British Brewer

On Tap (Mar 8th 2010)

Apologies for the lite post week, it was a busy busy week at work with some long days and late nights. I was also working on a long post for Inly School where I am a sometime middle school guest speaker on a class I taught recently. I will post the link when its up.  It has been a lite brewing week to as all the fermenters are full with fermenting and conditioning ale with none ready to be transferred.  This is the problem when brewing heavier ales like Olds and Imperials, they take longer to condition. Take a look at my cellar inventory below and everything is in a 3-4 weeek rest (or more).

So we will have to wait a week for the Speckled Hen clone to get started.  My kids are off school this week and next and the wife and kids will be off west to LA to visit Grandpa, so poor old me is left alone with my brewing, I just wish I had timed this event better. I could have used the time to brew every night! I will miss them all very much, its a big empty house without the sound of two little boys running around, laughing, joking.. I digress, its time for the On Tap update

Primary

• Nothing new I am afraid, Old Speckled Hen clone is on deck
• 115th Dream Imperial IPA ( 1 wk  1 day (p) ) – A rather extreme IPA, high in ABV and a whopping 120 IBUs with over a 1 lb of hops using a technique called Hop Bursting I covered in a post last week.

Secondary

• Olde Luddite English Strong Ale (1 wk(p) 1 wk 1 day (s) ) – A new Old Ale kit from Northern Brewer, thought I would add some Old Ale kits to my current Old’s and Browns series.  The FG came in at a whopping 1017, almost 6% over its max attenuation, the Fullers yeast was very active.  The sample was already very clear and I could have drunk the whole thing.  This is going to be a very smooth, Old Ale. Second week of its 3 week rest.
• Theakston Old Peculier Clone (1 wk(p) 2 wks, 2 days (s) ) – My first pass at this classic old ale, FG came out in range along with the colour, that is all we can ask. It would appear the Trappist yeast is still working as a thin layer of yeast cake has formed on top of the conditioning ale. I am intrigued to find out what if anything has happened to the FG.  Now for 1 more week in the secondary

Bottle/Keg Conditioning

• Twelfth Night Stout (2 wk (p), 2 wks (s), 1 wk 2 days (k) ) – A new extract clone recipe of Rogues Shakespeare Stout from Northern Brewer featuring the PacMan Ale yeast strain from Rogue.  This one is an ass-kicking 70 IBU stout sitting in the keg and in its second week of rest. I will probably give this at least 4 weeks before tapping
  
• Fullers London Pride clone (1 wk (p), 1 wk (s), 3 wk, 3 days (b) ) – came out crystal clear from the primary with the FG exactly on target. Looking forward to seeing how this brew finishes off.  In its final week of conditioning so look for a review on this next week, I am quietly confident.
  
• Lord Fatbottom Ale (1 mth (p), 3 mths 1 wk (s)) –beginning the second half of its 6 months rest.

Drinking

• Spitfire Premium Ale clone (1 wk (p), 2wks (s), 4 wks, 3 days (b)) – my 2nd pass at Spitfire Ale, the Shepherd Neame classic from Kent UK.  Completely cleared but with a lot of sediment in the bottle.  Took 2 weeks to finish off the first case, a little too quick given this ale is pretty strong. It just goes down like a session brew 🙂
  
• Grateful Dead Guy Ale (1wk (p), 2wks (s), 4 wks 3 days (b)) – a new special edition kit from Northern Brewer featuring the newly released PacMan Ale yeast strain from Wyeast/Rogue Breweries, this one is a Rogue Dead Guy Ale clone. I did a side by side taste test with an actual Rogue Dead Guy Ale, colour and flavour are so close its hard to tell which one was which. Good job NB.
• Flowers Original Ale clone (1 wk (p), 1 wk (s), 6 wks (b)) – my first brew of 2010 and first attempt at the classic Flowers recipe. See review from earlier, its a winner and has been promoted to the recipe page. Only one bottle left, this will be finished this week. Only made 3/4 of a case and look forward to brewing a full 5 gallons later in the year. This ale appears to peak in flavour after ~5 weeks in the bottle
  
• Dogfish Head 90 min IPA clone (1 wk (p), 3 wks (s), 3 mnth 3 wks (b) ) – Continues to mature with age, been holding back on these to see how they pan out.

