Thursday, 21 April 2016

Brown Ale and Vienna Ale tasting

A small note on two of the previous beers mentioned on the blog

Brown Ale

Drinking well, decent hoppy flavours but a bit less malty flavour than I would like in a strong-ish beer.  Perhaps the hops are too much and the malt will come forward later? I don't have many bottles left . Clarity is great with a reasonable amount of calcium and Notty yeast



Vienna Pale

There is a metallic edge in the one I am drinking. Again, light in malt flavours and rather hoppy, to be expected with the amount I put in. It's a good beer but really could have done with the dry hop to balance things out a bit, the aroma is lackluster.


Now obviously "malty" and "hoppy" doesn't help any random people reading this, but it helps me and I tend to lose notes I write :)

Saturday, 2 April 2016

Brown Ale of sorts

A Brown Bitter/Mild?


Decided to make a small beer to build up WY1332 for future brews. I think this will be an easy drinking brown bitter. Never used Phoenix hops before.  Starter was 1.5L of transatlantic brown ale wort. The starter had that slightly tart taste that Whitbread B, a lactic acid producer, has.  I've seen a few posts on JBK that say that Gales used a Whitbread B strain fermented at 23.5C for a day then 21C.  WY1332 is supposedly from Hales in the US, who got their yeast from Gales. I'm not the biggest fan of that lactic tang and have no idea if it will work in this beer. We shall see

Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 21.00 l
Boil Size: 25.29 l
Boil Time: 60 min
End of Boil Vol: 23.40 l
Final Bottling Vol: 19.50 l
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage
Date: 25 Jan 2016
Brewer: Moi
Asst Brewer:
Equipment: My 30l boiler
Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 80.4 %
Taste Rating: 30.0
Taste Notes:
Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
3000.00 gMild Malt (7.9 EBC)Grain180.0 %
250.00 gCrystal Extra Dark - 120L (Crisp) (236.4 EBC)Grain26.7 %
250.00 gOats, Malted (Thomas Fawcett) (3.9 EBC)Grain36.7 %
150.00 gBrown Malt (Crisp) (128.1 EBC)Grain44.0 %
100.00 gWheat, Torrified (Thomas Fawcett) (3.9 EBC)Grain52.7 %
25.00 gPhoenix [8.00 %] - Boil 60.0 minHop625.5 IBUs
25.00 gPhoenix [8.00 %] - Boil 5.0 minHop75.1 IBUs

Gravity, Alcohol Content and Color

Est Original Gravity: 1.041 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.012 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 3.7 %
Bitterness: 30.5 IBUs
Est Color: 22.5 EBC
Measured Original Gravity: 1.044 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Actual Alcohol by Vol: 4.4 %
Calories: 408.1 kcal/l

Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Full Body, Batch Sparge
Sparge Water: 15.92 l
Sparge Temperature: 75.6 C
Adjust Temp for Equipment: TRUE
Total Grain Weight: 3750.00 g
Grain Temperature: 17.0 C
Tun Temperature: 22.2 C
Mash PH: 5.20
Mash Steps
Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Mash InAdd 13.62 l of water at 76.6 C68.9 C45 min

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (3.03l, 12.90l) of 75.6 C water
Mash Notes: Simple single infusion mash for use with most modern well modified grains (about 95% of the time).