Baritone Bitter V2

Hot on the heels of the Landlord I made over the weekend, I diving straight into a hopefully improved version of my recent baritone bitter. This was a beer inspired by cask bass, with a heavy dose of Northern Brewer hops. Besides being far too bitter, I felt that there were a few other areas ripe for tweaking.

First, I'll say what's not changing. The water treatment, a 'burtonizing', and the yeast, WY1028 will stay the same. These were two of the more successful elements of my first version. The malt bill is only slightly modified, going to 6% simpsons medium crystal, up 1% from the last version.

In the hopping schedule I'm dropping the early hopping back to 10g of Northern Brewer, from 15g previously. This beer is no-chilled, and the flameout additions are 20g of Northern Brewer and 20g Williamette. I'm calculating the flameout additions as a 20min addition because of the no-chill, and altogether this brings my total IBUs to 26ish, from 34ish in the previous version. In fact I think I somehow ended up nearer to 40ish in the previous version. The williamette should also help to flavour the hop palate a bit. This was quite pleasant but a little monotone last time round.


Recipe:

Bass

A ProMash Recipe Report

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

Batch Size (L):          22.50    Wort Size (L):     22.50
Total Grain (kg):         4.21
Anticipated OG:          1.044    Plato:             10.95
Anticipated SRM:          13.2
Anticipated IBU:          25.9
Brewhouse Efficiency:       75 %
Wort Boil Time:             60    Minutes


Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                          Origin   Potential SRM
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 93.0     3.91 kg.  Pale Malt (Maris Otter)       UK        1.038      3
  5.9     0.25 kg.  Crystal 80L                   USA       1.033     80
  1.1     0.05 kg.  Roasted Barley (Simpson's)    UK        1.029    685

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

   Amount     Name                         Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 10.00 g.     Northern Brewer              Pellet   9.00  13.2  60 min.
 20.00 g.     Northern Brewer              Pellet   9.00   8.9  20 min.
 20.00 g.     Willamette                   Whole    4.30   3.8  20 min.


Yeast
-----

WY1028 London 

Water Treatment

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

0.75tsp CaCl2  2.5tsp CaSO4  1tsp MgSO4 

Landlord (Again!)

Back to my favourite beer, Landlord. Since I got the hand pump a few months back I've been looking forward to pouring the first pale golden pint of styrian infused perfection. I held off brewing this again because I was waiting for a pound of styrian goldings to arrive from the US. Now they're here, and there's no excuse, a big starter of WY1469 has been on the stirplate, and we're ready to go.

The malt bill is exactly the same as last time round, but I've upped the late hops, quite a bit in the case of the styrians. Water treatement is more or less the same, but with an extra quarter teaspoon of gypsum. I also added 1.5ml of Lactic Acid to the mash to bring the Ph to where I wanted it (around 5.5).

Recipe:

Landlord

A ProMash Recipe Report

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

Batch Size (L):          22.50    Wort Size (L):     22.50
Total Grain (kg):         4.36
Anticipated OG:          1.045    Plato:             11.14
Anticipated SRM:           5.3
Anticipated IBU:          31.3
Brewhouse Efficiency:       75 %
Wort Boil Time:             60    Minutes


Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                          Origin   Potential SRM
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 96.4     4.20 kg.  Pale Malt (Golden Promise)    UK        1.037      2
  3.6     0.16 kg.  Crystal 60L                   UK        1.035     60

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

   Amount     Name                         Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 42.00 g.     Willamette                   Pellet   4.30  26.4  60 min.
 25.00 g.     Goldings - E.K.              Pellet   5.00   4.9  15 min.
 50.00 g.     Styrian Goldings              Pellet   5.25   0.0  0 min.


Yeast
-----

WY1469 Yorkshire

Rebel Rising

My first real exposure to craft beer was way back in 2001 when I first visited the Franciscan Well brewery in Cork. Microbreweries were very new to Ireland at that time, and a completely new experience for me. Having grown up in a pub (My grandmother was a publican), I was used to the usual suspects in the beer lineup; Guinness, Murphys, Smithwicks, Heineken, Budweiser, Bulmer's Cider, and maybe Beamish, Harp and one or two more in the bigger establishments.

