Strong Brown Ale

I have decided to brew another big beer - a loose clone of Lagunitas' Brown Shugga'.  I got this recipe from the "Can You Brew It" podcast which can be found here.  Jamil interviewed the head brewer at Lagunitas who seemingly gave up the entire recipe with no need for interpretation.  The recipe he described was much hoppier than I would have expected given my tastings of it.  The beer, as described, sort of straddles the line between Double IPA and Barleywine.  I am brewing this one for my mother as she really liked the beer.  She is not a big fan of really hoppy beers typically so I am thinking I must have had some Brown Shugga' with some age on it where the hops had faded.  So, I have decided to use the grain bill for the beer as described but am changing the hopping a bit.  I will do similar volumes of the recommended types of bittering hops (at 90 and 45 min) but I have decided against doing the sizable flame out and dry hop additions.

For this beer I will be using liquid yeast for the first time.  This will require a large starter (4 L) to be built up to get to the ~400 billion cells required for good fermentation in the 1.100 gravity beer.  As I don't have a flask or stir plate this is actually quite a bit of work to put together - dry yeast is a lot easier to deal with.  If I'm going to start using liquid yeast more often I think I should just bite the bullet and buy the necessary equipment (Erlenmeyer flask, stir plate, and Oxygen Injection setup).

I keep telling myself that trying things I'm uncomfortable with is the only way to learn.  I hope this one turns out well.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjuncts:
• 16 lbs 2 Row
• 3 lbs 12 oz Wheat Malt
• 1 lb 1 oz Crystal 60 L
• 1 lb Munich
• 5 oz Crystal 120 L
• 4 oz Special B
• 5 oz Acid Malt
• 9 oz Brown Sugar at 45 min
• Hops:
• 1 oz Willamette (Pellet, 4.5% AA) at 90 min
• 1 oz Willamette (Pellet, 4.5% AA) at 45 min
• 0.25 oz Horizon (Pellet, 11.2% AA) at 45 min
•  Yeast:
• 2 Vials of WPL002
• 1/2 Packet of EC-1118 Wine yeast at bottling
• Water:
• 12 gal of RO water
• 2 tsp of Calcium Chloride
• 2 tsp of Gypsum
• 1 tsp of Irish Moss at 20 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal
• Mash:
• 155 F for 90 min
• Boil:
• 100 min
• Fermentation Temp:
• Starting at 64 F and raising by 1 F per day

Results:

• OG:
• 1.092 (Target 1.100)
• Efficiency:
• 64% (Target 72%)
• FG:
• 1.015 (Target 1.025)
• ABV
• 10.1% (Target 10%)

Brewing Notes:

• 6/6/14 - Created 2 L of yeast starter beer.  Brought 1 L of RO and 1 L of tap water to a boil.  Added 7.2 oz of Light DME to the boil to get a ~1.040 wort.  Chilled wort down to 65 F and split into two 1.75 L juice jugs.  Shook to aerate.  Let 2 vials of WPL002 yeast warm to 65 F and pitched into the two jugs.  Shook again to aerate.  Left at room temperature 80 F and swirled/shook occasionally.

• 6/7/14 - After 18 hrs I chilled in the freezer until the yeast dropped.  Decanted most of the wort off the top of the yeast layer and then added another 1 L of 1.040 wort to each and shook to put yeast back into solution 
• 6/7/14  Brew Day - 6:00 PM to 11:30 PM including setup but not cleanup
• Added CaCl and Gypsum to 10 gal of RO water
• Brought 9 gal of water up to 176 F
• Added 28 qt of strike water to the mash tun for a 1.25 water to grain ratio
• Let the temperature settle out for 10 min - ended up at 167 F
• Added the grain - stirred well to eliminate dough balls.  Ended up at the target mash temp of 155 F

• After 85 min I did an iodine starch conversion test.  Sample turned brown rather than black which told me conversion was complete
• At the end of the 90 min mash the temp was still 155 F
• Added 2 gal of mash out water, stirred, let settle, vorlaufed, and then drained

• First runnings were 6 gal - measured gravity as 1.068 at 90 F, which is under measured by 6 points per my hydrometer calibration.  So, my actual gravity is 1.074.   This is 54% efficiency
• Added 3 gal of sparge water
• Collected a total of 9.5 gal of wort.  Checked gravity again as 1.056 at 90 F which is 1.062.  This is 72% efficiency which is about what I was shooting for with the grain.
• Started the boil - took 20 min.  The pot came very close to boiling over with this one which is odd since I had more wort last time.  This one seemed to foam more than the barleywine.
• Added the 90 min hops after the hot break foam subsided
• Added the brown sugar and 45 min hops

• Added the irish moss at 20 min
• Put the wort chiller in for the boil at 15 min to sanitize
• Chilled the wort down to tap water temps (~85 F).  This took about 20 min
• I ended up with 6.5 gal of wort.  I should have boiled for a bit longer.  Decided to transfer only 6 gal to the fermenter.  My brewhouse efficiency will take a hit because of this.  Let the wort fall a foot or so into the fermenter to increase aeration
• Put into the chest freezer at 62 F to chill down to pitching temps over night
• The next morning I measured my OG as 1.090 at 65 F.  Per my hydrometer calibration this is off by 2 points so my actual OG is 1.092.  This is an efficiency of 64% (with the extra 0.5 gal it would have been 70%).

