English Ales - What's your favorite recipe?
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Sounds good!
I've always lived near the Griffin Brewery (Fullers) and always been amused by the 'brewed beside the Thames" tag they put on their beers. About half a mile away Budweiser was brewed at the Stag Brewery (ex Watneys) which was actually beside the river!
finally brewing a Burton today, albeit with german grains 
OG 1.074
38.7% weyerman Vienna
38.7% Best Heidelberg pils
12.9% Invert no3
9.7% corn
step mash for maximum fermentability
50g Pilgrim leaf fwh
75g challenger pellets 60mins
25g challenger 15mins
IBUs no idea as I used a hopsock for the pellets and I'm not convinced I got as many ibus out of it as I thought I would. Hoping for around 70.
London ESB yeast for flavour and US west coast yeast for atttenuation . I've also got a bunch of champagne bottles, I'm considering adding brett to those ones at bottling - I'll see what the FG is though, if it's too high I won't
Sugar is in the oven at the moment, corn has been cooked on the hob. Has anyone done a cereal mash before? all the guides suggest adding some malt to the corn, then adding the whole lot into the mash. But I'd have thought just cooking the corn to gelatanize it and adding it to the mash would do the same thing.
edit: found this "This precooking is done with about 5% ground barley malt for the purpose of at least thinning slightly the cooked starch as it gels. The enzymes of this malt are denatured in the heating but at least they start the break down of the starch and thin the cooker mash slightly."
OG 1.074
38.7% weyerman Vienna
38.7% Best Heidelberg pils
12.9% Invert no3
9.7% corn
step mash for maximum fermentability
50g Pilgrim leaf fwh
75g challenger pellets 60mins
25g challenger 15mins
IBUs no idea as I used a hopsock for the pellets and I'm not convinced I got as many ibus out of it as I thought I would. Hoping for around 70.
London ESB yeast for flavour and US west coast yeast for atttenuation . I've also got a bunch of champagne bottles, I'm considering adding brett to those ones at bottling - I'll see what the FG is though, if it's too high I won't
Sugar is in the oven at the moment, corn has been cooked on the hob. Has anyone done a cereal mash before? all the guides suggest adding some malt to the corn, then adding the whole lot into the mash. But I'd have thought just cooking the corn to gelatanize it and adding it to the mash would do the same thing.
edit: found this "This precooking is done with about 5% ground barley malt for the purpose of at least thinning slightly the cooked starch as it gels. The enzymes of this malt are denatured in the heating but at least they start the break down of the starch and thin the cooker mash slightly."
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Definately add some barley malt, I chucked in a couple of handfuls of pils malt when it cooled down to 68c and it liquified the gloop. By the time I got my strike water ready it had cooled to 62c, my first step
![Craft A Brew - Safale S-04 Dry Yeast - Fermentis - English Ale Dry Yeast - For English and American Ales and Hard Apple Ciders - Ingredients for Home Brewing - Beer Making Supplies - [1 Pack]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41fVGNh6JfL._SL500_.jpg)
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Sugar is in the oven at the moment, corn has been cooked on the hob. Has anyone done a cereal mash before? all the guides suggest adding some malt to the corn, then adding the whole lot into the mash. But I'd have thought just cooking the corn to gelatanize it and adding it to the mash would do the same thing.
edit: found this "This precooking is done with about 5% ground barley malt for the purpose of at least thinning slightly the cooked starch as it gels. The enzymes of this malt are denatured in the heating but at least they start the break down of the starch and thin the cooker mash slightly."
I brewed a beer recently with rice. I cooked 1.5 pounds of rice in a gallon of water, and it absorbed all the water and turned into something resembling liquid concrete. I added a big handful of ground pilsner malt when it had cooled a bit, and it liquefied almost instantly. I put the lid on the kettle and left it for 20 minutes, and when I checked it again it was a thin watery gruel.
I think you are *supposed* to add grain and the malt as you heat the cereal mash water, and hold it at about 65°C for 10 minutes or so for the malt to convert as much starch as it can. Then you continue heating until it boils, and simmer until the grain is fully cooked.
There's no reason you can't do both
Northern_Brewer
British - apparently some US company stole my name
IF their water looks something like the public water supply in Chiswick then they're starting with pH 7.74, 48ppm Cl, 49ppm SO4, 260ppm total hardness as CaCO3
Original recipe is here
finally brewing a Burton today, albeit with german grains
OG 1.074
38.7% weyerman Vienna
38.7% Best Heidelberg pils
12.9% Invert no3
9.7% corn
step mash for maximum fermentability
50g Pilgrim leaf fwh
75g challenger pellets 60mins
25g challenger 15mins
IBUs no idea as I used a hopsock for the pellets and I'm not convinced I got as many ibus out of it as I thought I would. Hoping for around 70.
