Pitching this wort on the previous batch kicked started this yeast like I have never seen before.  It was up and running full speed in less than two hours.   This certainly is a new persional landspeed record.  I guess so much for ester production but that is just fine; I wasn’t looking for fruity flavors in this one anyway.

I had a real hard time keeping this temperature down, even in the tub.  It fermened for a solid 48 hours.  As of today, this beer is still in the primary fermenter.  I am giving it a long rest on the yeast to ensure that the yeast has time to clean up the mess from a warm fermenation.  Thankfully, I don’t think that this beer fermented warm enough to generate any of those hot fusil alchols.

I will be transfering this into a secondary in the next few days and then moving it into the back of the kegerator.  I want to give this some time to clarify before moving into a keg.  If you skip the secondary, you can safely move it into the keg but the first few glasses are a bit chunky–and if you bump the keg real good, you will get some serious haze for a few more glasses ( of course, it still tastes fine either way ).

Grain Bill
6 lbs     Marris Otter
1.5 lbs    American  2-row
0.25 lbs    Victory
.65 lbs    Crystal 40
.65 lbs    Crystal 60
.25 lbs    Chocolate Malt

90 minute boil

Hop Schedule
.5 oz    Magnum hops @ 60 minute
1 oz    Amarillo @ 15 minutes
1 oz   Amarillo @ 0 minutes

Yeast:
White Labs wlp001 California Ale Yeast.

 Mash Schedule:
Single Infusion Mash at 152F for 1 hour.
Mash Out at 170F for 15 minutes
Sparge for 1 hour.
 Notes:

I actually managed to sparge for a full hour and collected about 7 to 7.5 gal of wort.  I will boil 6.5 gallons of this to start and add the remainder after 30 minutes ( after some has boiled off and the immediate threat of boil over had passed.)  My mash method was a Continuous/Batch hybrid method.  I kept the wort level above the grain bed until I had collected about 5.5 gal of wort.   I then let it rest for about 15 minutes and then allowed the remained to drain.  Dont forget to vorlauf.

I am going to ferment this as cold as possible.  My home AC unit is on the fritz and room temperature during the day is around 80 degrees.  I will keep this in the bath tub and hopefully ferment this in the low 70s.

I am also pitching this on top of my previous batch, the Sim City IPA, so I will effectively have a HUGE starter.  If you are not pitching on top of a previous yeast cake, be sure to make a yeast starter.

Also, after this brew is done, I will have succesfully finished by 10th batch, 50 gallons in all. I know this is a small number for a number of you, but I don’t get to brew but once every two months or so.  I have been on an accelerated brew schedule lately in order to fill up the four kegs that I purchased, but after this one, I am back to brewing every two months. 

I am thinking now that I should have followed Jon Palmer’s Oak Butt Brown Ale recipe to the letter. My version is just too bitter; it is not properly balanced. After reviewing my recipe and proocess, I have decided that three factors produced this less-than-desireable result: higher than expected yeast attentuation, higher than expected water Ph, and overly aggressive hopping.

Yeast Attenuation
I had never worked with the Wyeast London Ale strain before and didn’t know quite what to expect. This yeast strain attenuated well and pushed my final gravity to the lower limit of the expected range for the style. This lower final gravity produced a drier flavor that allowed the hop bitterness to really stand out.

Water PH
I had decided not to concern myself with water chemistry on this batch; I don’t have hard water and it tastes just fine. I discovered after brewing, however, that my area’s water has a relatively high alkalinity, which would have pushed my mash PH up out of the target range. Working only from my water report, I predict that my mash PH was probably around 7. A high mash PH can result in greater tannin extraction from the grain husks which could present itself as a pronounced bitterness in the finished beer. In addition, keeping the Ph in the target range will improve the function of your all-important emzymes; you will reap a better (extraction) efficiency.

