Serious Homebrew Part 1 - The Recipe

One of the reasons I'd been excited to come to BC was for the chance to brew with my uncle Fred, who over a decade ago was a champion homebrewer and has a 35-gallon custom-built three-tier gravity-fed propane-fired stainless steel system in his garage. He's been out of the game for a long time now, having turned his focus to work, winemaking, and other hobbies, but it didn't take much pushing to convince him to break out the old equipment and brew up a batch with me.

So I read up on all-grain brewing (bearing in mind the lessons from my own Half-Wit experiment), picked a style, and set to work. A few weeks ago I put together a recipe. Fred got in touch with some friends who were interested in a share of the product - you can't do just five gallons on a system this big. Then we picked our supplier, bought an amazing set of ingredients, and then last week, we brewed.

There's a lot to talk about for this first batch, so I've broken it up into a few posts. Here's Part 1: The Recipe.

The Recipe

Last year I made a Nut Brown Ale which was very popular with my friends and family. It was a rich brown colour, malty and nutty, with notes of coffee, chocolate, and caramel, but at 4.5% alcohol it was also quite light and easy to drink. A real session ale. It's not a complex recipe, and Fred wanted something simple for his first step back into brewing, so I created an improved all-grain version of that first Brown Ale recipe, incorporating all the improvements I wanted to make in the last batch.

This time I aimed for a sweeter, less-bitter beer, so I cut even further back on the hops to really highlight the malt. I also cut down on the dark grains, because an overdose of roasted barley or chocolate malt can lend some astringency to your brew. This time the batch is only 2% chocolate, 2% roast barley - enough to give it a rich dose of flavour and colour without overwhelming everything else in there.

We aimed for 15 gallons. Here's what went into it.

Fermentables

NAME	AMOUNT	USE	PPG
Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt	22.0 lb   80 %	Mash	36
Munich Malt	1.75 lb   6 %	Mash	35
2-Row Caramel Malt 60L	2.25 lb   8 %	Steep	34
Roasted Barley	0.75 lb   2 %	Steep	33
English Chocolate Malt	0.75 lb   2 %	Steep	24

Hops

NAME	AMOUNT	TIME	USE	FORM	AA
Fuggle United States	1.88 oz	60 min	Boil	Pellet	4.4%
Golding Great Britain	1.5 oz	30 min	Boil	Pellet	4.1%
Golding Great Britain	1.5 oz	15 min	Boil	Pellet	4.1%
Golding Great Britain	1.5 oz	1 min	Boil	Pellet	4.1%
Fuggle United States	0.75 oz	1 min	Boil	Pellet	4.4%

Yeasts

NAME	LAB	ATTENUATION	TEMP
London ESB Ale 1968	Wyeast	69.0%	64°F – 72°F

Extras

NAME	AMOUNT	TIME	USE
Irish Moss	1.0 tbs	5.0 min	Boil

Mash steps

STEP	HEAT SOURCE	TARGET TEMP	TIME
Protein Rest	Direct Heat	125 degF	30 min
Maltose Rest	Direct Heat	149 degF	10 min
Saccharification Rest	Direct Heat	153 degF	60 min
Mash-Out	Direct Heat	168 degF	5 min

This one is the result of a lot of tweaks we had to make after we got the ingredients, because some of them were so intense and so delicious that we just had to make sure to highlight them. Plus, you really don't want to go overboard with the dark grains. A little gives you nuts, coffee, chocolate, and a rich dark colour. Too much gives you astringent bitterness and tannins.

If you know much about grains, you'll recognize Maris Otter as one of the world's top-tier malts. It's a two-row pale base malt, as is typically used in the majority of brewers' recipes (home and pro alike), but it's of superior quality with unique bready/biscuit flavours that are well-suited to English beers. And it ain't cheap. Getting it from a homebrew shop would be prohibitively expensive, especially in large quantities. Luckily, we found a better supplier.

Next post: I'll tell you how we got the grains.