AG#32 Texas Brown Ale – Continuity Error

I recently blogged about my intention to brew a Texas Brown Ale.  More about it here.

Here’s the writeup from the brewday last week (28/02/14).  This beer is destined for the Northern Craft Brewers & Saltaire Brewery bar.  Brown hoppy craft cask ale.  No filtration, no pasteurisation, no pressurisation, no vitriol. 

Original Gravity (OG): 1.048
Final Gravity (FG): 1.010
Alcohol (ABV): 5.1%
Colour (EBC): 50.4
Bitterness (IBU): 48.9 (Average)

3.30kg Golden Promise Pale Malt (Simpsons)
0.50kg Biscuit Malt (Dingemans)
0.25kg Dark Crystal Malt
0.25kg Chocolate Malt
0.25kg Pale Wheat Malt (toasted)

10g Columbus (Tomahawk) (16.5% Alpha) @60 minutes from the end (boil)
12g Brewer’s Gold (7.5% Alpha) @30 minutes from the end (boil)
88g Brewer’s Gold (7.5% Alpha) @10 minutes from the end (boil)
50g Columbus (Tomahawk) (16.5% Alpha) @0 minutes from the end (boil)
100g US Cascade (pellets) (5.8% Alpha) dry hop

Safale US05  yeast.

Strike temp of 75C, 12.0L liquor for 4.55kg grain. Mashed in at 65C (single step infusion).   Mashed for 75 minutes.   First runnings 1.090.  Sparged at 76C 19.0L liquor.  Collected 24L at 1.046. 60 minute boil.  

I collected 17L of wort, post boil, with an OG of 1.056.  Liquored back with 2.0L cooled boiled water to 19L with an OG of 1.048

Pitched US05 yeast starter at 19C.

Update: 03/03/14  1.040 

I’ll be transferring to secondary and adding 100g US Cascade pellets for 3-5 days.

Update: 12/03/14  FG 1.012 (4.8%) Dry hopped with 100g US Cascade pellets (in primary).

N.B. My last brewday led me to look at my efficiencies.  I got in a right muddle and was rescued by a professor of brewing, loosely associated with Stringers Brewery.  I applied the prof’s maths to my numbers from this brew. And I calculated my Mash Efficincy as 80% and my Brewhouse Efficiency as 69%.  Workings out, below. 

Pale malt: 3.5 kg @ 293 L.deg per kilo = 1025.5
Biscuit malt: 0.5 @ 273 = 136.5

Dark crystal malt: 0.25 kg @ 275 = 68.75
Chocolate malt: 0.25 @ 273 = 68.25

wheat malt: 0.25 @ 296 = 74.0

Total potential extract 1025.5 + 136.5 + 68.75 + 68.25 +74.0 = 1373 litre.degrees

My runnings from the mash were 24 litres at 1.046 Specific Gravity, so: 24 litres x 46 degrees = 1104 litre.degrees

My mash efficiency is something like…
 1104/1373 = 0.804 = 80%

Post-boil, I ended up with…
17L @ 1.056 i.e 17 x 56 = 952 and 952/1373 = 0.693
That is 69.0% which I’m calling my brewhouse efficiency.

 A couple of photos:

The grist

The toasted wheat malt

First runnings from the mash

The final colour

Texas Brown Ale

Image from http://www.beerliving.com/

This will be my brew for the upcoming Northern Craft Brewers event in April 2014.  Alongside the bottle competition, there will be a full bar of homebrewed beer to explore, this being one them.  I’ve brewed an American Brown Ale before, but this time I’m taking inspiration from one of the craft brewing pioneers – Pete Slosberg and his Wicked Ale (circa. 1986).  Sadly this beer was discontinued in 2011*.  More recently a Bear Republic / Fat Head’s and Stone Brewing Co. collaboration paid tribute to Pete’s Wicked Ale, when they brewed TBA, a 7.1% / 80 IBU “extra hoppy brown ale“.  Sounds good to me!, however, as this will be on a packed bar, with fairly limited drinking time, and dispensed from cask, I have toned it down, and in doing so hopefully making it more akin to Pete’s beer.  I can always brew it again at full volume, for bottle consumption.

Original Gravity (OG): 1.051
Final Gravity (FG): 1.011
Alcohol (ABV): 5.3%
Colour (EBC): 50
Bitterness (IBU): 45 (Average)

The Stone collab recipe calls for; Victory malt – substituted for biscuit malt; Toasted Wheat Malt – which I will sub in some home-tasted pale wheat malt; and molasses – which I will omit for this lower abv version.  I think this wants to be a medium-bodied beer, so no point in overloading it, for the sake of “cloning” a recipe.  I think it will be complex enough with the roasted malts.

