British Golden Ale Miraculix Best - Classic English Ale

[balrog]

Sidebar: @bailey mountain brewer @Brooothru , do you crash and decant between steps? I'm making a 2.5 and then 2.0 L for big WY2278 lager pitch with 100b overbuild and wonder.

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

Sidebar: @bailey mountain brewer @Brooothru , do you crash and decant between steps? I'm making a 2.5 and then 2.0 L for big WY2278 lager pitch with 100b overbuild and wonder.

Yes I do.

 

[Broothru]

Sidebar: @bailey mountain brewer @Brooothru , do you crash and decant between steps? I'm making a 2.5 and then 2.0 L for big WY2278 lager pitch with 100b overbuild and wonder.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Depends on what I'm doing.

For example, right now I'm not 'brewing' but I am propagating a lot of yeast. I had four packaged yeasts ("Vault" and "PC" ones) that I bought last year, then never used. A couple of them are 6-9 months past their "best by" dates. In addition I had six ~200 ml to 600 ml harvested yeast samples. All of them had been stored in a 38F refrigerator. $10 worth of DME will make 8 liters of 1.040 SG starter wort, verses $80-$100 for 10 fresh, new 50 ml pitches.

For these resurrection yeasts I dilute the 1.040 down to 1.020 with distilled water and pitch 50 ml of slurry into 250 ml in a sanitized quart Mason jar. Add a pinch of yeast nutrient, hit it with some O2 through a mini sintered stone, cover loosely with foil, and sit back to see whether the yeastie boys make a comeback. After 4-5 days of shaken not stirred, if there is proof of life I go to step 2.

Step 2 gets an addition of 200 ml 1.040 SG wort on top of the revived pitch, still in the Mason jar, still shaken not stirred. This step is a little tricky because a strong fermentation can go to from ~500 ml to overflowing quickly. If things get really active, everything goes into a half-gallon jug under an airlock. In either case (jar or jug) the vessel gets agitated several times per day until all apparent fermentation is done, maybe a week or so.

Now it's time for step 3. I'll pitch the whole volume (~500 ml) with 500 ml of 1.040 wort (ale) or 1L wort (lager) into a 2L Erlenmeyer flask and spin it on the stir plate. After krausen subsides the cell count is close to the maximum and highest viability. I take it off the stir plate and let it settle 'somewhat' for about a day.

It won't be clear, there's still suspended yeast in the supernatant. I'll pour off and collect a large portion of the liquid but leave enough to resuspend the yeast. If there is a beer ready to ferment, I pitch the entire flask, saving a few ml if I'm wanting to freeze a sample or propagate another volume. Add another 500 ml (or liter) of 1.040 starter wort into the Erlenmeyer and let it spin.

Otherwise, I pour the previously decanted supernatant and any dregs from the flask into a clean Mason jar and refrigerate. After a few weeks it will settle with 50~100 ml of dense slurry of viable but dormant yeast under a layer of clear beer. That settled yeast is good for 5-6 months for a direct pitch as a 1st generation pitch or even longer for seed stock for a new starter. Since all the yeast has settled out by that time, I decant the entire supernatant of the stored batch.

So I do decant, but probably not the way most people would think. Especially in the first stages of propagation there's still healthy yeast cells in suspension in the supernatant. They're still quiet capable to ferment beer and propagate new, healthy cells. No need to throw the "babies" out with the bath water.

 

[eshea3]

I think I might got infected as well. At the moment, I got the desease under control, only have like five hops in my freezer. But I had a recent push and bought a pack of Rottenburger, which is an old school German variety that was supposed to be extinct but survived on one single farm in form of a 40 year old plant that was kept for decorative purposes and got discovered by accident.

...I am mentally strong. But I am not THAT strong to resist stuff like this

Great story. What's the profile of that hop?

 

[Miraculix]

Great story. What's the profile of that hop?

The internet says: "Intensive woody flavour: Cedar, Pine, Sandalwood, Lavender, Green Pepper, Peppermint"

I have yet to brew with it. My next cream ale will have this one as late additions for evalution purposes.

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

Mashed in a half hour ago, using the proper crystal malt this time and the color already looks closer to the original recipe, I have an eherms setup so I can see the color as it recirculates.. I also added vitamin c to the mash. Used it in my latest neipa and so far so good with that brew. My pub ale yeast starter is still hanging out in the fridge for now, I usually pull it and decant at the start of boil so it has time to warm back up... imperial says pitch right out of the fridge, anyone doing that with their starters as well?

 

[Miraculix]

Mashed in a half hour ago, using the proper crystal malt this time and the color already looks closer to the original recipe, I have an eherms setup so I can see the color as it recirculates.. I also added vitamin c to the mash. Used it in my latest neipa and so far so good with that brew. My pub ale yeast starter is still hanging out in the fridge for now, I usually pull it and decant at the start of boil so it has time to warm back up... imperial says pitch right out of the fridge, anyone doing that with their starters as well?

I always let it warm up, unless I forget it. Both worked fine for me.

 

[Broothru]

.... I usually pull it and decant at the start of boil so it has time to warm back up... imperial says pitch right out of the fridge, anyone doing that with their starters as well?...