London ESB yeast for flavour and US west coast yeast for atttenuation . I've also got a bunch of champagne bottles, I'm considering adding brett to those ones at bottling - I'll see what the FG is though, if it's too high I won't
Sugar is in the oven at the moment, corn has been cooked on the hob. Has anyone done a cereal mash before? all the guides suggest adding some malt to the corn, then adding the whole lot into the mash. But I'd have thought just cooking the corn to gelatanize it and adding it to the mash would do the same thing.
edit: found this "This precooking is done with about 5% ground barley malt for the purpose of at least thinning slightly the cooked starch as it gels. The enzymes of this malt are denatured in the heating but at least they start the break down of the starch and thin the cooker mash slightly."
We should do a bottle swap! I got some double stout as well as basic K/KK ale to offer. In champagne bottles. With Brett C.
dyqik
Well-Known Member
The public water supply for London generally comes from quite a bit further up the Thames Valley, off the Chilterns (hence the high carbonate as those are chalk hills) and via the reservoirs near Heathrow. If Fullers are using well water, like most older breweries in the UK, their water could be fairly different.
OTOH, I'd expect a large commercial brewery to treat their water extensively, if only for consistency.
Northern_Brewer
British - apparently some US company stole my name
I don't think I could have emphasised the "IF" much more!
But all the London brewers gave up on their own wells decades ago, on a combination of pollution and seawater intrusion. Having said that, the aquifers are similar to the Chilterns - either greensand or chalk - whereas the river comes from a mix of geologies and obviously has some rainwater.
I've used water in Kent that is 90% groundwater from those chalk and greensand aquifers, so a reasonable approximation to London well water - and it wasn''t too far off that Thames Water analysis, hardness was over 300 but otherwise pretty similar. Great water for porter, not so good for anything else...
But you probably could have taken a good guess at what they were starting with, just based on those additions. It just looks like they're starting with water that's pretty balanced Cl:SO4 and not too high in either.
But all the London brewers gave up on their own wells decades ago, on a combination of pollution and seawater intrusion. Having said that, the aquifers are similar to the Chilterns - either greensand or chalk - whereas the river comes from a mix of geologies and obviously has some rainwater.
I've used water in Kent that is 90% groundwater from those chalk and greensand aquifers, so a reasonable approximation to London well water - and it wasn''t too far off that Thames Water analysis, hardness was over 300 but otherwise pretty similar. Great water for porter, not so good for anything else...
But you probably could have taken a good guess at what they were starting with, just based on those additions. It just looks like they're starting with water that's pretty balanced Cl:SO4 and not too high in either.
Fullers use city water. Their well was contaminated.
hmm tempting
did you dose the bottles at bottling or did you ferment it with the brett? I was thinking of just using a syringe and taking an ml or two from the vial for each bottle just prior to corking them
hmm tempting
did you dose the bottles at bottling or did you ferment it with the brett? I was thinking of just using a syringe and taking an ml or two from the vial for each bottle just prior to corking them
I give a couple of days to the yeast and then pitch Brett into the fv. Leave for a couple of months and then prime lightly when bottling.
finally brewing a Burton today, albeit with german grains
OG 1.074
38.7% weyerman Vienna
38.7% Best Heidelberg pils
12.9% Invert no3
9.7% corn
step mash for maximum fermentability
50g Pilgrim leaf fwh
75g challenger pellets 60mins
25g challenger 15mins
IBUs no idea as I used a hopsock for the pellets and I'm not convinced I got as many ibus out of it as I thought I would. Hoping for around 70.
London ESB yeast for flavour and US west coast yeast for atttenuation . I've also got a bunch of champagne bottles, I'm considering adding brett to those ones at bottling - I'll see what the FG is though, if it's too high I won't
A month on from brewing this I tried an unbretted bottle of this last night, lovely fruityness from the yeast and also from the sugar, gives a dundee cake quality to the beer. It's dropped bright too which is nice. Into my cellar the rest go, will test occasionally to see how the brett works its magic
Continuing my recent German/Anglo recipes, I brewed a brown bitter with homegrown hallertau mittelfruh wet hops, kolsch yeast, german pils base but most character will come from the english malts and homemade invert
19l batch
OG 1.044
Pils - 82.3%
Crystal dark - 5.5%
invert no2/3 - 4.1%
Crystal medium - 3.8%
torrified wheat - 3.4%
roasted barley - 0.8%
Hops
Magnum 20g 60mins
wet hallertau mittelfruh 250g 15mins
wet hm 250g 5 mins
ibus about 35 I reckon
crossmyloof kolsch yeast 20g
step mash, 62C 45mins 71C 45 mins
Also I need to order more grain this weekend, no sure what to go for.