Hop Bursting

As those of you who read this blog will know I have been talking about a technique called hop bursting recently. I first tried it back in Nov 2009 whilst brewing my Dog Fish Head 90min without really knowing how the technique worked. I came across it again last week when I brewed Northern Brewers 115th Dream Imperial IPA, which shipped with over 1 lb of hops.  How can you add 1 lb of hops to a 5 gallon brew and it not taste disgusting? I was curious and wanted to find out more, especially given how clean the bottom of boil kettle was where the hops had settled while cooling.

First up lets quickly review the big hop post I did a few back. First thing to remember are the Alpha Acids, these cause bittering and are not very water soluble so require an hour of boiling to fully extract. Then there are the Beta Acids, these are water soluble and actually evaporate if left too long in the water. Beta acids provide the hop aroma and flavour.  The more the beta acids evaporate the less the aroma which is why we have flavour additions with 10-15mins of a boil to go and aroma at 0 mins.

Hop bursting is a technique used to impart massive amounts of hop flavour and aroma by adding large amounts of hops at the end of the boil, typically beginning at the last 20 mins.  Some bitterness will be extracted (use the formula in the hop post and replace the 60 with 15 and play around with the hop quantity and see how much more you would need) so in order to get the same level as a 60 min boil we need a lot more hops. Here is a simple example. In the hop post we calculated the IBU’s for a recipe with a 60 min and a 15 min addition, it was approx 29 for a 2.5 gl batch using 1.2 oz of hops.  What if we want to create a 29 IBU recipe with a big hop aroma and flavour using hop bursting with no bittering hops at the beginning of the boil.

Here is the same formula used in the hop post but this time using 4 additions a 15 min, 10, min, 5 min and 1 (assuming we are a using a generic 4.5% alpha hop in pellet form, same batch size and OG).

First calculate the utilization for each addition

15 min: ( 1.65 * 0.000125^( 1.060 – 1 ) ) * ( ( 1 – 2.72^( -0.04 * 15 ) ) / 4.14 ) = 11.54%

10 min: ( 1.65 * 0.000125^( 1.060 – 1 ) ) * ( ( 1 – 2.72^( -0.04 * 10 ) ) / 4.14 ) = 8.43%

5 min: ( 1.65 * 0.000125^( 1.060 – 1 ) ) * ( ( 1 – 2.72^( -0.04 * 5 ) ) / 4.14 ) = 4.64%

1 min: ( 1.65 * 0.000125^( 1.060 – 1 ) ) * ( ( 1 – 2.72^( -0.04 * 1 ) ) / 4.14 ) = 1%

Next calculate the IBU for each addition given its utilization and add them all together to make the final total.

15 min: 11.54 * ( 0.5 * ( 4.5 / 100 ) * 7490 ) / 2.5 = 7.78

10 min: 8.43 * ( 1 * ( 4.5 / 100 ) * 7490 ) / 2.5 = 11.37

5 min: 4.64 * ( 1 * ( 4.5 / 100 ) * 7490 ) / 2.5 = 6.25

1 min: 1 * ( 3 * ( 4.5 / 100 ) * 7490 ) / 2.5 = 4.06

Total IBU = 29.46

So we have an ale with the same IBU made with the same hops as the traditional bittering method except the hop load is 5 1/2 oz as compared with 1.2 oz giving us an really BIG hop flavour and aroma. Another advantage for homebrewers like myself that do not own filtration equipment is strong hoppy IPA’s can be made without the need for a dry hop addition and all the additional complexities that come along with the process.

So go ahead and try the NB recipe, its a 1 lb of hops for a 5 gallon brew, have no idea how it will turn out but I love the quote on the web site which I will end this post with:

If you serve this beer to a Michelob Ultra drinker, he or she will cry. If life were a 1950s horror flick, this I2PA would climb out of the fermenter and turn on its master. Your dentist does not want you to brew or drink this beer. Sorry in advance about your tooth enamel

Tips and Tricks: Pots and Pans

When boiling a high OG ale make sure you have a kettle capable of holding double the capacity of the liquid in the boil. E.g. If you have 3 gallons of liquid make sure you are using a 6 gallon kettle. High OG means lots of malt and lots of malt leads to a large hot break (think thick creamy foam) in the kettle. When I brewed my 1123 OG Barleywine with over 14 lbs of DME I could barely keep it inside a 7.5 gallon kettle with only 3 gallons of liquid. Be warned.