The whole idea of a smaller craft brewery was intriguing. It helped that the Franciscan Well produces pleasant easy drinking beers - a light fruity Kolsch, an interpretation of the Irish Red Ale, and a stout (plus a few others). I suppose you could call these "gateway" beers - they help open up the palate to possibility, without overwhelming with unfamiliar flavours and aromas. Quickly I developed a keen thirst for Rebel Red, their "Irish red ale". The whole Irish red ale thing is a bit of a mystery to me, I have no idea where it comes from. Smithwicks, the only widely available Irish beer even approaching the "Irish Red Ale" idea, would not qualify as one under the BJCP guidelines. Anyhow doubts about the origins of the style never stopped me enjoying Rebel Red, and I'm out to recreate it, well sort of anyway.

Rebel Red clocks in at about 4.3%, and from memory I think that they use fuggles and goldings hops. Hop aroma is fairly muted, but it is there. It is subject to some variation in sweetness, ranging from very dry to moderately sweet. I'm really guessing here, but I would estimate an O.G. of around 1.045ish, finishing at 1.012ish. IBUs around 25 or so. I would guess that they use a neutral ale yeast of some sort as there is no obvious yeast character, and also the founder is an American microbrewer.

I'm going to change this up a little, I'm interested in making a version of Rebel Red to suit my tastes, which involves a little bit of yeast character. I'll use WY1968, the Fuller's strain, and I will again use a little invert sugar to help get down to my desired finishing gravity - 1.012. I have had trouble with this yeast not attenuating as much as I would like, and I'm hoping the invert will help. Rebel red also has a slight caramel character, possibly diaceytl, though maybe something else. Invert no.2 should help to develop this character.

Anyhow, here's my recipe.

3.6kg Simpsons Maris Otter
310grams Simpsons Dark Crystal
   75grams Simpsons Roasted Barley
300grams Invert no 2 (well 300g raw sugar inverted)

50/50 mix of Williamette and E.K. Goldings to 25IBU at 60mins
10g Williamette, 10g E.K. Goldings at 15mins

Wyeast 1968, pitched at 18C

I'll be brewing tonight after work - my first weekday brew! I will no chill this one, so hop additions are at 45mins and at flameout.

Hot Break - You can see the ruby red colour

Brakspear Bitter

In choosing my latest recipe I had two criteria, that it came from my new book "Brew your own Real Ale" by Graham Wheeler, and that it would have a quick turn around. I'm all out of beer at the moment, and those kegs won't fill themselves. I chose to try the Brakspear Bitter recipe from BYORA because I had a good quantity of washed WY1275 Slurry from a previous brew. Also I've been keen to try using some invert sugar in my recipes, based on the experiences of mine host at perfectpint.blogspot.com. Invert is a traditional ingredient in British Ales, and it would appear that it has the dual benefit of adding flavour and decreasing the turn around time for the beer.

The BYORA book lists white sugar as an ingredient where the actual brewery uses invert, in the belief (stated in the introduction) that it adds no flavour to the beer. Several influential brewing bloggers dispute this, and claim that it does indeed add flavour and other characteristics to beer that white sugar can't provide. See http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com.au for lots of information on this.

To make my invert, I took 400ml of tap water to the boil, removed from the heat and slowly mixed in 350g of raw sugar. I also added a heaped tablespoon of glucose to help prevent crystals. To this I added a quarter teaspoon of citric acid and then put the mixture back on the heat. Once it was boiling I waited 20 minutes and then removed it from the heat and allowed it to cool. I ended up with something quite reminiscent of Lyle's Golden syrup, but less viscous.  It certainly has more flavour than a simple white sugar syrup, with some tannic notes.

This is the invert ready to use

I kept things pretty simple equipment wise for this brew, and I've gone back to no-chill just for convenience. As my yeast slurry was getting sort of old, I decided to take around 2.5L of wort into a conical flask to serve as a starter. I also added the finishing hops to this starter since it was going to cool a lot quicker than the bulk of the wort. Hopefully this will preserve most of the finishing hop aroma.

The malt bill is pretty simple, Maris Otter with a little Dark Crystal (all Simpsons malt). I added the invert with the irish moss addition approximately 15 minutes from the end of the boil. My equipment stood up to the job really well, and I think I have a pretty reliable boiler now. I'm toying with the idea of turning my big keg into a double batch BIAB rig using a gas burner. This would mean I could do a single batch on the electric rig and a double batch on the gas, 3 kegs from one brew day - nice! We'll see how that idea develops.

