This, my inaugural blog post, marks my return to homebrewing after a hiatus of several months.
That hiatus was imposed mostly by work (although my decision to stop brewing will probably prove to have been counter-productive in the long run — brewing is, after all, meditative and relaxing in its own way). On the other hand, my decision to break the hiatus and start brewing again at this specific moment in time was prompted specifically by my desire to participate in this year’s International Homebrew Project.
The International Homebrew Project, managed by the inestimable Velky Al at Fuggled, is an opportunity for homebrewers to make a batch from the same recipe and to compare brewing and tasting notes. It often features a historical recipe. This year, we brewed a Porter based on a recipe used by St. Stephen’s brewery in Norwich, ca. 1834, lovingly researched by Ron Pattinson and recreated for homebrewers by Kristen England (their comments can be found here). The recipe is deceptively simple. The grist includes pale malt, brown malt, and black malt; the hops are Fuggles; and the yeast is a characterful English strain (in this case, the Fuller’s strain, Wyeast 1968).
The recipe (detailed below) features two particularly interesting features. The first is a long boil time of 120 minutes, which is double the standard boil time of most homebrewers. Historically, the main purpose of the long boil time may have been simply to concentrate the wort to the desired gravity, but as a side-effect the long boil likely produced a lot of maillard reactions and possibly some caramelization in the wort; hopefully those will have an impact on the flavour of my version as well. The second is a very high hopping rate, which will undoubtedly add not only a lot of bitterness, but also some interesting flavours, even though the hop additions are all relatively early. In all, this looks like a tasty beer for toasting the end of winter, and I’m looking forward to sampling it in six weeks.
Because I have space in my tiny little fermenting fridge for two one-gallon jugs, I like to brew two one-gallon recipes alongside one another. Generally, I’ll brew two recipes that can use the same yeast, or at least two recipes that use yeast strains capable of fermenting at the same temperature. This time around, I’m pairing the porter with a Golden Bitter that will also use Wyeast 1968. The recipe for this beer too is fairly simple, but it features a bit of a twist in the sense that it uses two varieties of New Zealand hops, Nelson Sauvin and Motueka. The first can produce a flavour reminiscent of white wine, alongside some tropical fruit notes; the second adds a hint of lemon-lime citrus. Together, those hops will hopefully complement the Golden Promise that makes up the bulk of the grist, and produce a beer that evokes far-off tropical places. With luck, it will help conjure winter away.
Each of these two recipes did pose some technical challenges at the one-gallon scale, especially since I try to do full-volume mashes whenever possible. The gravity of the porter and its long boil time demanded a lot of mash liquor, which stretched the capacity of my 12-quart mash pot to its limit. Since I had neglected to account for the drop in efficiency that comes with increasing gravity, I unfortunately ended up with less extraction than I wanted, and the wort that went into the fermenter had a gravity of only 1.064 instead of the planned 1.067 — not a significant enough difference to cause a real problem, but noticeable enough to be bothersome from a craft standpoint.
My past experience with Golden Bitters, on the other hand, prompted me to make a major change to my brewing process for pale beers. To make a long story short, I had been experiencing unpleasant and astringent off-flavours when brewing pale beers, all of which went away when I brewed a Czech Pilsener using 100% distilled water. Most likely, this signals a problem with the pH of my mashes — generally speaking, because dark grains lend some acidity, the mash pH for a pale beer will tend to be higher than the mash pH of a dark beer, and perhaps high enough to deviate from the ideal range (which lies somewhere around 5.5). Chicago water, which is moderately alkaline, tends to exacerbate this problem anyway, as does the relatively high water-to-grain ratio I use in a full volume mash. So, from now on, when I mash the grist for pale beers, I’ll compensate by using all distilled water, by adding some brewing salts to compensate for the lack of minerals in the water, and by tossing in a little acidulated malt. Hopefully, this technique will produce a noticeable payoff in this batch.
Finally, the yeast strain I’m using here is known to be highly temperamental. When it cooperates, it produces fantastic beer: not only does it emphasize the flavours of the malt, it also produces some interesting citrus esters. The problem is that it has a tendency to quit early in the fermenter, only to reawaken in the bottle, at which point it produces some unpleasant off-flavours that remind me of bad cider, and overcarbonates the beer. In the hope of avoiding these problems, I plan to let both batches ferment at 68 for about three days, give them both a swirl to rouse the yeast, and then let them condition at room temperature. Ideally, this will encourage the yeast to attenuate fully in the fermenter, not in the bottle!
And now, the recipes:
ST. STEPHEN’S PORTER, ca. 1834
Vitals
Batch size: 1 Gallon
Target OG: 1.067
Target FG: 1.021
Target ABV: 6.02%
Target Colour: 50 SRM
Target IBUs: 82
Mash Profile: Single Infusion, mash temp 156
Boil Time: 120 minutes
Grains
30 oz TF& Sons Maris Otter (72%)
8.75 oz TF & Sons Brown Malt (21%)
2.92 oz TF& Sons Black Malt (7%)
Hops
0.60 oz Fuggles (4.5%) at 120 minutes for 61 IBUS
0.30 oz Fuggles (4.5%) at 30 minutes for 21 IBUs
Yeast
Wyeast 1968 London ESB
“WINTER BEGONE” GOLDEN BITTER
Vitals
Batch Size: 1 Gallon
Target OG: 1.047
Target FG: 1.015
Target ABV: 4.24%
Target Colour: 3.9 SRM
Target IBUs: 40
Mash Profile: Single infusion, mash temp 154
Boil Time: 60 minutes
Grains
30 oz. Simpsons Golden Promise (95.2%)
1 oz Simpsons Golden Naked Oats (3.2 %)
0.5 oz Best Malz Acidulated Malt (1.6%)
Hops
0.04 oz Nelson Sauvin (11.8%) at 60 minutes for 9.8 IBU
0.08 oz Motueka (7.8%) at 60 minutes for 13 IBU
0.06 oz Nelson Sauvin (11.8%) at 15 minutes for 7.3 IBU
0.12 oz Motueka (7.8%) at 15 minutes for 9.7 IBU
0.06 oz Nelson Sauvin (11.8%) at flameout for 0 IBU
0.12 oz Motueka (7.8%) at flameout for 0 IBU
Yeast
Wyeast 1968 London ESB
