Dark Brown Ale

Dark Brown Ale

11B Southern English Brown Ale

Brew Date: September 26th, 2008
Batch Size: 5 gallons
Recipe Type: All-Grain
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75%
Original Gravity: 1.047
Final Gravity: 1.017
Apparent Attenuation: 62%
ABV: 3.9%
IBUs: 20
SRM: 25
Primary Fermentation: 24 days at 63F
Secondary Fermentation: 7 days at 68F
Boil Length: 60 minutes

Ingredients

7 lbs Pale Ale Malt, Maris Otter (82%)
1 lb Crystal 60L Malt (12%)
8 oz Chocolate Malt (6%)

1.5 oz Fuggles [4%] (60 min)

SafAle English Ale Yeast (S-04)

3.75 oz Corn Sugar (2.2 Volumes CO2)

Mash Profile

Single Infusion Batch Sparge
153F for 60 minutes
1.25 qts of water per lb grain

Brewing Notes

The perfect brown ale (at least in my opinion). Dark, lowly hopped, chocolately, sweet with soft flavors and a hint of roastiness. This is the brew I would want to drink in a pub with meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

Tasting Notes

Black color with small light-brown head. Aroma of chocolate, toffee, and fruit. Full-bodied, creamy texture with soft carbonation, roasty finish and a hint of bitterness. Medium duration, moderately sweet flavors of chocolate and fruit.

Looks nice! Got an extra bottle? I'm thirsty!!!!

I'm wondering why you let it primary for so long. Did you feel it needed the time, or is this your normal practice, or was it a scheduling issue?

I brewed this on Jan 31. I'm going to primary for 3 weeks then secondary for 1 and bottle at the end of Feb. I am just wondered if the time-frames are crucial, in your opinion, to the quality of the beer.

N_G

nutty_gnome said:

I'm wondering why you let it primary for so long. Did you feel it needed the time, or is this your normal practice, or was it a scheduling issue?

I brewed this on Jan 31. I'm going to primary for 3 weeks then secondary for 1 and bottle at the end of Feb. I am just wondered if the time-frames are crucial, in your opinion, to the quality of the beer.

N_G

Click to expand...

Time frames aren't crucial, I usually let the beer sit in primary for 2-3 weeks, and sometimes secondary for a week or two. The time frames for the batch on this recipe page were more or less scheduling issues, it was 24 days because thats when I had time to get to secondarying it.

Let us know how it turns out!

which grains do you mash? all of em?

FalangaNR said:

which grains do you mash? all of em?

Click to expand...

Yup.Yup.Yup.

Mine is still in primary. I'll bottle it up this weekend.

March 3 update. I bottled and this is one sublime brew. It was very smooth and definetly tasted like a easy-going dark beer. I really liked the sample... a lot. Can't wait to seee what a lil time in the bottle does for this one.

Can you please explain to me what your fermentation looked like?

I brewed this on Saturday night.
Sunday there was plenty bubbles to go around,
But now, monday and today (tuesday), it manages to squeeze one out every 57 seconds.
Is there supposed to be such a drastic change in so little time?

Sorry for the noob question, this is my second batch i ever made.
I cant relax, not worry, and have a homebrew because my 1st batch is conditioning.

I brewed it in a bucket so I didn't see it. I could see the shadow of the krausen ring though. I had strong fermentation for about 1.5 days then it slowed over time. Its entirely possible the yeast 'did their thing' and you're fine. I let mine sit in primary at around 65 to 67 degrees for at least 3 weeks.

After a few weeks in the bottle I can say that this is a wonderful beer. The 04 gives it that little bit of english tang. I have been drinking them at room temp because the fridge gets them too cold. It is a nice, elegant, enjoyable beer.

nutty_gnome said:

I brewed it in a bucket so I didn't see it. I could see the shadow of the krausen ring though. I had strong fermentation for about 1.5 days then it slowed over time. Its entirely possible the yeast 'did their thing' and you're fine. I let mine sit in primary at around 65 to 67 degrees for at least 3 weeks.

After a few weeks in the bottle I can say that this is a wonderful beer. The 04 gives it that little bit of english tang. I have been drinking them at room temp because the fridge gets them too cold. It is a nice, elegant, enjoyable beer.

Click to expand...

Thanks.
Mine is now sitting at 74 degrees. I have an empty/dark room which maintains that temp. the rest of the house has unstable temp. im fermenting it in a glass carboy. i wrapped the carboy with a towel to not let in any light. is this something i should be concerned with?

Wrapping it with a towel to keep it dark is a good thing. Most people will tell you that 74F is a little high. There are several options. You can do the t shirt/water/fan thing and probably get it closer to 70F, maybe colder in Brooklyn. Keeping the temperature stable is important. I have found that I have better luck brewing/fermenting with what I have and then dialing in my process/recipe to fit what I like to drink. In other words, if 75F is the best you can do to ferment, you might want to tweak the recipe to help allow for the flavors that will come with that fermentation. I am a big fan of dark, malty highly hopped, strong ales. I'll normally take an English Brown recipe and tweak it to what I like. I'm not sure what you would call the final result. I call it a Texas Brown, but usually, I call it tasty. One of the beauties of this hobby is the endless things you can tweak to make a beer that you love to drink. And hey, if friends/family like it, so much the better. Luck - Dwain