19l batch
OG 1.044
Pils - 82.3%
Crystal dark - 5.5%
invert no2/3 - 4.1%
Crystal medium - 3.8%
torrified wheat - 3.4%
roasted barley - 0.8%
Hops
Magnum 20g 60mins
wet hallertau mittelfruh 250g 15mins
wet hm 250g 5 mins
ibus about 35 I reckon
crossmyloof kolsch yeast 20g
step mash, 62C 45mins 71C 45 mins
Also I need to order more grain this weekend, no sure what to go for.
Looks nice that!
Any brewers in the UK want some old school hops, A Bushel of Hops have opened their shop for the new seasons harvest. along with a few standard ones, they have
Keyworth Early
Nonsuch
Sussex
Pride of Kent
early Prolific
College Cluster
Malling Mid Season
Tolhurst
Early Bird
Alliance
Any brewers in the UK want some old school hops, A Bushel of Hops have opened their shop for the new seasons harvest. along with a few standard ones, they have
Keyworth Early
Nonsuch
Sussex
Pride of Kent
early Prolific
College Cluster
Malling Mid Season
Tolhurst
Early Bird
Alliance
I'll have a peek! I like the sound of Nonsuch as I work near the place (I wonder if it has relevance? I live not far from Epsom and only recently realised the connection with the salts!)
Northern_Brewer
British - apparently some US company stole my name
You're a bad man Hanglow, making me spend money like that! And you've pooched my brew schedule since I can't resist a landrace but Tolhurst has very poor stability.
It's an interesting selection, a lot of early Wye varieties that didn't make it past the great wilt crisis of the mid-20th century. I consider myself a bit of a hop geek but even I was rummaging in the reference books for things like College Cluster, I've only knowingly had commercial beers from three of these. Here's some details though - in the "main" Wye lineage I've got the date of the cross, in others I've just got a release date which is typically 15-20 years after the cross was made.
Early Prolific (1852 selection of Golding family) "Pleasant continental-style aroma"
(Amos') Early Bird (1887) - one of the main Golding varieties, found in a Bramling garden
Tolhurst (1882 - selection by James Tolhurst of landrace?) 2.2% alpha (!)
Nonsuch OB53 (1925) great-niece of Brewers Gold, greatgrandmother of Yeoman. o/s
Keyworths Early OJ47 (1930) grandmother of Yeoman, now making a bit of a commercial comeback. Lemon and grapefruit notes.
Pride of Kent 170a (1931) daughter of Brewers Gold, mother of Pride of Ringwood (not much of a recommendation!) o/s
College Cluster (1943 release)
Malling Midseason (1943 release)
Alliance (1950s, 1967 release) WGV seedling intended as a wilt-resistant Fuggle replacement, mother of Epic
Sussex (found in 2005) Used in both Old Dairy's and Harveys Wild Hop beers, YCH describes it as "earthy, grass, mint, citrus and vanilla", some people get a bit of tropical from it.
It's also worth looking at some of their other varieties - there's not many sources of UK Cascade for instance, if you wanted to do a terroir comparison then you can get NZ Cascade from eg Brew UK, and I imagine that if you hunted around you could probably find some Cascade from continental Europe.
PS "Nonsuch" in this case is an adjective, meaning "without equal" - it was a common boast for Victorian plant breeders (eg Peasgood Nonsuch apples) and for Tudor kings when describing their palaces....
PPS Also waiting to see what Stocks Farm have to offer this year, they're usually a good source of new and experimental varieties but they've not released the 2017's yet other than the green hops.
It's an interesting selection, a lot of early Wye varieties that didn't make it past the great wilt crisis of the mid-20th century. I consider myself a bit of a hop geek but even I was rummaging in the reference books for things like College Cluster, I've only knowingly had commercial beers from three of these. Here's some details though - in the "main" Wye lineage I've got the date of the cross, in others I've just got a release date which is typically 15-20 years after the cross was made.