Golden Promise Pale Malt
Biscuit Malt
Crystal Malt (120L)
Chocolate Malt
Pale Wheat Malt (toasted)

The hops in a Texas Brown Ale should be Cascade heavy, but taking direction from the Stone TBA, I’m going to layer it up with Columbus and Brewer’s Gold (leaf hops) and dose it with a Cascade dry hop (pellet).  In comparison to the Stone beer, my target IBUs don’t look wayward enough, but I’m shooting for a BU:GU of 0.9, so should be plenty for the strength.

Columbus (bittering/late copper)
Brewer’s Gold (late copper)
Cascade (dry)

If I’m given enough encouragement, I may be persuaded to brew a 7.1% abv / 80 IBU version.  Comments welcome, as ever.

Thanks for reading.

*Brookston Beer Bulletin – “Gambrinus Discontinues Pete’s Wicked Ale“

AG#29 West Coast IPA Style Ale

This is my brew for the Yorkshire vs Lancashire homebrew challenge arranged as part of the Leeds International Beer festival 2013.  I opted to brew a West Coast Pale style Ale….this plan evolved mid-brewday:  

Original Gravity (OG): 1.058
Final Gravity (FG): 1.010
Alcohol (ABV): 6.4%
Colour (SRM): 14 (EBC):
Bitterness (IBU): 50 (Average)

4.400 kg  Golden Promise Pale Malt
0.230 kg  Dark Crystal Malt

14g Green Bullet (12.0% Alpha) @40 minutes from the end (Boil)
20g Northdown (9.8% Alpha) @30 minutes from the end (Boil)
35g Cascade (7.9% Alpha) @15 minutes from the end (Boil)
20g Simcoe (15.0% Alpha) @o minutes from the end (Boil)
40g Centennial (11.0% Alpha) @0 minutes from the end (Boil)
90g Amarillo (8.7% Alpha) @0 minutes from the end (Boil)
10g Simcoe (15.0% Alpha) leaf in secondary for 3 days (dry hop)
20g Amarillo (8.7% Alpha) leaf in secondary for 3 days (dry hop)
20g Centennial (11.0% Alpha) T90 pellets in secondary for 3 days (dry hop)
20g Citra (12.0% Alpha) T90 pellets in secondary for 3 days (dry hop)
10g Columbus (12.6% Alpha) leaf in secondary for 3 days (dry hop)

I’ll add the usual info on temperatures etc at some point, but the main thing I learnt from this brew is that it isn’t safe to brew a Pale Ale while drinking super hoppy hoppy IPA and watching a beer review of Magic Rock’s Unhuman Cannonball.  I had already mashed in so the malts stayed the same, however my hop bill went out of the window and I delved into my freezer.  I stuck with the shorter volume collected and the higher OG.  I’ll add more dry hops than I originally intended on, et voilà!  A West Coast/West Yorkshire/Northern Hemisphere inspired India Pale Ale, of sorts.  The IBUs are lower than I would have aimed for had I intended to brew a 6.4% IPA, but the BU:GU ratio is still a respectable 0.86.

This beer will now be tasted alongside other Leeds Homebrew/Team Yorkshire beers, before we put forward our gladiator beers to be scrutinised by a panel of judges selected by the Leeds International Beer Festival.  Our Lancashire foe will be doing the same, and the best of Yorkshire will be pitted against theirs during the @LeedsBeer Fest in September.

AG#24 Tomahawk IPA

I got the green light for a brewday on Sunday morning, so I set the kit up and weighed the grain the night before to ensure an early start. I had five hours to get this done and cleared away (ended up being nearer 6). This was a rebrew of my Tomahawk IPA AG#9 and AG#15. My aim was to brew a similar beer, but as this is one of my two recipes in development I tried a couple of different things with it. Having just bought Mitch Steele‘s IPA book, I couldn’t resist tinkering. The first was to tweak the grain bill, upping the quantity of caramel malts. To date I have used a combination of Pale, Munich, Pale Wheat and a small quantity of Caramalt in my IPAs, but wanted to experiment, so out with the Pale Wheat Malt and in with some Crystal 60L.

