After the failure of ESB #2, I've been spurred on to try to get this one right. Here's the recipe:
11lb Maris Otter 2-row
1lb Caramunich 2-row crystal malt 42-49 DegL
2 Tsp gypsum
1oz Target Pellets (60 mins)
1oz Target Pellets (20 mins)
1oz Kent Goldings leaves (20 mins)
0.75oz Kent Goldings leaves (10 mins)
0.25oz Kent Goldings leaves (dry-hopped in secondary)
Wyeast 1968 London Ale
There is quite a lot different here than ESB #2. Maris Otter seems to be *the* base malt to use for any good English Bitter, instead of half plain pale malt, half Pilsen malt.
I dropped the flaked maize. As far as I can tell, the only purpose this serves is to increase ABV. I also dropped the Belgian candi sugar, which as far as I can tell is only there to help with the colour. I doubled the crystal to make up for this.
I put the gypsum into the mash as an afterthought. Not really sure whether this will do anything.
I was happier with the Challenger hops than the Bullion, but also read Target could be used, so I'm trying them out this time round.
I noticed in the homebrew shop, they have Kent Goldings in pellet and leaf form, so decided to experiment with the leaves (actually flowers). This may help with dry-hopping. I also liked the idea of using a less proccessed product.
Brewing Notes:
When I was filling up a pot to heat mash water, I noticed the water coming out of the filter seemed unusually frothy. The unfiltered water is not like that. I discarded that water, took the filter apart and cleaned it thoroughly, and started again. The water looked much better after that.
I did some research into mash temperature, and came up with the following:
Mash Step Temperature (C/F) Purpose
β-glucanase 40 / 104 Essentially complete malting process in partially modifed malts.
Increases mash efficiency.
Protease 50 / 122 Release smaller, head-forming proteins. Not necessary for fully
modified malts.
β-amylase 62 / 144 Release maltose from starch => Alcohol
α-amylase 72 / 162 Release maltodextrin from starch => fuller body
Mashout <= 78 / 172 Cease enzymatic activity. Watch upper limit of temperature, or
off-tasting tannins will be released from cellulose.
Since I think the malt in this recipe is all pretty well modified, I decided to try to hit the β- and α-amylase steps with a 2-step mash @ 144 and 162 DegF. With a single step mash, the temperature is chosen somewhere between these steps, so there is always a trade-off between ABV and body.
I started with 3 gallons of strike water at 170 DegF, and gently added the 12 lbs of grain. The resulting temp was 150 DegF, a bit higher than the 144 I was aiming for. I held this for 45 minutes. Oh, and I added the gypsum. The resulting mash level was at about the 4 gallon mark.
At this stage I wanted to add enough water to raise the temp to 162 DegF.
I found the following formula:
Wa = (Tmga - Tmg)(0.2G + Wm) / (Ta - Tmga)
where:
Wa is Water added in quarts
Tmga is target temp. of mash, grain and added water combined
Tmg is initial temp. of mash and grain before addition
G is lbs of grain
Wm is mash water in Quarts
Ta is temperature of addition.
Since we know boiling water is 212 DegF, and I have limited space left in the mash tun, setting Ta = 212 seems like the best plan. Plugging the rest of the values in tells me I need to add 3.5 quarts of boiling water. So I boiled a gallon, and added what was left of that after evaporation. This pretty much filled up the mash tun to ther brim. The resulting temperature was 168 DegF, higher than it should have been. Looking at the formula, I think it is the 0.2 factor which may not be correct, as the rest of the factors and units look reasonable. I'm guessing this 0.2 is derived from the ratio of specific heat capacities of water to malt. Unfortunately I don't have the SHC of malt, otherwise, I think I probably could derive this equation acurately. Anyway, I held this step for 30 minutes.
I heated 5 gallons of sparge water to 170 DegF. I vorlaufed 1.5 gallons, after which the runnings were significantly clearer - probably the best yet. I collected 4.5 gallons in the big pot, and 2.5 gallons in the small pot.
I boiled the small pot for 20 minutes with no hop additions. I followed the boil schedule in the recipe in the big pot. I probably lost ~1 gallon to evaporation. I also probably lost another gallon, which was absorbed by the leaf hops, and wasn't given up when I syphoned into the bottling bucket. I think we're barely at the 5 gallon mark in the primary carboy.
I used the same aeration technique as described in the PoD, which seemed to a good job of raising a big head of foam in the carboy.
OG was measured at 1069. Eek, thats quite a bit higher than I was expecting. Oh well ;-) My guess here is that this is the 2-step mash being more efficient than the single step.