Mash in Progress

My starter was a little slow to take off, about 30 hours, so I'm really glad I decided to use a starter. That has now been pitched to the main batch and things have kicked off with a rocky head appearing after about 12 hours.

Here's the recipe:

3.86kg Simpsons Maris Otter
0.13kg Simpsons Dark Crystal
0.35kg white sugar - I substituted invert as per instructions above

54g Target (I subbed 45g Challenger) at 60mins
11g Styrian Goldings at flameout

"Dry hop with a few cones of Goldings" is the final instruction, whatever that means.

Special Bitter

After the success of the Beamish clone, I decided to do another recipe from Will at http://perfectpint.blogspot.com . This time it's his "Session Bitter". I had to make some changes based on hops and yeast available to me, and my lack of a mill. Will recommends toasting some Maris Otter for this brew, but this needs to be done before crushing. My local homebrew shop puts together my malt bills for me and I pick them up freshly crushed at the shop. This time around I substituted Briess Victory for the toasted MO.

I stuck with East Kent Goldings for finishing hops, but substituted Northdown for the Challenger. For yeast I chose Wyeast 1275 "Thames Valley Ale". This is supposedly the Brakespear strain, and is a pretty strong attenuator for an English Ale yeast. To be honest this was chosen in a bit of a rush when another yeast I was thinking of using was out of stock. It will be interesting to see how it turns out.

I still haven't quite figured out a 'house' yeast for English style bitters and lower alcohol 'session' beers. I use WY1469 (west yorkshire) and WY1968 (London ESB) quite a lot, and generally have vials or slurry on hand. While they both produce fantastic beer, the tend to not attenuate the beer as much as I would like. This is not a problem for me with bigger beers which I will only have one or two pints of in a night, but for 'session' beers I want a low FG, from about 1.008 to 1.010. I could get this with 1469 and 1968 if I was to add some simple sugars, but I'm keen to avoid this if I can - I would just prefer to stick to all malt beers.

I had a porter fermented with WY1469 recently which ended up at 1.016, and while it was a tasty drop at first, two pints in I had enough - which is unusual for me!

I've tried lowering the mash temperature, and this is something I will look at again when I get a proper recirculating mash system in operation, but have not had success. I want there to be a yeast character in my bitters, so american ale yeast is not an option, though it will generally give 75% or more apparent attenuation in my experience.  Hopefully the Thames Valley yeast may provide a solution, time will tell.

Anyway, here's the particulars for the session bitter as brewed by me:

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

Batch Size (L):          22.60    Wort Size (L):     22.60
Total Grain (kg):         4.00
Anticipated OG:          1.042    Plato:             10.38
Anticipated EBC:          23.4
Anticipated IBU:          29.4
Brewhouse Efficiency:       75 %
Wort Boil Time:             60    Minutes



Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                          Origin        Potential EBC
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  4.5     0.18 kg.  Victory Malt                  USA            1.034     73
 89.1     3.56 kg.  Pale Malt (Maris Otter)       UK             1.038      8
  3.8     0.15 kg.  Crystal 60L                   UK             1.035    158
  2.6     0.10 kg.  Crystal 120L                  UK             1.033    317



Hops

   Amount     Name                                    Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 20.00 g.     Northdown                             Pellet   9.60  26.0  45 min.
 16.00 g.     East Kent Goldings                Pellet   5.45   3.3  0 min.
 30.00 g.     East Kent Goldings                Pellet   4.75   0.0  Pre-ferment
 16.00 g.     East Kent Goldings                Pellet   4.75   0.0  Dry Hop


Yeast
-----
Wyeast 1275 (Thames Valley Ale)

Cubed Wort, 1L starter, 2.5L late hopping experiment

I've mentioned before that I 'no-chill' my beers. This involves transferring the still almost boiling wort into a clean sealed container (cube), and leaving this to cool in it's own time. It sounds barbaric, but has it's advantages. Firstly there's a big time saving, a good hour or two is knocked off the brew day. It separates out the brewing and fermenting stages of the day, which means that fermentation gets the attention it deserves, and is not just an afterthought at the end of a long session over the pot. You can draw off a litre or two and make a starter with the actual wort you are brewing with. There's no chiller to clean (or even buy), and no water used for chilling, which has been an issue here in Melbourne where water has been scarce in the recent past.

