I have a new barley crusher so I have picked up a 55 lb sack of Maris Otter which I'll use in my next few batches. This will get me some pretty good savings in the long run as buying by the sack is probably half the cost of buying it crashed at the homebrew store. I expect that my efficiency may be a bit of an adventure at first as I'll be starting with the factory delivered spacing. This recipe is for a big beer (OG of 1.065) and it will not annoy me too much if it comes in a bit lower on gravity/alcohol. Unless I get ridiculously low efficiency I should still be well within the OG range of the beer (1.048 - 1.065). As I get a better hang of how to store these grains I think I'll likely pick up some other grains to keep around.
I decided to use Wyeast London Ale III based on the description of it as a fruity and characterful yeast. I plan on reusing this cake on a re-brew of the RIS with Brett I made last fall. I am thinking the estery yeast might give the brett a bit more to chew on. It has a recommended temperature range from 64 to 74 F. I expect that it will have reasonable yeast character at around 70 F. It is getting cold now and the basement is down to the mid to low 60s so I will be using a reptile pad in my chest freezer to try to keep this beer and the next one around 70 F. I'll still have the controller hooked up to the freezer so I can bring the temperature down if needed. If this works it should give me good bit more flexibility for my brewing over the winter.
I chose to use a different hop as I have quite a bit of leftover hops from my Double IPA a few weeks back. I don't imagine that this substitution will have much practical impact as it only being used for bittering.
No FG was specified. Based on the stats for this yeast I'm projecting I'll get somewhere close to 1.015 which would be mid 70s for attenuation percentage. The Maltodextrine called for in the recipe might throw a monkey wrench into this projection though.
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| Temperature Control Probe, Reptile Heating Pad, & Blow Off Tube |
I'll be going with a blow off tube on this batch as the yeast seemed to have had pretty strong krausen in the starter - better safe than sorry.
Recipe Details:
- Grains/Adjuncts:
- 11 lbs Maris Otter
- 1 lb Chocolate Malt
- 1 lb Crystal 40L
- 8 oz Flaked Barley
- 4 oz Black Patent
- 1 oz Roasted Barley
- 8 oz Maltodextrine (Not factored into efficiency - 3 gravity points)
- Hops:
- 1 oz Northern Brewer (Pellet, 9.6% AA) at 60 min
- 0.5 oz Centennial (Pellet, 8.8% AA) at 60 min
- Yeast:
- Wyeast 1318 London Ale III
- Water:
- 10 gal spring water
- 5 gal tap water
- 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
- 1 tsp Gypsum
- 1 tsp Irish Moss at 20 min
Process Details:
- Batch Size:
- 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
- Mash:
- 150 F for 60 min(Target 150 F for 60 min)
- Boil:
- 80 min (Target 60 min)
- Fermentation Temp:
- 70 F
- Primary Duration:
- 4 weeks
- Secondary Duration:
- NA
Results:
- OG:
- 1.057 (Target 1.065)
- Efficiency:
- 64% (Target 74% - not including malto)
- FG:
- 1.018 (Target 1.015)
- Apparent Attenuation:
- 67% (Target 76%)
- ABV:
- 5.12% (Target 6.56%)
Brewing Notes:
- 10/3/15 - Built a starter with 1.4 liters of 1.040 wort and pitched the yeast. It was going pretty strongly after a few hours.
- 10/4/15 - Brewday - 12:10 PM to 5:00 PM including setup and cleanup
- Heated 10 gal of strike water to 155 F. Cycled through mash tun and RIMS until the entire system was at 155 F. This took 40 min
- Ended up with 4 gal above the false bottom and 6.5 gal in the system as a whole
- Added CaCl and Gypsum to the mash tun
- Doughed in. Stirred the grain to break up dough balls. It seemed like there were a lot more dough balls than normal for this batch - wonder if that is due to a crush difference from my new mill
- Cycled at about 2 qt per minute with the RIMS set to 152 F
- Checked the mash after 10 min - was at 153 F to 155 F. Gave it a good stir
- Brought 8.5 gal of sparge water up to 200 F
- Checked the mash after 30 min - was right about 150 F. Gave the grain another stir.
- Gave the mash a final stir at 50 min - mash was still at 150 F
- Ended the mash after 60 min. Drained the grant back to the mash tun.
- Added about a gallon of water prior to sparging to get about an inch of water above the grain bed
- Fly sparged at 1 gal per 5 min
- Gravity at the start of the sparge was 15 brix (1.061)
- After collecting 3 gal, which took 25 min, started heating the kettle. Gravity at the grant was 9.2 (1.037) at this point.
- Gravity at the grant was 4 brix (1.015) after collecting 8 gal. Decided to drain the grant into the kettle so I ended up with 9 gal of wort. Fly sparge took 50 min
- Had the wort up to a boil prior to the end of fly sparge
- Added the hops when I'd boiled down to 8 gal
- Added the malto with about 30 min left
- Added the irish moss with about 20 min left
- Put the wort chiller in to sanitize at flameout
- Chilled down to 70 F
- Measured the gravity as 14 brix which is a SG of 1.057
- Drained into the fermentor by letting the wort fall a couple feet to help aerate
- Pitched the yeast starter and moved the beer down to the fermentation chamber with an airlock
- 10/5/15 - The beer is holding steady at 70 F thanks to the temperature control. It is bubbling very vigorously with some krausen being forced up through the bow off tube.
- 10/10/15 - Still bubbling this morning
- 11/1/15 - Bottled today. Ended up with about 6 gal. The beer has fermented down to 1.018. There was still a layer of krausen on top of the beer. I primed with 3.5 oz of corn sugar. Ended up with 56 12 oz bottles. It tastes nice but I wouldn't say it really had much fruity ester character advertised by the manufacturer.
- 1/23/16 - Tasting Notes - The beer has some fairly bold flavors and a nice level of complexity. The level of roast character is pleasant - it dominates but doesn't completely overshadow the other aspects of the beer.
Lessons Learned:
- I got lower than normal efficiency which I suspect is due to the crush from my new mill being a bit coarser than what I'm used to. I will keep it at it's current setting for my next batch (Flanders Red 1.5.2) which is a grain bill I've used before. It will serve as a nice sanity check.
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