The second change was to the hopping, sticking with Pilgrim for bittering and with Columbus as the late copper hop. I previously brewed with Cascade in there too so kept that. I added Chinook to the bill which I hope will tame the Tomahawk down a notch. As well as the slight change to hop varieties I wanted to structure the schedule, as per a Deschutes recipe (Inversion IPA) in the Steele book. I want a beer with 80 IBUs or thereabouts that isn’t harsh, and as I wasn’t sure how that would work it seemed a sensible idea to use a Deschutes recipe (Inversion IPA) as a guideline for hop addition rates. I based my recipe on their 5.8g/l , which worked out at 133g, added to the kettle as follows: 15% at the start of the boil, 25% at 30 minutes and 60% at 5 minutes. For the dry hops, Deschutes use 1.16g/l which works out at 30g. This seems a bit low, but as those hops will be Columbus, Chinook and Cascade then they should still give it a bit extra on the aroma.

Original Gravity (OG): 1.062
Final Gravity (FG): 1.012
Alcohol (ABV): 6.7%
Colour (SRM): 9.3 (EBC): 18.4
Bitterness (IBU): 80.0 (Average)

5.000 kg (82%) Golden Promise Pale Malt
0.600 kg (10%) Caramalt
0.370 kg (6%) Munich
0.120 kg (2%) Crystal 60L

20g Pilgrim (11.2% Alpha) @60 minutes from the end (boil)
33g Columbus (14.5% Alpha) @30 minutes from the end (Boil)
10g Cascade (7.9% Alpha) @5 minutes from the end (Boil)
10g Chinook (12.5% Alpha) @5 minutes from the end (Boil)
60g Columbus (14.5% Alpha) @5 minutes from the end (Boil)
10g Cascade (7.9% Alpha) in secondary for 3 days (dry hop)
10g Chinook (12.5% Alpha) in secondary for 3 days (dry hop)
10g Columbus (14.5% Alpha) in secondary for 3 days (dry hop)

Water treatments: Campden tablet (HLT), 1 tsp gypsum (mash). My weighing scales aren’t great and I only need 3-4g, which is a tsp (approx). Same rule for the epsom salts in the boil.

Strike temp of 76C, 15.2L liquor for 6.090kg grain. Mashed in at 68C, a degree higher than my target as my mash tun loses a bit of heat (single step infusion). Mashed for 60 minutes and temp dropped to 67. Sparged at 78C (strike temp should have been 88C, error), 19L liquor. The boil was scheduled for 60 minutes. All went to plan, Pilgrim in at 60 minutes (from the end of the boil), followed by additions at 30 minutes and 5 minutes. No steeped hops after flame out on this occasion.

I collected 21L of wort post boil with SG of 1.062. Pitched US-05 at 18C. Once I get back to the point of being able to plan ahead, I’ll brew a few more beers with liquid yeast. I’ll be transferring to secondary and dry hopping with Columbus, Cascade and Chinook.

Updated 09/01/13 – SG 1.032

AG#22 Tricks of the Shade – Black IPA

It was an impromptu brewday yesterday.  It was a nice moment when I realised that I had all the components necessary to create beer, excluding free time, but went for it anyway.  I had intended to brew a Christmas Belgian Stout as per my last post, but the yeast starter didn’t make it.  Sad times.  I’ll revisit that another time.  Instead I decided to give brewing a Black IPA a third shot.  My previous efforts AG#5 (Nebulous) and AG#18 (Transatlanticism) both yielded good results, but not the kind of Black IPA I was looking for.  Both of my previous brews were roasty versions of the style, more what some would describe as a hoppy porter.  For my third attempt I had planned to steep the dark malts overnight and add the resulting wort to the boil.  However, due to the impromptu brew, I decided on adding the Carafa III just before the sparge.  As usual, the figures below reflect the recipe.  I did OK, but did collect more wort at a higher gravity than planned.  Most likely due to several things, including; not factoring in the Carafa III, boiling for slightly longer and I think my software has malt extract values that might be lower than the actual values?

