perfidy

For my third brew I went for a semi-clone of the Smuttynose brewery's Old Brown Dog Ale. I think mine will be a little more bitter than theirs, but probably pretty close. The guy I usually buy ingredients from helped start that brewery, after all. Goodwyfe Johno really likes malty American Brown Ales, so this one is for her.

Third brew: Naumkeag Brown Ale

Ingredients:
6 lbs Munton & Fison Amber dry malt extract
Specialty grains:
1/2 lb Crystal malt 60L
1/2 lb Crystal malt 120L
1/2 lb Chocolate malt
Hops:
Bittering: 1 oz Brewer's Gold @7.8%
Finishing: 1 oz Willamette @ 4.2%

1 pkg dry Lallemand (?) Doric yeast

Steeped the specialty grains in about 1 gallon filtered tap water for 40 minutes at 160 degrees, give or take. Actual temperature fluctuated between 153 and 175, but I think I am ok as regards making sure high steeping temperatures don't cause tannins to leach into my wort.

Rehydrated the DME in cold water, according to the instructions of the guy who sold it to me. What a sticky, lumpy pain in my ass. From here on out, I'm using liquid wherever possible. The clear advantage of dry powdered extract, however, is a drastically reduced propensity on my part to nearly sever digits on sharp can lids.

Brought about 3 gallons of filtered tap water to a boil and added the steeping water from the grains. Added the Brewer's Gold at the boil. The hot break took like forever.

Added half the Willamette at 30 minutes and the rest at 45 minutes, for a 60-minute total boil. Cooled the wort in the bathtub with six seven-pound bags of ice in cold water.
It took less than an hour to get down to below 80 degrees. Added the wort to the fermentor (holding back the trub and hop sludge with a strainer) and cooled distilled water to make up 5 gallons and bring the wort to 69 degrees. Poured back and forth to aerate.

Tasted the wort: nice hop flavor that I bet will fade a bit, and jeeeez it was sweet. I'm not sure about this yeast so I can't say how the final will shape up; I expect the crystal to donate a lot of unfermentable sugars and the final beer to end up pretty malty. Given the 8 AAUs of bittering hops and the few more alpha acids donated by the first addition of Willamette, this could end up more to my wife's taste than to mine. Which is fine. I made it for her. (Awwwww!)

Rehydrated yeast in 1 1/2 cups distilled water at 90 degrees for 15 minutes. Pitched, stirred, and sealed fermentor.

OG: 1.048, more or less. Checked three times and got .050, .048 and .046ish, so hey... split the dif.

Checked fermentor at the 24 hour mark and things were bubbling away fine.

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Update from previous brews:

I tasted my Pale Ale from my first brew after 1 week in the bottle... not so good. A little puckery with a pumpkiny note which I (rightly) chalked up to acetaldehydes that had not yet been reconsumed by the yeast. Five days later, it was excellent and now I can't get enough of it. It was designed
to taste like Bass Ale, and whaddaya know, it does, except fresher and much more smooth. Nice reddish-brown color. Buttery notes from diacetyls thanks to the 72 degree fermentation- very nice and in character, with round maltiness and muted bitterness. Well balanced Not a lot of hops on the finish, so next time I might kick the finishing hops up a little and add some crystal malt to the mix to balance that out. Or, I'll do it exactly the same, since it tastes so good.

I also tasted the Porter from my second brew after a week in the bottle, mainly because I couldn't wait but also because I wanted to be sure that nearly severing a tendon in my dominant thumb had been worth it in some way. Surprisingly, it's already excellent. The recipe recommends a 40-day bottle conditioning period to let the roughness and astringency subside, but the Safale 33 seems to work very fast, because the bottle was not only fully carbonated but most by-products had been cleaned up too. Although it is still a little rough tasting and unintegrated, another three weeks in the bottle will smooth everything out nicely. Very fresh tasting, dry, a little toasty from the black patent malt, and generally exactly what I was after. I am surprised the hops don't show up more. I thought I used a good amount of Hallertau Mittelfreuh for aroma; they've disappeared. They might re-emerge as the beer ages, but I don't know. It's not a problem because the subtle freshness they bring is plenty nice anyway, and too
many finishing hops aren't exactly in character for a Porter. Still, maybe next time I'll use Fuggles and more of them for the softness they bring.

So anyway, that's nearly fifteen gallons of beer sitting around the house in various stages of readiness. I could probably take a month or so off, dont'cha think?

[alsø wik] FG: 1.015. It's going to be good! Bitter, like I thought, but with a nice balancing sweetness and a little bit of esters from the yeast. I think it will really benefit from at least four weeks in the bottle before drinking. There was a surprising amount of hop sludge and break material in the fermentor - my straining technique needs work. I think I love Doric yeast; if I had a little more fridge space I'd ranch it.

[alsø alsø wik] Delicious! It tastes more like Ipswich Brown than Old Brown Dog, but who cares? Color is very dark, ruby with brown overtones, with decent head formation and not much retention. Aroma is 100% Willamette up front, with some nice roastiness and complex sugars from the dark crystal malt. Good flavor, maybe a smidge too bitter this time (next time use Eroica or Northern Brewer, maybe Galena instead of Brewer's Gold, and a couple less AAUs). Complex and interesting. A good sipping beer. I'm curious to see how it develops in the bottle.

[wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?] So now I find that using too many Willamette hops makes a beer taste a little metallic. Which this one does. I'm still done with Brewer's Gold forever in favor of Northern Brewer, Galena, Target, Perle, or Eroica, but the hop woes of this brew stem from the Willamettes. Next time I'll make this one with something else.

[see the løveli lakes...] By the time this beer was gone, it was merely okay. Next time I will have to cut back on the Chocolate Malt and maybe on the Crystal 120L, because they were just too dark-tasting. DEFINITELY use different hops... And the Doric yeast is okay, but the clean flavor made the maltiness too prominent after a while. That will probably be fixed by cutting back on the caramel malt. If I can, I should next time use 4 ounces or so of Biscuit. That's be reaaaaal nice.