Fullers ESB, and another element failure

I'm a regular listener to the brewing network's "Can you brew it" show with Jamil Zainasheff. I have a lot of time for Jamil, mostly because of his book "Brewing Classic Styles". Everything I've brewed from that book has been a complete success, and I've learned a hell of a lot just working through the recipes. "Can you brew it" provided the recipe for the Black Sheep Riggwelter I brewed quite a while back. This wasn't a complete success, mainly due to under-attenuating yeast which left me with a sickly sweet 1.018 FG. Still I could see that the recipe had the potential to be really good.

My next "Can you brew it" recipe is Fuller's ESB. There were actually a series of shows on Fuller's beers, and one conclusion the guys came to was that you need to do a parti-gyle brew, and stick to a somewhat anarchic fermentation schedule in order to accurately nail this beer.  I'm not going to go quite that far, although the "Brew in a bag" system is essentially a no-sparge technique, meaning that my wort will be similar to the first runnings from a parti-gyle. I have adjusted the numbers from the show a little, as I wanted a slightly lower OG - though increased efficiency means I ended up two points higher than I was aiming anyway. I have subbed some of the hops too, magnum for target for the bittering addition I don't think will hurt much. Subbing extra EKGs for challenger for the final hop addition will undoubtedly change the character of the beer, though I think the dry hopping will probably dominate over any potential changes from this.

I brewed this yesterday, and about 5 minutes after mashing out I had more element woes. No harm done but I how have a plug in RCD which is completely shot. I won't go into detail about this, but it meant I had to rip the insulation from my pot and carry it inside to my cook top. Luckily for me the big burner on our cook top is well able to get a rolling boil going with 26ish litres of wort, so the beer should turn out ok. 

Here's the recipe:

Recipe Specifics

----------------

Batch Size (L):          22.50    Wort Size (L):     22.50

Total Grain (kg):         5.70

Anticipated OG:          1.056    Plato:             13.77

Anticipated EBC:          29.5

Anticipated IBU:          37.1

Brewhouse Efficiency:       70 %

Wort Boil Time:             60    Minutes

Pre-Boil Amounts

----------------

Evaporation Rate:      15.00    Percent Per Hour

Pre-Boil Wort Size:   26.47    L

Pre-Boil Gravity:      1.047    SG          11.79  Plato

Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                          Origin        Potential EBC

------------------------------------------------------------

 95.0     5.41 kg.  Pale Malt (Maris Otter)       UK             1.038      8

  5.0     0.29 kg.  Crystal 120L                  UK             1.033    317

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.

Hops

   Amount     Name                              Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time

----------------------------------------------------------------

 20.00 g.     Magnum                Pellet  11.00  31.2  60 min.

 15.00 g.     Wye Northdown         Pellet   9.60   3.0  3 min.

 25.00 g.     East Kent Goldings    Pellet   4.3    2.8  3 min.

 21.00 g.     East Kent Goldings    Pellet   4.3    0.0  Dry Hop

Yeast

-----

WY1968 London ESB

Chilled to 20 degrees and pitched with a generous quantity of washed yeast from the Rebel rising brew (WY1968 London ESB). As mentioned before this ended up at 1.058 OG, meaning efficiency was really more like 73%. As I have been doing for other high OG beers, I did a mash out for 15mins at 75C. Mash temp was 64C to get the desired attenuation from the WY1968 yeast.

It's now in the fermenting fridge at 18C. I'll step this up to 20 over the next day or two and send it back down to 18 later on in the fermentation, somewhat mimicking the Fullers fermentation schedule.

Yesterday was meant to be a double brew day, with a Beamish clone being the second brew. The element blowing meant that this didn't happen so if I can get it fixed soon I'll be brewing up some Beamish later this week.

Epic Pale Ale

I decided to do another "Can you brew it" recipe, this time the cloned "Epic Pale Ale" from New Zealand. The recipe is quite interesting, using Golden Promise in an American pale ale style beer. After the success of the Landlord clone I did with Golden Promise I'm quite keen to use it again to try and get used to it. I have had Epic quite a few times, and it's a really pleasant beer with a big up front hoppiness.

Here's the recipe:

Epic Pale Ale

A ProMash Recipe Report

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (L):          22.50    Wort Size (L):     22.50
Total Grain (kg):         5.16
Anticipated OG:          1.052    Plato:             12.93
Anticipated SRM:           6.0
Anticipated IBU:          22.2
Brewhouse Efficiency:       75 %
Wort Boil Time:             60    Minutes


Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                          Origin        Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 79.8     4.12 kg.  Pale Malt (Golden Promise)    UK             1.037      2
 10.2     0.53 kg.  Carahell Malt                 Germany        1.034     11
  3.3     0.17 kg.  CaraPils                      Germany        1.033      2
  6.7     0.34 kg.  CaraRed                       Germany        1.035     20

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

   Amount     Name                              Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 12.00 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   5.50   7.6  60 min.
 18.40 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   5.50   7.5  30 min.
 45.00 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   5.50   7.2  10 min.
 50.00 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   5.50   0.0  0 min.
 50.00 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   5.50   0.0  0 min. (after 10 min whirlpool)
 65.00 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   5.50   0.0  Dry Hop (at ferment temp)
 65.00 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   5.50   0.0  Dry Hop (cold)


Yeast
-----
 Wyeast 1272 American Ale II

As you can see, this beer takes a bucketload of hops, all cascade. Fortunately I had half a kilo which needed a home. Today also marked my first go at recirculating the mash. I hooked up my new control panel to an electric kettle with a small stainless steel coil in it through which the mash was recirculated. For now let's just say it went well and I was pretty happy with the system. A full report with pics etc, will follow when I get things dialled in a bit more.

I estimated an efficiency of 75%, but ended up with only 72%, so I'm two points off my intended original gravity. Hopefully this won't hurt the beer too much. Brew in a bag is essentially a 'no-sparge' technique, so it's difficult to break through the 75% mark, and that gets more difficult the higher the OG (or grain to water ratio). I expect to get a more consistent and higher efficiency once I start sparging.

Here's a picture of the organised chaos. The laptop was monitoring temperature readings as I don't have any displays on the control panel yet.

Forgot two things today, I should have done a mashout step, as I was keen to see how my little heat exchanger would handle it, and also I forgot to add koppafloc in the last 10 minutes. BIAB does result in pretty cloudy wort, so kettle finings are important, but I think extended cold conditioning helps with clearing, and I need to do that with this beer anyway for the dry hopping schedule.

Finally, my element blew just at the end of the boil. There has been some chatter on aussiehomebrewer.com about these elements, but mine looked in good condition so I was pretty surprised that it went. The insulation melted where the wire joins the body and the live and neutral touched. I was in the kitchen when it happened and the bang was pretty loud even from there. Scary. I'll have to figure out a replacement before the next brew day.