American Brown Ale Take II

 This week I'll be brewing up an American Brown Ale.  This will be my second attempt at the style (read about the first attempt).  This time I'm basing the beer roughly on a recipe by Mike "Tasty" McDole (an award winning homebrewer who passed away a couple months ago):  Janet's Brown Ale.

I've decided to bring the beer in at about 5% ABV which is a bit lower than the original.  I'm cutting back on base malt to accomplish this and keeping the specialty malts at about the same level.  It's a fairly complex malt bill (I ended up using 2 base malts as I ran out of 2 Row and had to dip into a new bag of Golden Promise).  I really enjoyed the malt backbone in my last brown ale and expect this will deliver a similar experience

For hops, I've used Northern Brewer for bittering (per the original recipe) but have adjusted the late hops a bit.  The original called for Cascade for flavoring - I've opted to use Chinook for that instead (as I had some available).  Still dry hopping with Centennial and, since I'll be kegging this one, added more Keg Hops to the mix.  I think this will be a nicely hoppy beer.

For yeast, I've opted to re-use the S04 English strain I'd saved from a previous batch rather than buy a pack of Chico yeast this recipe calls for.  Yeast is expensive - nice to cut costs where you can by reusing.  I don't imagine this will make a big difference in the final flavor profile.  I'll be fermenting fairly cool with the beer at ambient basement temperature (low 60).  

I'll give it 2 weeks to ferment out and then cold crash/dry hop for a week

Recipe Detail:

• Grain:
• 6.5 lb 2 row
• 1.5 Golden Promise
• 1 lb Crystal 40L
• 1 lb CaraPils
• 1 lb Wheat
• 0.5 lb Chocolate
• 2 oz Acid
• Hops:
• 1 oz Northern Brewer (Pellet, 6.4% AA) at 60 min
• 1 oz Northern Brewer (Pellet, 6.4 % AA) at 30 min
• 1.5 oz Centennial (Leaf, 10.1% AA) at 5 min
• 1.5 oz Chinook (Leaf, 12.2% AA) at 5 min
• 2 oz Centennial (Leaf, 10.1% AA) Dry Hop
• 2 oz Centennial (Leaf 10.1% AA) Keg Hop
• Yeast:
• S04 (Second Pitch)
• Water:
• 13 gal Spring Water
• 1 tsp CaCl
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal
• Mash:
• 154 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 60 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• Ambient Basement Temperature (low 60s)
• Primary Duration:
• 3 Weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.049 (Target 1.050)
• Efficiency:
• 71% (Target 72%)
• FG:
• 1.013 (Target 1.014)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 73% (Target 71%)
• ABV:
• 4.7% (Target 4.7%)

Brewing Notes:

• 11/27/20 - Built up a yeast starter using S04 that I'd saved from a previous batch.  Used a 1 pint jar of slurry (which included a lot of trub).  Took off quickly
• 11/28/20 - Brewday - 10:15 AM to 2:30 PM
• Brought 8 gal of spring water up to 190 F
• Milled my grain.  Added CaCl and Gypsum to the mix so I don't forget
• Added 6 gal to the mash tun and cycled through the RIMS until the temperature had settled to 164 F
• Stirred in the grain
• Let the mash sit for 10 min to settle.  Temperature ended up at 155 F
• Cycled the RIMS for 50 min with temperature set to 155 F (fermenter read a bit lower for most of that)

• Heated 7 gal of sparge water to 200 F
• Drained the mash tun into the boil kettle.  Started heating after collecting 4 gal.  Topped up the mash tun until I'd collected 6 gal.  Had the beer at a boil soon after this
• Added the bittering hops.  Threw these in loose as a muslin sack doesn't contain the pellet hops very well
• Added the remaining sparge water to the mash tun, stirred, and let sit for 10 min.  Then drained this into the boil kettle (slowly so the boil isn't interrupted)
• Ended up with 8 gal
• I had several minor boil over through the 60 min.  Had to pay quite a bit of attention to the heat to keep these to a minimum
• Added the 30 min hops.  Also put these in loose
• At 15 min, added the Irish Moss
• With 5 min left, I added the worth chiller and the flavoring hops.  I bagged the leaf hops (did 1 oz per bag which leaves a lot of room for expansion of the hops which I hope will give good contact to them
• Chilled the beer fairly slowly (took maybe 20 min) to give the hot wort more time with the hops
• Transferred the beer into a Stainless steel brew bucket.  Let it fall a couple feet to aerate
• Collected 5.4 gal.  Measured the gravity as 1.055.  This is 71% efficiency.  I'm going to top up to 6 gal which should be an OG of 1.049
• Pitched the entire yeast starter into the beer
• 11/29/20 - The beer was bubbling aggressively by the next morning
• 12/12/20 - Added the dry hops in muslin sacks weighed down with stainless steel bolts (1 oz per bag).  Will let this sit at basement temperature for a few days.
• 12/18/20 - Moved the beer to the chest freezer to cold crash at 38 F
• 12/19/20 - Added gelatin to fine the beer
• 12/20/20 - Kegged today with 2 oz of dry hops.  Used the following procedure:
• Filled the keg with star san solution
• Pushed the sanitizer out of the keg with 2 psi of pressure
• Quickly opened the keg and dropped in 2 weighted bags of the dry hop.  Didn't tie these up like last time so they should be sitting at the bottom the whole time
• Re-pressurized the keg to 2 PSI
• Drained the SS brewtech brew bucket output spigot to the keg output (so that beer comes in at the bottom of the keg with minimal splashing and hooked the keg in to the stopper hole of the brew bucket to release the keg's C02 on top of the beer in the fermenter and (hopefully) offer some protection from oxygen
• Moved the beer to my kegging chest freezer setup with 12 PSI of pressure to carbonate
• Measured the final gravity of the beer as 1.013
• 1/26/21 - Tasting Notes - This is a very hoppy beer - hopped to a level similar to an IPA.  The contributions of the brown ale are in the mix but relegated very much to a background role.  The Centennial hops are very nice - the 2 oz of keg hops really amped up hop contribution.  The fruity ester character from S04 is nice as well but it may have been better to go with a less expressive yeast to let malt and hops interplay a bit more - so much going on in the beer with a pronounced yeast component.  Still, can't complain about what is a nicely flavored beer.
• 2/17/21 - Kicked the keg today.  The beer was still very hoppy up to the last glass and the hops in the keg still smelled vibrant and fresh.  I don't recall what it was like well enough at the start ot say if it's fallen off or not but certainly not stale or bland at the end.