Brown Ale

[Holter]

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Brewing this up right now. This is more of an experimental brew than anything. I wanted to make a beer that had a lot of malt character to it but was under 4% ABV. I may have overshot the sweet flavor on this one, but its a first shot at something that will hopefully be on tap and highly drinkable. I have never used C77 before so i wanted to use a somewhat substantial amount of it. In fact, ive never made a beer that had this much caramel at all, especially at this OG. I always use at most 5% carapils in my ales, but for this beer i was going for big mouthfeel so i upped it a bit and threw a fair bit of wheat in there. I also set my mash to 155 to get some longer chain sugars in the conversion. Its outside of style (as you can see below), but I dont really care!

Hops, I love Sterling as a flavor hop, i even use it in my IIPA. Liberty is a hop that i had lying around and I always liked the aroma from it so i threw it in there for the aroma hop. Ill whirlpool it for around 10 minutes.

Any recipe comments are obviously welcome!

Brown Ale Original Recipe
10-C American Brown Ale
Author:Holter
Date: 3/24/12



Size: 12.0 gal
Efficiency: 80.0%
Attenuation: 72.0%
Calories: 133.58 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.040 (1.045 - 1.060)
|==#=============================|
Terminal Gravity: 1.011 (1.010 - 1.016)
|===========#====================|
Color: 20.13 (18.0 - 35.0)
|==========#=====================|
Alcohol: 3.78% (4.3% - 6.2%)
|===#============================|
Bitterness: 23.6 (20.0 - 40.0)
|==========#=====================|

Ingredients:
12.0 lb 2-Row Brewers Malt (68.6%)
1.5 lb Cara-Pils® Malt (8.6%)
1.5 lb Malted Wheat (8.6%)
1 lb Crystal 77 (5.7%)
12 oz Chocolate Malt (4.3%)
8 oz American Caramel 120°L (2.9%)
4.0 oz Carafa Special® TYPE III (1.4%)

0.75 oz Northern Brewer (9.4%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 m
1.60 oz Sterling (7.0%) - added during boil, boiled 30.0 m
2.5 oz Liberty (3.3%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 m
4.0 ea White Labs WLP002 English Ale

Schedule:
Ambient Air: 70.0 °F
Source Water: 60.0 °F
Elevation: 0.0 m

00:03:00 Untitled Step - Liquor: 6.56 gal; Strike: 165.88 °F; Target: 155 °F
01:03:00 Sac Rest - Rest: 60.0 m; Final: 155.0 °F
02:03:00 Fly Sparge - Sparge Volume: 8.75 gal; Sparge Temperature: 168.0 °F; Runoff: 8.77 gal

Notes
Took 4 minutes to hit mash temp after dough in. Heated up the MLT to 159 with 8 gallons of water.

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.21

[perogi]

How is it looking so far?

[Holter]

Good so far. I think it's a very good southern English brown. I might boost up the caramel and raise up the mash temp on the next batch. Overall very pleased though

[cscade]

AHA Big Brew is a Brown Ale this year. Would you brew this recipe again?

[Holter]

Yeah I would brew it again, and I plan to. So far the fact that it's a session beer has been great. I brewed last weekend and had a few pints during the day and felt great.

As the flavors have started to settle in I definitely want to add some more rich malty flavor to it, but I'm not sure what malt to use. I suppose I could just use caramel 60 or one of the other c series malts, but I want to try something different. Possibly caramunich. At first I thought I would add some honey malt but I have used that malt a lot in the past and I would prefer to try something different. Any suggestions for rich malty sweet character?

[cscade]

Malt character can be deceptive, depends a lot on the individual palate. You can get it in surprising ways, with malts you don't expect as well. For example I made a 100+ IBU imperial IPA last year; 94% Rahr Pilsner malt, 6% Briess C20. Huge malt backbone. It was perfectly balanced. None of the other brewers I shared it with would believe the grain bill. I even mashed it for fermentability. You wouldn't think a super clean malt like pils would give you that character, but it did because it wasn't competing with other malts.

All that said, I'd avoid the C60. Unless you really have a palate for crystal, it can get cloying fast.

I'd drop the cara-pils, and look into the Munich, Vienna, and Melanoidin malts as candidates instead. Adjust down the C77 to keep your color in check if needed. Melanoidin has some very interesting possibilities, but the red hue it's known to impart probably makes it inappropriate for the style.

Cheers!

[Holter]

ok so 5 weeks after brewing this bad boy and the flavors have really come together. im not sure i would change anything on it anymore.

huge flavor for such a low abv. definitely recommended.

[cscade]

Thanks for the update! It's on my to-brew list once I'm up and running.

[Holter]

Just brewed this again. I made some modifications to the recipe, a lot actually. I decided i wanted more body on the beer and i wanted to use this as a beer to build up a good amount of yeast for making other beers. Most of our beers are Cal ale, so what the hell.

Easy Down Session Brown Ale Batch 2
11-A Mild
Author: Holter
Date: 7/14/12



Size: 12.0 gal
Efficiency: 82.24%
Attenuation: 76.2%
Calories: 138.88 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.042 (1.030 - 1.038)
|===============================#|
Terminal Gravity: 1.010 (1.008 - 1.013)
|==============#=================|
Color: 23.15 (12.0 - 25.0)
|=====================#==========|
Alcohol: 4.18% (2.8% - 4.5%)
|====================#===========|
Bitterness: 23.6 (10.0 - 25.0)
|======================#=========|

Ingredients:
10.0 lb 2-Row Brewers Malt
3.0 lb Munich 20L Malt
1.5 lb Malted Wheat
1.0 lb Crystal 77
1.0 lb American Caramel 120°L
12 oz Chocolate Malt
8.0 oz Pale Chocolate Malt
4.0 oz Carafa Special® TYPE III
0.75 oz Northern Brewer (9.4%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 m
1.60 oz Sterling (7.0%) - added during boil, boiled 30.0 m
2.5 oz Liberty (3.3%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 m
2.0 ea White Labs WLP001 California Ale

Schedule:
Ambient Air: 70.0 °F
Source Water: 60.0 °F
Elevation: 0.0 m

00:03:00 Mash In - Liquor: 8.0 gal; Strike: 167.5 °F; Target: 158 °F
01:03:00 Sac Rest - Rest: 60.0 m; Final: 158.0 °F
02:03:00 Fly Sparge - Sparge Volume: 9.0 gal; Sparge Temperature: 168.0 °F; Runoff: 9.01 gal

Notes
Hit the pre boil gravity. Mashed @ 158
OG 1.042

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.21