Boiling 2.5 litres of wort with 30g of EKGs

Of course no-chilling also has it's disadvantages, and the only one that constantly disappoints me is the lack of late hop character. It's something I look for in all of my beers, and is the reason that I'm about to set up a chilling system of my own. I'm keen to try out extreme late-hopping (see Jamil Zainasheff's article on it here), and I know that no-chilling will not work for this. However for english style bitters and ales, the late hop character is far more subtle, and I'm hoping that a technique I read about on http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/ might work for me. The idea is to draw off a small portion of the wort after cooling but just before fermenting, bring it to the boil, add the late hops, and then add it back to the remaining wort. This will cause it to cool rapidly, and should lock in some of the more volatile hop character. I'm going to give it a try for this brew, and we'll see how it works. I decided to draw off 2.5L from the kettle into a large conical flask I have before filling the cube itself. This evening (1 day after brew day), I boiled this up for 5 mins, then threw in what would normally be the 0min hop addition. I allowed this to boil for 1min, then let it sit for 10 mins and then emptied it into the cube on top of the 17L or so of wort already in there. I added my 1L starter of yeast, aerated (shaking), and now it's up to the yeasties to do their thing. It's currently sitting at 19C in my fermenting fridge.

Paddy's Stout

The last beer Aidan (my brew buddy) and I brewed was a Beamish stout clone. I went to University in Cork, and lived there for about 10 years in total, so became intimately acquainted with this beautiful stout. One of my favourite pubs in the world (The Oval) is directly across from the old Beamish brewery, and there was a particular satisfaction in drinking beer brewed just across the road. Unfortunately the brewery ceased operations a few years back, just before I left Ireland. I guess it was another reason to leave!

I came across a post on homebrewtalk.com outlining what looked like a well researched Beamish recipe. It turns out that the poster maintains an excellent blog at perfectpint.blogspot.com and has been perfecting the recipe for a few years. After some communication between us I settled on the following recipe:

beamish clone

A ProMash Recipe Report

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

Batch Size (L):          22.50    Wort Size (L):     19.00
Total Grain (kg):         4.22
Anticipated OG:          1.043    Plato:             10.70
Anticipated EBC:          77.9
Anticipated IBU:          29.1
Brewhouse Efficiency:       75 %
Wort Boil Time:             60    Minutes


Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                          Origin        Potential EBC
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 82.8     3.50 kg.  Pale Ale Malt (2-row)         Great Britain      1.037      5
  5.9     0.25 kg.  Roasted Barley                Great Britain  1.029   1523
  3.0     0.13 kg.  Chocolate Malt                Great Britain  1.034   1258
  8.3     0.35 kg.  Wheat Malt                    Australia        1.038      4

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

   Amount     Name                              Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 50.00 g.     Willamette                        Pellet   4.00  29.1  60 min.


Yeast
-----
Safale US-05

I used Williamette hops just because that's what I had. The malts used were; Crisp Ale malt, Simpsons Roasted Barley, Simpsons chocolate, and Joe White wheat malt.

We made this on February 26th, and fermented at 18C. It reached FG (1.010) in four days, and was left at room temperature (~20C) for a further week. I then put it in my keezer at 6C for another week.

When I see a need for fining beer, my standard operating procedure is to clarify with gelatin (2tsp in 200ml sterile water) in the fermenting vessel, leave for a day or two, and then transfer to keg. Here it wasn't so obvious whether fining was needed or not, but I decided to do it anyway as I have found US-05 yeast to be a poor flocculator. Also, I was going to serve this at a Paddy's day party, so I wanted to make sure people saw this beer at it's best.

We tapped the keg the night before the party, and it was obvious that I had made some errors with the serving setup. I had over carbonated the beer, and it was too cold. Some vigorous shaking and venting, and raising the temperature to 10C improved it immensely.

I started serving the beer at 2pm last Saturday, and by 4:30pm it was gone. Luckily Aidan and I (and our other halves) had managed to sneak a few in on the Friday night too, so we got a good impression of the beer.

Taste wise, it's not easy to compare with the commercial product. I think the influence of the nitro pour is difficult to ignore. However I can say that it's pretty close to Beamish, or certainly the Beamish that I am used to. There's a particular mix of delicate chocolate/coffee with roasted barley which you don't get with other Irish dry stouts. This is in contrast to many of the new world stouts which slam your palate with dark heavy flavours. For me stout is an easy drinking session beer, a thirst quencher and conversational lubricant. I'm happy to say that I can now brew it.