• 6/8/14 Pitching the yeast:
• Chilled the yeast starter in the fridge to get down to 62 F
• There is a nice thick yeast cake at the bottom of each starter

• Decanted off most of the beer
• Shook up the starters to break up the yeast cake and pitched into the beer
• Shook the fermenter for about 1 min to aerate
• Setup a blow off tube - with the fermenter so full there will likely be a lot of blow off 
• Let the wort free rise up to fermentation temp of 64 F
• Stirred up the wort every couple hours to keep the yeast in suspension
• 6/9/14 - Fermentation is underway - blow off reservoir is bubbling pretty rapidly.  Raising temperature to 65 F
• 6/10/14 - Still bubbling away.  Increased temperature to 66 F
• 6/11/14 - No longer bubbling.  Increased the chamber temperature to 67 F.  Swirled the fermenter a bit to encourage the yeast to go back into suspension and finish out if they haven't already
• 6/12/14 - Increased the temperature to 68 F to help the yeast clean up
• 6/13/14 - Increased fermentation chamber to 69 F
• 6/14/14 - Increased to 70 F.  Took a gravity sample as 1.013 at 70 F which is 1.015 per my hydrometer calibration.  Attenuation was a bit higher than expected/hoped for.  The aroma at this point is fruity English yeast ester.  The alcohol is pretty raw and up front but there is some nice malt complexity there as well.  It has been too long since I had Brown Shugga' to say how close or far this is from the original - I think I do get a little bit of brown sugar in the flavor though.  Way too early to tell how this one will turn out but I am cautiously optimistic.
• 7/9/14 - Cold crashed the fermentation chamber down to 34 F
• 7/10/14 - Added gelatin for fining (mixed 1 tsp in 1 cup of water heated to 140 F and gently poured into the beer)
• 7/12/14 - Bottled with 4.66 oz of priming sugar and half a packet of re-hydrated wine yeast. Measured the final gravity as 1.015 at 60 F.  Ended up with about 5.5 gal and got 51 12 oz bottles.  I definitely get a lot of alcohol from the beer at this point but it also has a very nice malty flavor.  With a couple months to mellow I think this is going to be a pretty nice beer.  I'm not optimistic that this is going to be all that close to the original beer - that 10 gravity points that I lost is probably going to be very noticeable.
• 8/8/14 - Tasting Notes.  I think more maturation time will help soften the alcohol bite that dominates this beer.  I will plan on doing a second tasting in a few months.
• 11/25/14 - Finally had a chance to try the real Brown Shugga again.  It definitely has a hop presence consistent with the hopping schedule recommended by the brewer - I hadn't remembered it being so hoppy.  The bitterness level of mine is about correct but it really does suffer in comparison to the real thing with the nice fruity hops.  It was a mistake to diverge from their recommendation.  If I brew this again I will be sure to use the late hop additions.
• 7/17/15 - Drank one of these that had been sitting in the fridge at my mom's house for the last 6 months. I was suprised to find that it poured brilliantly clear. It has mellowed a lot in the last year. Still a strong beer but it is much easier to drink.
• 7/12/17 - Drank what I think was the last one of these last night.  It was very smooth and tasty.  I think the age did it very well!  Really happy that I was able to save at least one this long.

Lessons Learned:

1. I made the wrong call about ending the boil and ended up with too much wort and lower than expected efficiency.  Putting the wort chiller in displaces wort and makes my sight glass inaccurate.  I need to do some experimentation to better understand this displacement.  Additionally, the wort chiller takes some time to heat up and causes the boil to stop.  I should probably plan for an additional 10 min of boil to compensate for this pause in boil activity.
2. My first attempt at using liquid yeast was a messy and time consuming process.  With no stir-plate I had to shake the starters every hour or so.  The containers are not water tight so I ended up having some of the wort splash out every time.  Having the right equipment would have made life a whole lot easier.
3. Brewing at night was a good idea.  It was a much more comfortable brew day.
4. I had a lot more water absorbed by the grain than expected.  I need to better plan for this going forward.  I got decent efficiency after only having collected 9.5 gal of wort which made for a faster boil which was very nice.
5. After the initial tasting I think that eliminating all the flavor and aroma hops may have been a mistake.  These would have faded over time but at this stage they could help balance the flavor of the beer while it matures further.