Early Prolific (1852 selection of Golding family) "Pleasant continental-style aroma"
(Amos') Early Bird (1887) - one of the main Golding varieties, found in a Bramling garden
Tolhurst (1882 - selection by James Tolhurst of landrace?) 2.2% alpha (!)
Nonsuch OB53 (1925) great-niece of Brewers Gold, greatgrandmother of Yeoman. o/s
Keyworths Early OJ47 (1930) grandmother of Yeoman, now making a bit of a commercial comeback. Lemon and grapefruit notes.
Pride of Kent 170a (1931) daughter of Brewers Gold, mother of Pride of Ringwood (not much of a recommendation!) o/s
College Cluster (1943 release)
Malling Midseason (1943 release)
Alliance (1950s, 1967 release) WGV seedling intended as a wilt-resistant Fuggle replacement, mother of Epic
Sussex (found in 2005) Used in both Old Dairy's and Harveys Wild Hop beers, YCH describes it as "earthy, grass, mint, citrus and vanilla", some people get a bit of tropical from it.
It's also worth looking at some of their other varieties - there's not many sources of UK Cascade for instance, if you wanted to do a terroir comparison then you can get NZ Cascade from eg Brew UK, and I imagine that if you hunted around you could probably find some Cascade from continental Europe.
PS "Nonsuch" in this case is an adjective, meaning "without equal" - it was a common boast for Victorian plant breeders (eg Peasgood Nonsuch apples) and for Tudor kings when describing their palaces....
PPS Also waiting to see what Stocks Farm have to offer this year, they're usually a good source of new and experimental varieties but they've not released the 2017's yet other than the green hops.
Cheers for that, I had a google of a couple of them but didn't come up with much
I've used UK cascade from them last year, it's certainly more "british", more floral less grapefruit and not as strongly flavoured as the others. I've also used NZ cascade previously, I got more lime from that than the standard US version, it was pretty pungent. I've also used Styrian cascade as well, it's rather good as well but different again. Of course they will all change a bit depending on weather etc for each year. It would be nice to do a side - by side tasting of the same years crop from different countries for sure. I'm a big fan of cascade, it can be used with a deft touch in many a balanced beer or be chucked in in quantity for loads of flavour
Always interesting how different identical hops can taste based on climate and general growing conditions
I grew some centennial this year up here in glasgow and I've not brewed with it yet - only got 60g dried as it's a first year plant - but the hop tea I made with some of it had a lovely lime aroma and it was very peppery for taste.
I've used UK cascade from them last year, it's certainly more "british", more floral less grapefruit and not as strongly flavoured as the others. I've also used NZ cascade previously, I got more lime from that than the standard US version, it was pretty pungent. I've also used Styrian cascade as well, it's rather good as well but different again. Of course they will all change a bit depending on weather etc for each year. It would be nice to do a side - by side tasting of the same years crop from different countries for sure. I'm a big fan of cascade, it can be used with a deft touch in many a balanced beer or be chucked in in quantity for loads of flavour
Always interesting how different identical hops can taste based on climate and general growing conditions
I grew some centennial this year up here in glasgow and I've not brewed with it yet - only got 60g dried as it's a first year plant - but the hop tea I made with some of it had a lovely lime aroma and it was very peppery for taste.
Northern_Brewer
British - apparently some US company stole my name
This presentation (PPT) from Ali Capper goes into detail on how the British climate affects things like terpene levels - we typically see about 2/3 of eg myrcene compared to the same varieties grown elsewhere. Tasting green hop beers it's really noticeable how the dull August has really emphasised the earthiness of this year's crop, whereas you need blue skies for the citrus flavours.
So what did you get this year? Aside from the Tolhurst I picked up some Keyworths Early which I've had in a commercial beer and liked, and some College Cluster just for the randomness of it, even if it probably tastes like just another Goldings derivative....
So what did you get this year? Aside from the Tolhurst I picked up some Keyworths Early which I've had in a commercial beer and liked, and some College Cluster just for the randomness of it, even if it probably tastes like just another Goldings derivative....
Ah, makes sense. Something new learned!
Thinking of making a big stock / barley wine. A bit of brown or black malt for colour, a few pounds of invert sugar, og upwards of 1.100, mainly Goldings varieties of hops and Brett for aging. Bottle up and drink for years to come. Any thoughts?
deere322
Former Sloper
1954 Tennants Gold Label
Although it has a bunch of flaked maize, I bet itd be excellent aged on Brett.
