British Strong Ale 11-11-11 Gun Stock Ale (Old Ale) *Official Recipe*

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Yes. Make a starter as normal. The Brett is in the 9097 blend and there is no reason to add any more.

As for the amber malt. It is very hard to find and many places consider amber malt to be a type of crystal, equivalent to brown malt, or a biscuit malt. The amber malt in this recipe should be a toasted base malt paler than brown malt. The intent was to create a grist similar to what may have been used in a historic old ale, hence the kettle caramelization, oak, and brett. So, you may wish to toast your own base malt to create some amber malt.
 
adamjab19 said:
I think the Brett is coming from the 9097 platinum series blend.

Do we make a starter though?
Click to expand...

Just to clarify the nomenclature:
  • Platinum Strains = White Labs special strains
  • Private Collection = Wyeast Labs special strains
 
For those of us that have brewed already, what are you getting as a gravity reading after primary fermentation has stopped. When I checked even hitting my 158, as far as I could tell at least with my thermapen, my gravity came in under 1.020. So either my bret has already started chewing or somehow my temp wasn't really my temp.
 
smokinghole said:
For those of us that have brewed already, what are you getting as a gravity reading after primary fermentation has stopped. When I checked even hitting my 158, as far as I could tell at least with my thermapen, my gravity came in under 1.020. So either my bret has already started chewing or somehow my temp wasn't really my temp.
Click to expand...

I hit 1.018 when I checked after 3 weeks from pitching. I don't have a pellicle and I think it is too early for the brett to be making a significant dent in the gravity. I think the Brett will probably drop the gravity only a couple points a month. I wouldn't be surprised if it finished around 1.010 or lower. Despite the low gravity it will probably reach, I bet it will still have a good mouthfeel, especially with the oak and dextins, and won't seem too dry and thin.
 
Yeah I figured it was too early for the brett but I would have figured with hitting the temps I would have had a higher FG. Glad to see that we're pretty much both in the same boat. I did not have a pellicle when I peaked in the other day then again I think my fermentation after three weeks had ran all available O2 out of the keg.

On a side note did we ever figure out what the primary strain is in this blend?
 
smokinghole said:
For those of us that have brewed already, what are you getting as a gravity reading after primary fermentation has stopped. When I checked even hitting my 158, as far as I could tell at least with my thermapen, my gravity came in under 1.020. So either my bret has already started chewing or somehow my temp wasn't really my temp.
Click to expand...

The sacc finished after 3 days or so - really quick start and really quick ferment. Gravity was 1.023. Even a couple weeks later it was still 1.023. I let it sit in primary for a month and, when I went to rack to secondary, the pellicle had formed. I fermented in a plastic bucket, though, and opened it a couple times to grab a sample. The pellicle has yet to reform in my secondary. From what I've read, the brett is going to ferment the remaining sugars very, very slowly. So you probably won't see your gravity go down from the brett for a few months.

There are so many variables that can affect your final gravity other than the mash temperature - especially with this brew. The extent to which you carmelized the first runnings, the characteristics of the malt used, the amount of yeast pitched, the oxygen content of the wort, how quickly you heated up your runnings to stop conversion, etc.
 
Mine was down to about 1.028 when the primary fermentation seemed to be over and I just checked the gravity today which is about a month later and it's down to 1.026. Flavor was very interesting. A bit sweet but not at all cloying, with lots of fruitiness on the palate. I was getting cherries and peaches with a bit of tartness coming through. Caramel and malt flavors made an appearance too and I detected just the faintest bit of "barnyard" funk on the nose. I'll be racking to secondary today on an oz of house toast french oak cubes. This beer is coming along great.
 
Oh, and everyone likes photos right? Here's a color update.

DSC_4703NEF.jpg
 
I've got my old ale in the primary still and will rack to secondary to add my oak cubes in the next week or so. I've read that I can soak my cubes in wine, bourbon, port, etc. To reduce the new oak flavor, changing out the liquor every 3 days or so.

I'm wondering if I should soak the cubes in liquor and if so, which? Thanks!
 
I know I'm late to the party, but I just brewed this tonight. In the spirit of individualizing a group recipe, I'll be aging with cherry wood instead of oak, because I live in the woods and have a gajillion scrub cherry trees available to me. I won't be bugging it though, WLP028 for me.

Cheers!
 
KingBrianI said:
Oh, and everyone likes photos right?
Click to expand...
There's my Rogue glass. Haven't seen it since having a crowd here for Thanksgiving.
I'll PM my address. ;)








Oh, and nice color on the Old Ale. Mine hit 4 weeks yesterday, but I haven't taken a sample. Too much krausen crud on the carboy walls to see if it's dropped or if the Brett is working. Plan to transfer sometime this week. Looking forward to seeing (tasting) how it's been doing.
 
