Next recipe.. An Old Ale

[lexuschris]

Hey all,

My 3rd AG batch is scheduled for either Father's Day or the week after. As I may have mentioned before, I have an interest in gruit ale and my December batch is now very enjoyable. Not having any specific recipes to go from, my 1st attempt was so bitter (e.g. rip your tastebuds off), that I brewed a scotch ale with full malty sweetness to balance it. I now pour them 50/50 together and enjoy it very much.

So, I thought I would try a malty sweet Old Ale with a balanced hop character first. Then, do a gruit version by replacing all the hops with Wormwood, Sweet Gale, and perhaps some Yarrow. Anyways, from looking up a few different recipes on the net, I have settled into something like this... (5 gallon batch)


7.00 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) 44.44 %
5.00 lb Pale Malt, Golden Promise (3.0 SRM) 31.75 %
1.00 lb Aromatic Malt (26.0 SRM) 6.35 %
0.50 lb Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) 3.17 %
0.25 lb Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) 1.59 %
1.00 oz Nugget [13.00 %] (60 min) 36.3 IBU
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (15 min) 6.9 IBU
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (2 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep)
1.00 lb Honey (1.0 SRM) 6.35 %
1.00 lb Sugar, Muscavado (25.0 SRM) 6.35 %
1 Pkgs Edinburgh Ale (White Labs #WLP028) Yeast-Ale


Est Original Gravity: 1.091 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.023 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 8.82 %
Bitterness: 43.3 IBU Calories: 43 cal/pint
Est Color: 16.3 SRM

I'm not sure on the Aromatic Malt quantity .. is that too much? too little?
Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated!
==LexusChris

p.s. Yes, I really enjoy the recipe making process ...

[lexuschris]

Well, I brewed this one today, with a slight modification.

I upped the mash recipe to a 7 gallon target, so that I could split 2 gallons off for a gruit version of this recipe at the same time. Also, I could not find a resonable source for Golden Promise malt, so substituted more Maris Otter instead. For the 7 gallon target, it was a 19.5 # grain bill.

When I was buying supplies from Kevin, he asked about my mash tun size, and I had not really put the numbers to it. "Can I Mash It" calculated I would need just over 8 gallons of mash tun space, which was really spot on.

That being said, this is probably as big a beer & batch as I can do with my single 10-gal boil kettle & 10-gal mash tun. I was filled to the brim on all my transfers & staging, although getting creative, I got through it.

I did make a mistake or two today, but hopefully recovered okay. I forgot to put my 6th gallon of water in the HLT prior to dough'ing in. I was really thinking alot about the step temp, and now trying to let the strike water heat up my tun first, then pour my grain in. (btw: 171-F strike temp, into tun, drops to 160-F a few mins later. Then 19+ lbs of grain, and it dropped to 150-F. Which is about expected)

I missed my step temp of 154, probably due to the lacking an extra gallon of 171-F water at dough in. So I heated up the last gallon and added it @ 180-F within 10 mins. I got my mash temp to 152-F and figured that was close enough.

My other mistake, was forgetting to add the honey & muscavado sugar before splitting the batch. Hence, I put a little too much of those in the 5-gallon batch. Not a big deal.

The rest went well, and I have 5 gallons as above (with a tad extra honey & sugar) and 2 gallons gruit, fermenting at 68-F.

I feel really good about this batch, and the previous tips on mash temp, vorlauf & batch sparging really came into play! Looking forward to tasting this one in a few weeks!

Thanks everyone!
==LexusChris

[Rezzin]

Congratulations! It sounds like you're really getting the hang of things. I bet your next brew will go pretty smoothly. Let us know how this batch turns out!

[lexuschris]

Well, I wandered through my first kegging session tonight and put this bad boy into the Kegerator. I went slow since all the keg stuff is new to me, and found some tidbits on the forums & supplier sites to help me through. (the CO2 regulator was a tad confusing at first.. having never used anything like that before..)

If I read right, I am now force carbonating my Old Ale. I saw one site recommend to go real high on PSI for the 1st 24 hours (e.g. 30 PSI) and then dial it down later. Another seemed to say just to dial in the desired volume PSI (e.g. 16 PSI in my case) and shake/agitate the keg frequently in the 1st few days. And to get the beer to fridge temp as soon as possible. (I'm shooting for 50-F or so...)

Any recommends on that?

Also, my final gravity was lower than the recipe in BeerSmith predicted .. by a fair lick. (btw.. It took a full 17 days of fermentation for the bubbling to completely stop..)

Est. OG = 1.095 Actual OG = 1.080
Est. FG = 1.024 Actual FG = 1.011
Est. ABV = 9.2% Actual ABV = 9.0%

But my ABV worked out the same. So I can imagine my grain extraction efficiency was low. What causes my FG to be that low?

Average mash temp being lower than my recipe shows? (e.g. was trying for 154-F, and my notes show I was averaging more like 152-F)

Or perhaps the heavy use of honey & brown sugar in the boil... 18% of total bill by weight.

The good news is that it tasted really nice out of the fermenter.. will be looking forward to pouring a pint in a few weeks and seeing how it matures.

--LexusChris