I like to have the yeast within 5°F to 10°F, plus or minus, of the wort to be inoculated, preferably slightly under the optimum fermentation temperature. Why shock the yeast?

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

I'll stick to my normal routine then.. so, even though its 1030am here I figured I should have a miraculix best while brewing one, the color difference is significant from this first one to the one that's in the kettles, makes me even more excited for this batch as I feel it will be closer to how it should be overall.

 

[InspectorJon]

I pull the starter out of the refrigerator first thing and decant it. I then pull 250 or 300 ml of wort from the mash when it’s done and quickly boil it for a few minutes on the kitchen stove, cool and pitch that into the starter. By the time I’m ready to pitch my finished wort the starter is usually getting a little foamy and excited. I guess that’s kind of what they call a vitality starter. The imperial porter I did this with last week was blowing bubbles in the blowoff jar in 4 hours.

 

[Broothru]

I'll stick to my normal routine then.. so, even though its 1030am here I figured I should have a miraculix best while brewing one, the color difference is significant from this first one to the one that's in the kettles, makes me even more excited for this batch as I feel it will be closer to how it should be overall.
View attachment 760853

SchweEEEETT! That Miraclux Best sure looks good. It's next up on my To Brew list.

Oh, and pretty impressive brew setup!

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

SchweEEEETT! That Miraclux Best sure looks good. It's next up on my To Brew list.

Oh, and pretty impressive brew setup!

Thank you sir.

 

[Miraculix]

...so, even though its 1030am here I figured I should have a miraculix best while brewing one...

That is the No. 1 rule of the home brew! You shall have a home brew while brewing home brew!

 

[eshea3]

The internet says: "Intensive woody flavour: Cedar, Pine, Sandalwood, Lavender, Green Pepper, Peppermint"

I have yet to brew with it. My next cream ale will have this one as late additions for evalution purposes.

Oy yeah that Internet thing. That's what happens when I post before the first cup of coffee.

Look forward to your post-brew assessment.

 

[Miraculix]

Oy yeah that Internet thing. That's what happens when I post before the first cup of coffee.

Look forward to your post-brew assessment.

It actually sounds like the almost perfect saison hop to me, maybe it would be even better in a mix with cluster. But to judge a hop in a saison is really hard.... So I brew something clean first for the evaluation.

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

Brewday was a success, ph 5.25, OG 1.048 as projected, a little higher the the original recipe, color in the picture is a little deceiving, it's more of a golden amber color. The pub started chewing away about 6 hours post pitch.

 

[Mumathomebrew]

This beer is definitely on my list next but one brew. Ordered the hops.

 

[Mumathomebrew]

A job hop lot has just arrived. I hope East Kent Goldings and Bramling Cross will do for the UK hops (with also Summit, Pacific Gem, and Green bullet hops as part of the package). I'll look up their profiles. How exciting. I might do this beer first.

 

[Miraculix]

A job hop lot has just arrived. I hope East Kent Goldings and Bramling Cross will do for the UK hops (with also Summit, Pacific Gem, and Green bullet hops as part of the package). I'll look up their profiles. How exciting. I might do this beer first.

EKG is the perfect hop for this, this is the original hop the recipe is designed with. So you're good!

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

Just curious as to how you're fermenting with the pub, I have it going at 65f and was planning to bump it up to 68f or 70f on about day 5 and let it rest there for another week. Is this necessary with pub or what process are you using?

 

[DBhomebrew]

For a best bitter such as this, I pitch/ferment at 68. When the krausen starts to fall I'll bump it up to 70 to finish. For a stronger ale, ~>1.055, I'll pitch/ferment at 62/64 with a bump up to 70 for the finish.

 

[Miraculix]

Just curious as to how you're fermenting with the pub, I have it going at 65f and was planning to bump it up to 68f or 70f on about day 5 and let it rest there for another week. Is this necessary with pub or what process are you using?

I usually just let it ride around 17-18 c for the first 3 days and after that, jsut room temperature for 4-5 more days. Bottling after 7-9 days.

 

[Mumathomebrew]

We started this beer last night thinking we were ready enough. Quite a newbs horlicks went on. Working with much larger equipment takes some getting used to, but it's fun anyway.

Temps weren't accurately staying on target for a stepped mash. The temp regulator on the tun must be rather old, so the temp started at 55* ok, then slowly moved to 62*, got to 72* then we lost it back to 60* ish. Then we turned it up to hit the 72* but we must have turned it too hard by the final 15' stage to get to 76* and found it suddenly nearly boiling. Luckily right at the end. Sparged at 74* ish. The wort came out looking like brown beer and tastes nice anyway.

As for the grain bill... I'd made a howler in writing down the crystal as 1468g (got the decimal point wrong on google spreadsheet calc and should have been 147g) So we didn't have enough crystal, so subs got put in to use up some older grain pots... so quite what beer we will actually make from this is going to be an interesting mystery.