From Frozen Oak Br…

Hopping
Palmer’s orignal recipe called for half the quanity of hops that I actually used. I hated the idea of purchasing a full ounce of hops and only using half, so I just used the full ounce.

From Frozen Oak Br…

Recommendation
I suggest that you reduce the quanity of bittering hops to 1/2 ounce and use the remainder as a flavor addition. I also suggest that you read your city’s water report before brewing an all-grain beer. You may been to add some salts or food grade acid to get your mash down into the target range.

If you try this recipe, please let me know your process and how the beer turned out for you.

Happy brewing!

I gave myself quite a scare the night before racking when I burped the fermenter and thought I smelled something “off” from the airlock. I got myself all worked up expecting to find mold or something growning on my beer. I replayed my brewing process and any my yeast collection process over and over in my head–I was sure that I screwed up my santitation somewhere. But all was well the next day when I popped the lid off of the primary; all I could smell was good beer.

I maintained the primary fermentation temperature at 68 for the entire two weeks.  I did catch and correct some temperature swings during the primary, but the temperature was never more than 2 degrees from my target.   To ensure the proper temperature, I dropped the room temperature to 60 degrees during active fermentation.  After fermenation had subsided, I wrapped the fermenter with an electric blanket and attempted to regulate it by adjusting the dial on the blanket.   I checked the temperature about four times a day and made corrections when needed.  I hope all of that attention will pay off; I am sure it will.

The London Ale Wyeast really did its job! The yeast attinutated the beer down to 1.08 from 1.49, thats the lowest final gravity that I have had so far.  I collected two samples of this yeast for future propogation.   The first collection sample was gathered at 48 hours during peak fermentation; only a small sample was collected.   I then collected a larger sample from the bottom of the primary.  I will write up my collection processes if it turns out that I was successful and did not contaminate the yeast strain.

I will now give the brown ale another week or two in the secondary.

Grain Bill:
7 lbs Pale 2-row
1 lbs Biscut malt
1 lbs Vienna malt
0.5 lb Crystal Malt ( 20 L )
.25 Chocolate Malt (335 L)

Hops:
1 oz Nugget (11%) Bitterning
1 oz Willamette Flavor

Yeast:
WLP013 London Ale Yeast.

Mash Schedule:
Single-Temperature infusion at 154 F. Shoot for 2 quart / lbs grist ratio. I had to settle for 1.5; I just didn’t have the room in my tun.
Preheat the mash tun. At 1.5 Grist ratio, use 15 quarts at 163 degrees. Or for 2.0 Grist, use 19.5 quarts at 160 degrees.
To get 6.5 gals for the boil, I had to drain and then batch sparged twice. The second sparge was a little cloudy and I ended up with fine bits of grain in my boil. Be sure to vorlauf ( recycle ) until the runnings are clear.

Hop Schedule ( 90 minute boil ):
1 oz Nugget (11%) 70 minutes
1 oz Willamette 20 minutes

Gravity:
O.G : 1.049 @ 5.25 gal

Fermentation:
Ferment at 68F for two weeks.
Notes:
This was my first All-grain batch. I took a gravity reading of the mash runoff and discovered that my my mash efficiency was a low. To compensate, I added one pound of dry light malt extract. I nailed the O.G. at 5.25 gals .

I bought a new 7.5 gallon stainless steal pot for this brew. It barely fits in my sink–if I would have picked up a 10 gallon pot, I would have had to buy the emersion chiller this time too (maybe in a couple of brews).

This was my first time boiling over propane. I enjoyed being able to use the term “flame out” when discussing my process. I am using a Bayou Classic Banjo burner that puts out an impressive 210,000 BTUs. It was very cold and the propane was running a little rich so I never came close to that output, though.
Notes on Yeast Starter:
Made a starter in one pint of water with 1/2 cup of LME (dry) with London Ale yeast. I prepared the starter 30 hours in advance. After 24 hours, only weak fermentation was visible, so I used an electric blanket to increase the temperature to 75F; the activity improved.