I'm a little confused on what I should be putting in to beer smith. Should I be using a starting boil volume in beer smith of 8.5 gallons to compensate for the first runnings boil (is this a decoction?) so that it will compute by mash correctly?
 
nootay said:
I'm a little confused on what I should be putting in to beer smith. Should I be using a starting boil volume in beer smith of 8.5 gallons to compensate for the first runnings boil (is this a decoction?) so that it will compute by mash correctly?
Click to expand...

I just put the recipe in my software to make 7 gallons of wort. I still boiled off the first runnings to about a half gallon and my brew pot had 6.5 gallons of the remaining runnings in it. I knew that I would not lose any sugar from the caramelization, so there really wasn't any benefit in trying to put the preboil volumes in correctly. Basically, the way I look at it, the recipe will yield the same OG whether you go for 8.5 run-off with caramelization or whether you just run-off 7 gallons for a single boil. Either way, it's not a decoction. That's something different.
 
I'm planning two big beers to brew in the upcoming month or two to have ready for Christmas next year. One is an English Barleywine and I'm not sure what the other will be, but this sounds tempting. I don't want to mess with bugs just yet, so what yeast strain/recipe change would be recommended ? I have Thames Valley I and London Ale III on hand. Altough more "pedestrian", all the beers that were higher gravity that I've fermented with S-33 have come out very, very good and not Belgianesque in the slightest.

I'd be willing to give/swap bottles of the "virgin" stuff with Canadian homebrewers for comparison if I decide to roll with it.
 
Brewed 5 gallons of this on Saturday. Couldn't find treacle locally so I went with organic unsulfered molasses, and swapped the Target out for equal IBUs of Horizon and Magnum (because it's what I had on hand).

Currently has a really nice krausen on it. Can't wait to see what it's like in a year!
 
I'm going to be brewing this up over my vacation next week. Thinking about mixing 6oz unsulphured molasses and 2oz vanilla corn syrup to get the right blend in substitution for the treacle.

Also, kind of wondering how to do the reduction here. Do I take all the runnings from my grist and boil that down to 2 quarts and then fly sparge with 6.5 gallons of water?
 
Holy balls, this strain requires a blow off tube big time. Just fitted it because beer got in the air lock, took the air lock off and it shot off like a cork from a champagne bottle and foam went all over the carboy. Super. The foam also went into the blow off bucket I put next to the carboy to be ready to put in in. This happened to be in a closet with jackets in it so beer got on the jackets, this is awesome (not in the Bill and Ted kind of way). Should I worry about contamination from the beer getting into the bucket and any beer that made contact with the lip of the carboy and might have gotten back in? My guess would be no, but I've never experienced this level of crazy fermentation before. I'm sure this has happened to many of you guys before, maybe worse than this, haha.
 
Well, after a long delay, I'm finally getting around to brewing my 11/11/11 old ale today. I have a new burner, too, so I'm finally off the whole stovetop brewing thing. The only real issue so far is that my grains were milled 10 days before brew day, due to life being difficult. I'm hoping for the best, nonetheless. Updates to come.
 
Oh man, what a brew day. I treated myself to a new burner (SQ14) and an immersion chiller for christmas. No more stove tops and water bath chillings for me! Still, there were some kinks to be worked out in the process. I heated my strike water way too hot, had a big boil over upon reaching boil (losing around a half oz of hops or more in the process), and boiled over on the stovetop, too. I started with 2 gallons of first runnings in 2 pots, transferred to one pot when it got down to 1 gallon, and all was going well. With 3 pints left, it decides to make a big, syrupy mess all over the new glass range=boo. I hate electric ranges.

Still, I made 1.084 OG with 72% efficiency. I'm happy with that as it's only a little under my usual efficiency, and a bit higher than usual for big beers. I have a side experiment of 2/3 gallon going with S-04 in a separate jug. I didn't want to put any more than 4.5-5 gallons in my 6 gallon carboy given the blow off problems all of you have been having. It will be neat to taste the difference in the old ale blend and the S-04 once done.

Since everyone loves pictures, here's the hydrometer showing my 1.084 OG. It's a lovely deep red color, almost the same as the cherry wood cabinet it's resting on. For, uh, color comparison, my last glass of Speedway Stout sits next to it. Hey, it was a long brew day, I deserve a treat!

In other news, I have significant airlock activity after 3.5 hours. I'll take that as a good sign.