Original Gravity (OG): 1.051
Final Gravity (FG): 1.008
Alcohol (ABV): 5.7%
Colour (SRM): 7.7 (EBC): 15.2 (this is the colour without the dark malts)
Bitterness (IBU): 55.0 (Average)

3.750 kg (75%) Golden Promise Pale Malt
0.300 kg (10%) Caramalt
0.200 kg (10%) Munich I
0.150 kg (5%) Biscuit
0.350 kg Carafa III (added before sparge)

27g Columbus (16.5% Alpha) @15 minutes from the end (boil)
13g Simcoe (16.2% Alpha) @15 minutes from the end (Boil)
30g Galaxy (14.4% Alpha) @10 minutes from the end(Boil)
30g Simcoe (16.2% Alpha) @5 minutes from the end (Boil)
100g Crystal (3.3% Alpha) @0 minutes (Steep at flame out)
20g Galaxy (14.4% Alpha) @0 minutes (Steep at flame out)

Water treatments:  Campden tablet (HLT), 1 tsp gypsum (mash).  My weighing scales aren’t great and I only need 3-4g, which is a tsp (approx).  Same rule for the epsom salts and gypsum in the boil.  Since my outing to Roosters, I was testing the PH at various stages of the process.  Those in the brackets are the target range:

HLT 5.6
Start of mash 5.4 (5.2-5.5)
First runnings 5.0 (4.8-5.2)
Pre boil 5.5 (5.1-5.4)
Post boil 5.0 (4.9-5.3)
Beer after fermentation (3.7-4.2)

Strike temp of 74C, 12.5L liquor for 5kg grain.  Mashed in at 66C (single step infusion).  Mashed for 75 minutes and temp remained constant.  Sparged at 78C (strike temp 85C), 23.30L liquor. I didn’t take any gravity readings as I was trying to be a dad and a brewer at the same time.  I used this brew to try out using biscuit malt, to give me an idea of what to expect for future brews.  It gave the first runnings a really deep amber colour, even though it was only 5% of the bill.  I suppose of the Carafa doesn’t dominate then it may even add to the malt aroma too.

The boil was scheduled for 90 minutes, but due to life getting in the way it was more like 110 minutes.  No drama here is nothing was scheduled to happen until 15 minutes from the end.  In went the Immersion Chiller, protofloc and first addition of Columbus.  Closely followed by additions of Simcoe, Galaxy and Crystal.

My next time-pressure induced mistake was running to the FV too soon and ending up with 33C wort.  As I couldn’t pitch at this temp, I sealed the FV and stood it outside to think about what it had done.  An hour or so later I pitched the US-05 at 23C and left the FV in the cold kitchen so it’s temp continued to fall (18C this morning, and moved to a warmer room).   I collected 24L of wort post boil with SG of 1.058.

I’ll be dry hopping in the FV with Galaxy, before making this my first kegged beer just in time for Christmas.  Any advice on dry hopping in the keg would be great, thanks.

Update: 09/11/12 down to 1.020. Dry hopped with 80g Galaxy. Great aroma from the FV. Colour is a dark muddy brown rather than black, but tastes good so I’m happy enough.

Update: 12/11/12 down to 1.016.

Update: 15/11/12 removed dry hops from FV (6 days).

Update: 20/11/12 kegged (and 5 bottles) 1.012 (6.1%)

AG#17 Hangerhead Double IPA

Had a crack at brewing an Imperial IPA last week (18/07/12).  I was back using my own kit, rather a bump back down to reality.  No supercharged boiler or immersion chiller to play with and boy did it tell.  Despite my best efforts the planned recipe changed during the brew.  (No photos as  I was busy mucking around sorting the issues).

Original Gravity (OG): 1.089 (°P): 21.3
Final Gravity (FG): 1.020 (°P): 5.1
Alcohol (ABV): 9.09%
Colour (SRM): 8.2 (EBC): 16.2
Bitterness (IBU): 96.6 (Average)

3.4kg Maris Otter
0.300kg White table sugar (added to the copper)
0.180kg Carapils
0.070kg Crystal Malt 30L

10g Columbus (14.2% Alpha) @90 Minutes (Boil)
10g Columbus (14.2% Alpha) @45 Minutes (Boil)
30g Simcoe (14.2% Alpha) @30 Minutes (Boil)
30g Centennial (10.4% Alpha) @0 Minutes (Steep)
40g Simcoe (14.2% Alpha) @0 Minutes (Steep)
40 Columbus (14.2% Alpha) @0 Minutes (Steep)

25g Centennial (10.4% Alpha) dry hop Day 5 in FV
30g Simcoe (14.2% Alpha) dry hop Day 5 in FV

Single step Infusion at 65°C for 60 Minutes. Water treatments: Campden tablet (HLT), Gypsum (mash), Epsom Salts (Boil).  Boil for 90 Minutes. WLP090 San Diego Super (repitched from AG#16).

Strike temp of 73C and 9.0L liquor for 3.650kg grain.  Mashed in at 65C.

Mashed for 60 minutes and temp remained constant.  Sparged at 78C, 12.05L liquor. I didn’t record the gravity readings, I’ll start doing this as soon as I can warrant buying a refractometer.

