Help Fix My British Brown Ale Recipe

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You can have my English crystal when you pry it from my cold, dead Vittles Vaults.

LOL. Well you might be on top of the crystals then. I tend to love them, but some are fairly sweet. Seems you are already aware.

 

[Hopalong]

THIS^^ i'm not a BCJP whore so i could give a $h!t about guidelines, dont care about being "authentic" in any way. But i will absolutely say to anyone anywhere who deems to make a beer they call some sort of "brown" that if there isnt at least 25% brown malt in there they are failing at life.

brown malt is amazing. you could literally just use base malt and brown and it would be delicious.

i only make two beers that are "dark" in any way. black lager/cafe de la olla, and a brown lager.

did i say amazing? BROWN MALT SIR.

I just dumped a batch (only one gallon, though!) of this recipe:

2.5 lbs. English pale
0.15 lb. Fawcett Medium Crystal
0.15 lb. flaked oats
0.1 lbs. pale chocolate

5 g Fuggle (4.6% AA) @ 60 min.
7 g Fuggle (4.6% AA) @ 5 min.

Lallemand London

OG 1.056/FG 1.006/ABV 6.6% (FG measured with refractometer and corrected value calculated ... but not sure I trust it, as London doesn't really attenuate this much!)

It is really unpleasantly sweet; I didn't expect cloying caramel from the above recipe. My first reaction is to lower the ABV, up the hops, and lower the crystal, so:

1.8 lbs. English pale
0.05 lb. Fawcett Medium Crystal
0.1 lb. flaked oats
0.15 lbs. pale chocolate

8 g Fuggle (4.6% AA) @ 60 min.
8 g Fuggle (4.6% AA) @ 5 min.

Lallemand London

Is this swinging too far in the other direction? Should I also switch to Nottingham?

How did you make the beer, single temperature infusion? The higher the rest temperature the sweeter and lower in ABV beer turns out. To determine ABV, attenuation and efficiency a special gadget is used that has degassing filters and a small still. A spy glass and a formula are not accurate.

THIS^^ i'm not a BCJP whore so i could give a $h!t about guidelines, dont care about being "authentic" in any way. But i will absolutely say to anyone anywhere who deems to make a beer they call some sort of "brown" that if there isnt at least 25% brown malt in there they are failing at life.

brown malt is amazing. you could literally just use base malt and brown and it would be delicious.

i only make two beers that are "dark" in any way. black lager/cafe de la olla, and a brown lager.

 

[MBensch]

I don't entirely believe that FG number.

My thoughts were either the crystal or the high ABV (ethanol is sweet!) Or both. Going to try to cut back on both on the next batch, plus adding brown malt (which just shipped today.) Still on the fence about using London again or switching to Nottingham.

Playing around with different yeast strains will be interesting. London doesn't utilise maltotriose, where Nottingham seems to be better at it. As BrewnWKopperKat said, you have to talk about mash temp when you talk about yeast. This is from the London ESB technical data sheet:

"LalBrew London™ does not utilize the sugar maltotriose (a molecule composed of 3 glucose units). Maltotriose comprises an average of 10-15% of total sugar in all-malt worts. The result will be fuller body and residual sweetness in the beer. Be advised to adjust gravities and mash temperatures according to desired result. "