smoked Porter – This is serving a couple of purposes; First is a Trial run of a big beer in my newly finished False bottom Mash tun; Second is using up some odd bags of malt and some older hops I had in the freezer and some other part bags of hops.
I’m not expecting the stated bitterness from my hops – http://www.wellhopped.co.uk/Product.htm so I’m going semi-worst case scenario and adjusting AA for age and storage.
Fermentables:
Pale Malt – 70.2%
Caramalt – 8.2%
Peat Smoked Malt, medium – 4.2%
Amber Malt – 3.9%
Oat Malt – 3.5%
Chocolate Malt, Pale – 2.3%
Crystal Wheat Malt – 2.4%
Chocolate Wheat Malt – 1.8%
Flaked Wheat – 1.6%
Chocolate Malt – 1.5%
Flaked Rye 0 EBC – 0.5%
Hops:
Bobek – 3.7 % @ 75 mins – 124g (FWH)
Admiral – 12 % @ 75 mins – 19g (FWH)
Herkules – 15.8 % @ 75 mins – 35g (FWH)
Brewers Gold – 9.1 % @ 10 mins – 68g
Cascade – 5.5 % @ 0 mins – 29g (Flame-out Steep for 20mins)
Saaz – 3.8 % @ 0 mins – 33g (Flame-out Steep for 20mins)
Simcoe – 12.9 % @ 0 mins – 20g (Flame-out Steep for 20mins)
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.076
Final Gravity: 1.021
Alcohol Content: 7.2% ABV
Total Liquor: 36.8 Litres
Mash Liquor: 20.5 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 70 % (I collected 32L @ 1055 so hit efficiency but had too much liquor)
Bitterness: 121 EBU (I’m not expecting this as the bittering hops were fairly old so subtracting 30% from the AA will be more like 90EBU)
Colour: 140 EBC
Mashed for 90mins @ 66c
Boil for 75mins
Liquor treatment as per GW calc for General Purpose
Bigger bucket than normal with 8.5kg of malts:
New mash tun full of hot liquor:
Initial Mash a little high, cooled with cold liquor to 66c:
Tidy brewsheet (version 3, other two are scibbly works in progress) along with late hops:
Quite a heap of first Wort Hops in the copper along with the common salt addition:
What lies beneath, mash leftovers under the mash screen:
10 min hops going in:
Break material clumping in the copper:
Looks near as damn it to me (Showing 72 +2 divisions in the meniscus = 1076), not bad for a first outing of the new Mash Tun:
I had 3.7 Litres in the new mash tun to just cover the false bottom, the first sparge top-up was a little over 3 litres so I didn’t top-up and subtracted the difference from the Second batch sparge. This was to take into account the liquor under the screen, I ended up with 32 Litres in the copper which i thought too much but by the end of the 75min boil I was at my predicted gravity so I must have worked things out right!
Thoughts on the False bottom:
The mash ran off very well and after a few jugs of recirculating it was also very clear.
After stirring the second sparge and running off I came back to the mash tun to find it had run a load of malt particles into the copper as the last of the mash drained out. I’ll have to keep an eye on it next time to stop this just as it starts to show bits coming through, or have a go a Fly sparging so as to not actually disturb the Mash bed and hopefully limit the amount of malt particles coming through.
New cleaning game, poking bits of malt out of the perforated stainless!
16th May ’11
The usual, Stout+S-04 ferment 🙂 :
*Bottled 25th May ’11 with 71g of White sugar and a tiny sprinkle of Nottingham yeast into each bottle as a bit of a safety precaution as it had dropped very bright. Finished at 1016-1018 so about 7.7% ABV.
*4th JUne ’11 Taster bottle, tasting good the Peat Smoked malt works well with the Strength of this beer, Bitterness just right so I’m glad I adjusted the hop Alpha acids for my older hops.