First hop addition of Columbus added to the copper during transfer from the mash tun (which blocked for the first time.  Last time I had a problem with running from the tun, it was due to the manifold coming apart) .  More Columbus at 45 minutes, followed by Simcoe at 30 mins.

Added a protofloc tablet at 15 minutes.  At the end of the boil the wort was cooled to 80C before further additions of Columbus, Centennial and Simcoe.  These were steeped while I ran to the FV, which was probably 40+ minutes thanks to a blockage.

Collected my target of 11L of wort post boil with SG of 1.068.  Having not been able to check my gravity before now, I was a little pissed off with missing my target OG of 1.089 by a country mile.  I decided to add a further 100g sugar (boiled on the hob for 10 minutes) which I calculate brings the OG to 1072.  As I had already strayed from the recipe and because the wort was looking a little on the light side, I also reduced 200ml of wort on the hob to add a little more colour. Cooled to 20C (which took hours due to cooling in the sink) and pitched my WLP090 yeast starter.

Due to the new OG I have demoted this brew from Imperial to Double IPA.  I’ll try and brew it again when I sort my kit out.  I really don’t know what went so wrong.  Despite that, the brew is happily fermenting and smells great.  If this turns out well, I may still enter it into the National Homebrew competition.

I dry hopped the FV 22/07/12 with 25g Centennial and 30g Simcoe.

Some thoughts from CAMRGB on this beer here.

AG#15 Broadford Tomahawk IPA

Decided late last night to get a brew on and rebrewed the Tomahawk IPA that won me first place at the Northern Craft Brewers event at Saltaire Brewery back in May.  I only got to drink a half of it on the day, so hopefully I’ll be successful in recreating something close to it.

Original Gravity (OG): 1.058 1.055 (see edit note at the end of the post)
Final Gravity (FG): 1.014
Alcohol (ABV): 5.40%
Colour (SRM): 7.0 (EBC): 13.7
Bitterness (IBU): 65.4 (Average)

4.6 kg (86.96%) Maris Otter
0.300 kg (5.67%) Munich I
0.300 kg (5.67%) Pale Wheat Malt
0.090 kg (1.70) Crystal Malt 30L

28g Pilgrim (11.2% Alpha) @60 Minutes (Boil)
40g US Cascade (7.6% Alpha) @30 Minutes (Boil)
10g Columbus (Tomahawk) (16.5% Alpha) @5 Minutes (Boil)
40g US Cascade (7.6% Alpha) @5 Minutes (Boil)
40g Columbus (Tomahawk) (16.5% Alpha) Flame out (steep)
50g Columbus (Tomahawk) (16.5% Alpha) Dry hop

Single step Infusion at 65°C for 60 Minutes. Water treatments: Campden tablet (HLT), Gypsum (mash), Gypsum and Epsom Salts (Boil).  Boil for 60 Minutes. Safale US-05.

Strike temp of 74C and 13.00L liquor for 5.290kg grain.  Mashed in at 65C.

Mashed for 60 minutes and temp remained constant.  Sparged at 84C, 18.7L liquor.  I didn’t record pre and post boil volumes and gravity readings.

First hop addition of Pilgrim at 60 minutes, then US Cascade at 30 minutes. Added a protofloc tablet at 15 minutes along with immersion chiller, and further copper additions of Cascade and Columbus at 5 minutes.  Steeped Columbus at flame-out.

Collected 19L of wort post boil with SG of 1.058.  Cooled to 20C and dry pitched one packet of US-05 yeast.

A shot of the trial jar in the daylight.

Happy with the brewday.  Came up short again, but still using some borrowed kit and think I lost volume through, the boil; cooling and dead space (approx 4L).  Also, still lots of question marks for me re: mash efficiency.  One day I’ll get time to look at this stuff properly, but at the moment I’m just happy brewing and writing my blog.

I’ll be dry hopping this brew with Columbus (Tomahawk).

A few more photos of the brewday here.

Edit: Just realised a mistake. I changed my recipe on BrewMate and didn’t bother reprinting the brewday sheet.  Subsequently I misread my scribbled changes and my OG was actually 1.055, which explains how I came up short with 19L at 1.058.   I would have liquored back had I spotted this.

Original Gravity (OG): 1.058 (see edit note at the end of the post)
Final Gravity (FG): 1.010
Alcohol (ABV): 6.40%

Update: Dry hopped with 20g Columbus in the FV 17/06/12.

Bottled 24/06/12.