SSPX0040.jpg
 
I brewed this one on 20 February 2011, so I think I'm the back marker. I stumbled on this yeast by chance and then this recipe while looking for a strong ale to brew with it. So thanks to all of you for the hard work in building this recipe!

The name is great too - though growing up I used to ski at Gunstock Mountain in NH. On a clear day from the top you can see the whole of Lake Winnipesaukee spread out beneath you - I'm thinking it's label material right there.

In the interest of total disclosure I couldn't get my hands on any Target Hops so I used a combination of Nugget and Fuggles - an IBU reading of just a tick over 71 according to BrewSmith.

Checked my gravity today and it's at 1.022 - so I think the Sacc is just about done. I'll make a few for checks over the next few days to be sure.

Taste - well WOW! Definitely sweet, but not unfermented wort sweet, just a nice undertone of sweet depth. Fruit too - dark stone fruit, so cherries? plums? I was worried a bit that it was going to be too bitter - but it's really a nice undertone of bitterness with I think a touch of the spicy and earthy coming through from the hops.

I'll post pics of the colour when I rack to secondary, but it's nice tanned leather shade right now.

Since I'm getting close to going to secondary I have 2 questions.

1) What temp are you guys using for secondary?

2) I see lots of talk of the brett needing O2 - are you racking into a 5 gallon carboy or are you going larger say 6 gallons to provide some extra O2 in the headspace?

Thanks again to the designers of this recipe!
 
I imagine the racking process itself would introduce enough oxygen to get things started, so a 5g carboy ought to be fine. Anyway, that's what I plan to do within the next week. Maybe someone with more experience with brett can chime in to confirm.
 
I moved mine to a secondary about 2 months ago. I looked at it today and there was a thin layer of film on top and what looks like an infection.

In addiiton, there was activity in the airlock.

This was my first go with Brett, so I am not sure if the infection-like appearance is a direct result of the Brett or if I have other issues at hand.

I tried to take a picture with no luck, but it looks like the other threads of infection.

Thanks
 
eljefe said:
I moved mine to a secondary about 2 months ago. I looked at it today and there was a thin layer of film on top and what looks like an infection.

In addiiton, there was activity in the airlock.

This was my first go with Brett, so I am not sure if the infection-like appearance is a direct result of the Brett or if I have other issues at hand.

I tried to take a picture with no luck, but it looks like the other threads of infection.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Brett is gonna look like that.
 
Checked the gravity a few days ago. It was down to 1.022, which is pretty much where I wanted it. The brett ought to take off a few more points in the coming months, and add their own unique funk. I hope, anyway. Still no fugly pellicle yet.:(
 
I'm a little late to the party, but I'm brewing this up today. Doubled the batch to 10g. Old Ale Blend isn't currently available, so I'm splitting and doing 5g with Ringwood Ale and the other 5g with Ringwood + Brett L. Should be tasty.

Question for anyone: The treacle, at what point do you add it? With the first runnings as part of the carmelization? Once all runnings are combined? At 5 min? At flame out?
 
I think I added the treacle at 10 min before flameout. At flameout would work too, but it's some thick stuff. I wanted to make sure it was fully integrated in the wort and didn't have any concentrated blobs. :)
 
jmhart said:
I'm a little late to the party, but I'm brewing this up today. Doubled the batch to 10g. Old Ale Blend isn't currently available, so I'm splitting and doing 5g with Ringwood Ale and the other 5g with Ringwood + Brett L. Should be tasty.

Question for anyone: The treacle, at what point do you add it? With the first runnings as part of the carmelization? Once all runnings are combined? At 5 min? At flame out?
Click to expand...

strat_thru_marshall said:
i added it at flame out to preserve the aroma
Click to expand...

jmhart said:
That's what I was thinking, but the recipe states start of boil...which I thought was odd.
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To make treacle (or molasses) sugar cane syrup is boiled for hours. The little bit of boiling in wort won't hurt the aroma.
 
:ban:
KingBrianI said:
To make treacle (or molasses) sugar cane syrup is boiled for hours. The little bit of boiling in wort won't hurt the aroma.
Click to expand...

I wondered that. I wasn't sure how it was made, but I thought it might be like maple syrup so an hour of boiling wouldn't matter.

Ok, I'll probably add it 5 or 10 before flameout to make sure it gets good and mixed in.
 
Well, I still haven't bottled, but I did check the gravity a couple days ago. The brett has taken it from 1.022 to 1.011. In total it's gone now from 1.084 to 1.011, at around 9.something%, and tastes AMAZING! It's slightly warming and very smooth, and very easy drinking for such a big beer. This recipe (and yeast) is definitely a keeper.
 

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