Crisp Heritage Chevallier Malt: Step Mash?

[Wigglebutts Brewery]

I finally have some time to sum up the brewing process.

My system is a beer in a bag set up: 10g pot with 5500 watt element and screen to keep bag off element. I use Beersmith to determine strike temperature and water volumes. I mash in the 10g pot using a sour vide to hold temperatures. In this situation I bumped Chevallier malt up to 6lbs from above recipe and step mashed @ 125f/52c for 15min, 145f/63c for 45min and 160f/71c for 40min. With the 5500 watt element the transitions are quick.

Fermentation was in a carboy @ 66f/19c for a several weeks; OG 1.041 with FG 1.011; 3.9% abv

Post fermentation beer had a nice Taste. Beer transferred to corny with finings and 1.3oz dextrose. I’ll keep at 66f/19c for a couple weeks then condition for at least 6 weeks @ 45f/7c.

thanks all for your thought. Early April for taste wrap up.

 

[Pennine]

I just tossed another one into the fermenter too. The other chevalier bitter I had, that I reported wasn't great initially, turned into a great bitter after about 1 month in the keg. It was still unique but the harsh graininess mellowed significantly with time. In fact the keg kicked much too fast sadly enough.

 

[Wigglebutts Brewery]

I’m thinking that there‘s a pipeline requirement for this malt. English IPA will be my next “Chevallier“ brew.

 

[Miraculix]

I've brewed a bitter with it last weekend. Invert sugar, wheat malt chevallier and a dash of carafa spezial 2. 3 step mash, 57, 63, 72 c.

 

[kevin58]

Thanks to this thread I've created a couple of customized hochkurz mash schedules to Beersmith. I wasn't expecting to find a different way of mashing when I started following this thread but you never know where you will learn something new. Thanks!

 

[jdauria]

Thanks to the tips on this tread, I adjusted my mash schedule for a Best Bitter I made last week that used a blend of Chevallier and Warminster Floor Malted Maris Otter. Hochkurz mash 122F for 10, 144F for 40, 158F for 40, 168 mash out and a 90 minute boil. Recipe was basically the Brewing Classic Styles one, but with this two malts as a sub. Kegged it last night, color looks great, tastes and smells great. It's one of my entries for Nationals, so let's see how it does.

 

[Miraculix]

I bottled a bitter yesterday, that I brewed last week. I can confirm the strong grainyness of the Chevallier malt, I do not remeber getting this the first time I have used it.

This is the type of grainyness that needs to be aged out because it is a bit unpleasant. This will change in one or two months and will result in a very good bitter.

Also, my attenuation was lower than expected (70%, although there was invert sugar involved in the recipe, plus step mash). Chevallier eats ibus, I forgot that, should have added 20% more hops than calculated to compensate for this. Forgot it, will be still a good beer.

I have made myself a watery extract from carafa spezial 2, 100g carafa, 1000g water, steeped for about 20 minutes at 65 C and then sanitised at 75 C for a few minutes. I prefilled some of the bottles about 1/3 with this black extract and topped up with the bitter. This should create a nice dark mild. I did the same with plain water with a few bottles, just to see if it is possible to get a nice table bitter this way.

Maybe next time I brew a strong ale and dilute it down when bottling to get dark milds and normal bitters as well this way. Let`s see! Maybe I will be facing an oxidized mess when trying? Who knows, bottle conditioning should have helped here, but was it enoug? Let's see.

 

[Pennine]

On this recent batch I brewed with Chevallier, med crystal and DRC the graininess is much less noticeable even very young, brewed on the 18th and it's the 23rd today. A couple of changes I made this time were the mash schedule, I did 62c for 30 min, 68c for 30 min and a mashout 78c for 5 min.

After cooling I also let it sit for an hour to drop out all the trub and only transferred clear wort.

Funny enough it's very similar to Old Speckled Hen, which oddly enough I was trying to find a recipe to. I think the one difference for next time would be to drop fuggles and only use EKG for the later additions.

 

[Wigglebutts Brewery]

Small change in plans; my son’s visiting in April and he wants to flip kegs. He got a maris otter based bitters keg from us over the holidays. He brews but work has him backed up. So last week I brewed another chevallier based bitters for him! I found an English ipa recipe in Ron Pattinson’s blog, 1897 Fullers IPA. It’s perfect.

 

[Wigglebutts Brewery]

Conditioned for 2+ months and served from beer engine. It tastes good! Smooth with nice flavor…. Thanks again all

 

[Pennine]

Conditioned for 2+ months and served from beer engine. It tastes good! Smooth with nice flavor…. Thanks again all

Looks great!
Where did you get your engine from?

 

[Miraculix]

Conditioned for 2+ months and served from beer engine. It tastes good! Smooth with nice flavor…. Thanks again all

Same here! 2 months+ really made it smooth and nice. Very much worth the wait.

 

[Wigglebutts Brewery]

Thanks! Beer engine from UK bay auction, refurb angram. I built a dedicated setup for the engine with a small Frig, 5# CO2 tank, low pressure regulator (.5 psi) and temperature controller. It’s based on $3K version but DIY for about $300.
Spot on with smooth and nice….!

 

[Wigglebutts Brewery]

Brewing up Fullers 1897 IPA with Chevallier, Homemade invert #1, WLP002 and lots of hops.. 7.25oz.

 

[Wigglebutts Brewery]

The WLP002 was a complementary pack which I did a 2L starter, my first time using liquid yeast and doing a starter. I’ve always used dry yeast S04. Two points; this yeast really flocculates and holy smoke with half the starter it really took off!!!
I’m glad that my plan is to start a yeast bank with the other half of this batch, the yeast is amazing.