AG#12 – Weights & Measures
Posted on: November 7, 2009
- In: Brewing
- 3 Comments
Fermentables:
Lager Malt 1600g
Golden Promise 1400g
Rye Malt 490g
Caramalt 250g
Torrefied Wheat 245g
Vienna Malt 215g
Amber Malt 80g
Chocolate Malt, Pale 40g
Hops:
Fuggles 60 mins 75g
Bramling Cross 15 mins 28g
Saaz Whole 0 mins 17g
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.041
Final Gravity: 1.010
Alcohol Content: 4% ABV
Total Liquor: 32.6 Litres
Mash Liquor: 10.8 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 43 EBU
Colour: 17 EBC
The Grist and 5g Gypsum:
I’m trying to guide my time with a Google Calender Timetable:
Mashed in 1 degree lower than I wanted, Grain was 16c, Strike should have been 75c… I lost a degree somewhere, so if anyones seen one its mine:
Calibrated Boiler = No more Jugging my liquor into the Tun (Even though I did this time just to check my scale):
Tucked up for 90mins:
Lots of Lovely Fuggles:
FWH in with 1st batch of Sparged wort:
Mash Paddle and floaters:
Hot Break, the 38L stock pot has just the right amount of head space for it to boil pretty much without watching it:
Bramling Cross Hops going in @ 15mins:
Saaz Hops going in at 0mins for 10min steep:
Just a point or two high, 1042/44:
Dry Sprinkled Nottingham Yeast:
Not a bad brewday, the wort tastes good enough to drink as it is 🙂
**Bottled 17th Nov ’09
AG#6 – Otter Dark Stout mkII
Posted on: September 19, 2009
- In: Brewing
- 3 Comments
Otter Dark Stout MKII – This is basically my first Extract own recipe which I’m now going to do as an All Grain 
It tasted bloody fantastic as an extract brewed with Safale s-04, but this time I’m thinking of using Whitelabs Irish Ale yeast WLP004 http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/strains_wlp004.html
This is mkII because I’m rationalising my hops a bit instead of using a combination of EKG’s / Fuggles as my bittering additions I’m going to use Admiral and save a few grams on the Flavour/Aroma additions.
For Water Treatment I’m thinking I’ll follow the Stout profile in the GW Calc, though will add a Tsp of Gypsum anyway.
I wonder if a stout mash be naturally more or less acidic??? (90min mash)
Fermentables:
Maris Otter 3800g
Roasted Barley 355g
Chocolate Malt, Pale 355g (Thanks to Paul @ http://www.barleybottom.com for the excellent service, You’ll be getting some of this when its ready)
Crystal Malt 355g
Crystal Wheat Malt 190g
Hops:
Admiral 20g (FWH) 60mins
Fuggle 20g @ 15mins
East Kent Golding 20g @ 15mins
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.048
Final Gravity: 1.016
Alcohol Content: 4.1% ABV
Total Liquor: 33.4 Litres
Mash Liquor: 12.6 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 36 EBU
Colour: 232 EBC
Here’s the pictures so far…..
The Grain bill, Maris otter, roasted barley, pale chocolate malt, crystal wheat malt, crystal malt:
Mash Temp, near as damn it 66 C, finished at 64 C Hmm!:
Mash pH, think this looks about right:
First run off, tastes pretty damn good:
Mash Tun and first batch sparge, it proceeded to stick after a good start, had to re-suspend and blow up the pipe, I wonder if it is the Crystal Wheat malt thats causing this? My last 23L batch in this tun worked perfectly with no sticking:
I managed to not prepare quite enough water this time too, nice! So I’m generally arsing about boiling kettles full of bottled water to top up my second batch sparge, I’m not far short but enough to be annoying 
The Mash is doing a slow trickle! How can it work perfectly one time and then be a b’stard the next?! *Bigger saw cuts maybe, they are all Junior Hacksaw cuts at present*
More to follow… S L O W L Y ! 
Admiral FWH going in with first batch spargings to warm up, the second batch sparge is running off better than the first, thankfully!!!:
Cooler in and 15 minute hops (Fuggles and EKGs):
I had 10g of Fuggles scraps left in the bag so these have gone in as a Zero minutes 10 min steep:
Cold Break and (Floaters) Hop seeds:
Hit my Target OG of 1048, happy happy joy joy:
I’ve decided I’m going to split this batch and use the Whitelabs Irish & s-04 yeasts.
Hop seed catcher and aeration:
Much needed refreshment, ‘Fuggles Bitter’:
Pitched Vial @ 22 C Whitelabs Irish Ale yeast WLP004 in FV1:
Dry Sprinkled @ 22 C Safale s-04 in FV3:
All done, Just a bit of tiding up to do Net curtain material, to act as a Mashing bag, ordered on ebay! And I’ll be making my Mash Tun Manifold’s slots wider with a regular Hacksaw rather than their present Junior hacksaw cuts.
As of about now 18.00 20/09/09, we have fermentation with both batches
Whitelabs WLP004 Irish Ale:
Safale s-04:
**Bottled 28/09/09 with 48g white sugar, both yeast batches tasting about the same.
Probably Due To Network Congestion 