This was adjusted up slightly for 20 litres (original recipe of 4.5 US galls = 17.0325 litres).
2114g Maris Otter
235g Spelt Flour (used wholemeal organic Dove)
424g Goldsword Crystal 150 (all we had left)
so subbed to top up with:-
351g Caramalt 30 Brupack (all we had left)
500g Caramunch malt 90 Brupack (all we had left)
193g Special B 300 Brupack

That's got us to 20L pre-boil @1.028 without the syrup addition yet. We've left this overnight (off the grain bed) before the boil whilst we get the right connector for the cooling coil today. No idea what that hot wait will do to the sugars and conversions. We'll see.

Planning on using Summit hops for the orange flavour bittering and EKG. Got the choice of pellets or frozen real hops for Summit and only pellets for EKG's. Not sure what proportions are what for that. Might use just the pellets to keep the proportions right.

9.4g Summit @30' - 15.2%AA - (description - citric aromas of tangerine, grapefruit and orange)
11.7g EKG @30' - 5.1%AA - (description - lavender, spice, honey and notes of thyme)
117.6g EKG @10
117g EKG @FO
If it needed to be more orange marmalade then we've got Amarillo or Mandarina pellets.

Yeasts - got these
Lallemand Premium series high performance ale yeast Nottingham,
Lallemand Premium series high performance ale yeast London
Lallemand Premium series high performance ale yeast Windsor
Youngs ale yeast for English style ale
Muntons ordinary ale yeast

Almost tempted to ferment this in small batches using different yeasts.

Other 'fix' option might be to mash lots of Maris otter on it's own and blend it to reduce the mistake.

 

[Mumathomebrew]

Sussed it I think. In order to make the right proportions back for at least one demijohn of the correct(ish) recipe I need to take out a 10% sample of my above horlicks and add it to a new mash of the original recipe Maris otter and spelt quantity minus 10%.

So use 2 litres of my current mis-mash and do a new mash using 1912.6g of MO with 212g of spelt flour. Both 90% of the original stats for 20 litres. Then add the correct syrup.
Otherwise I shall have to start again to know anything. I suppose I could do this on a sliding scale for four demijohns from my mistake through to the right recipe proportions. Serves me right for trying to be modern with spreadsheets when I'm a notepad sort of person. It may be a very tasty mistake.

 

[Miraculix]

Wow, that sounds a bit chaotic

So, do I get out right? You had almost a third of the grist as crystal?

 

[Mumathomebrew]

Wow, that sounds a bit chaotic
So, do I get out right? You had almost a third of the grist as crystal?

Very, and yes. I was preparing all the recipes on a spreadsheet and preparing the tun when the whole household decided to come and cook supper and pancakes all around me. I fled with a scrap of paper and settled down in another place to weigh stuff so just wasn't thinking straight. Madness now i see what I've done. It tastes very nice but what have I made?

I could call it 'Crystal mess'

 

[Mumathomebrew]

Done a mega lot of reading on how to use crystal and caramalts properly. With a max of 10-20% then this mistaken blend is not looking promising. So decided how to fix it whilst retaining a good spirit of curiosity and using this as a good learning curve.

Make a new brew of MO and Spelt to correct one version to be this recipe almost properly. Then split the rest into 4 litre demis with new MO and spelt in varying ratios of 0:4, 1:3, 2:2, 3:1 to see what happens. Then put some full on Crystal mess ones with experiments like orange peels, full on orange dry hops etc to embrace the caramels to see what happens.

 

[Miraculix]

That sounds like a good plan.

 

[Mumathomebrew]

Friday afternoon... it has taken all this time and all these beers to use up that 20 litres of silly maths mistake. Basically I'd put in ten times the amount of crystal due to a single decimal point error, and enough ignorance/stupidity not to automatically recognise it at the time.

Beer 1 = one gallon demijohn. I was so determined to taste your lovely beer. So restored the quantities to your original recipe by making enough Maris otter/wheat malt blend to dilute the 'crystal mess' to the right proportions. Used Lallemand English Ale London yeast. Summit/EKG hops.

Beer 2 = 20 litre carboy. Half and half 'crystal mess' to ''maris/wheat' blend. Lallemand English Ale London yeast. Summit/EKG/Cascade hops.

Beer 3 = one gallon demijohn. Pure 'crystal mess' to see what it would turn into. Hops and yeast chosen to attempt to be citrusy/orangy to go with the dark caramel to make a marmalade beer. Lallemand Nottingham yeast with Amarillo hops and nectarine peel. Strong OG of 1:054. This'll either be vile or fabulous but I had to make it to find out.

Beer 4 = one gallon demijohn. Same idea as 3. Lallemand Nottingham yeast with Mandarina hops and nectarine peel. Same turbo OG. This is a gentler hop than Amarillo so we'll see.

Beer 5 = 12 litres in a bucket. A small beer made from the second runnings. It had to be boiled fast as it had begun fermenting on it's own with all these other goings on. Used Nottingham yeast. Summit + some mystery hops that I suspect are Citra. Low OG 1:024 so added 150g golden syrup.

Finally finished. A daft thing to do, but learned a lot and we'll have oodles of beer. We will taste this recipe after all as long as no infection sets in. Fingers crossed.

 

[Shenanigans]

Good stuff, oodles of beer is always good

Every cloud has a silver lining