On Tap (Feb 28th 2010)

Been more in the groove this week, head not spinning so fast and managed to get some posts done.  Getting used to the commute, the work and occassional travel and the wife drinking my ales without me home. I am happy about this fact I think. It was fun to brew this weekend, tried “hop-bursting” for the first time using over 1 lb of hops in a brew (12 oz in the last 15 mins). I also found some time to research another classic Old Ale, Old Speckled Hen, so its off with this weeks On Tap Update.

Primary

• 115th Dream Imperial IPA ( 2 days (p) ) –  A rather extreme IPA, high in ABV and a whopping 120 IBUs with over a 1 lb of hops.  Thought I would try out hop-bursting.  I love the comment on the NB site “If you serve this beer to a Michelob Ultra drinker, he or she will cry. If life were a 1950s horror flick, this I2PA would climb out of the fermenter and turn on its master. Your dentist does not want you to brew or drink this beer. Sorry in advance about your tooth enamel“. OG came in perfect and the yeast is raging, was worried about a blow-out with this one.

Secondary

• Olde Luddite English Strong Ale (1 wk(p) 1 day (s) ) – A new Old Ale kit from Northern Brewer, thought I would add some Old Ale kits to my current Old’s and Browns series.  The FG came in at a whopping 1017, almost 6% over its max attenuation, the Fullers yeast was very active.  The sample was already very clear and I could have drunk the whole thing.  This is going to be a very smooth, Old Ale. First week of its 3 week rest.
• Theakston Old Peculier Clone (1 wk(p) 1 wk, 2 days (s) ) – My first pass at this classic old ale, FG came out in range along with the colour, that is all we can ask. Now for 1 more week in the secondary
  

Bottle/Keg Conditioning

• Twelfth Night Stout (2 wk (p), 2 wks (s), 2 day (k) ) – A new extract clone recipe of Rogues Shakespeare Stout from Northern Brewer featuring the PacMan Ale yeast strain from Rogue.  This one is an ass-kicking 70 IBU stout destined as is sitting in the keg. Will give this one 2-3 weeks to settle down before tapping
  
• Fullers London Pride clone (1 wk (p), 1 wk (s), 2 wk, 3 days (b) ) – came out crystal clear from the primary with the FG exactly on target. Looking forward to seeing how this brew finishes off.  Week 3 of its 4 week conditioning period.
  
• Lord Fatbottom Ale (1 mth (p), 3 mths (s)) – exactly half way through its 6 month rest.

Drinking

• Spitfire Premium Ale clone (1 wk (p), 2wks (s), 3 wks, 3 days (b)) – my 2nd pass at Spitfire Ale, the Shepherd Neame classic from Kent UK.  Completely cleared but with a lot of sediment in the bottle.  We started drinking these this week and its good, as good as the first time I brewed it, rich amber colour, butterscotch notes, really yummy.
  
• Grateful Dead Guy Ale (1wk (p), 2wks (s), 3 wks 3 days (b)) – a new special edition kit from Northern Brewer featuring the newly released PacMan Ale yeast strain from Wyeast/Rogue Breweries, this one is a Rogue Dead Guy Ale clone. I did a side by side taste test with an actual Rogue Dead Guy Ale, colour and flavour are so close its hard to tell which one was which. Good job NB.
  
• Flowers Original Ale clone (1 wk (p), 1 wk (s), 5 wks (b)) – my first brew of 2010 and first attempt at the classic Flowers recipe. See review from earlier, its a winner and has been promoted to the recipe page.
  
• Dogfish Head 90 min IPA clone (1 wk (p), 3 wks (s), 3 mnth 2 wks (b) ) – Continues to mature with age, been holding back on these to see how they pan out.