Imperial IPA

At Cheshire Peaks we generally brew English ales, and often dark and malty ales. These always go down well with our drinkers and they keep well in keg, getting better with age.

But I like all beer styles and I’ve been desperate to branch out into something, well frankly, obscenely strong and hoppy.

So on Monday we brewed an Imperial IPA. The recipe is based on the recipe in Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff (as are so many of our recipes). This recipe in turn is based on the recipe for Pliny the Elder by Russian River Brewing Co in California – a beer which, to my great frustration, I have never been able to try because it doesn’t ever seem to make it out of the USA.

So what’s the recipe? It’s a simple malt bill, but good and strong (targeting about 8.5% ABV) and VERY hoppy. Most of our beers are maybe 30-40 IBU. This one, as calculated by my brewing software, is 157 IBU. Mouth puckeringly good.

Because of the strength, we pitched the wort directly onto the yeast cake from our previous brew – a pale ale made with Cascade hops and Safale US-05 yeast. That should give it plenty of yeast to get it started.

We aim to bottle this brew, because despite bottling being a right pain in the ****, we want it to be easy to drink in small quantities. And to be able to give it away to friends so they too can share in the mouth puckering fun.

By the way, why is it impossible to buy 330ml beer bottles? You can buy 500ml bottles, but I cannot find 330ml bottles to buy anywhere. So I am indebted to my friend John who has located a local source of used 330ml bottles – very handy! John, some full bottles will be on their way to you.

Recipe

Grain bill
Pilsner malt        5500g  85.8%
White sugar        530g    8.3%
Crystal 40           190g    3%
Wheat Malt         190g    3%

Hop schedule
Chinook      10.9%AA  60g   60 min  59 IBU
Citra              15%AA   60g   60 min  81.3 IBU

Chinook      10.9%AA  20g   10 min  9.8 IBU
Citra              15%AA   20g   10 min  7.1 IBU

Centennial   10.1%AA  60g    0 min
Chinook       10.9%AA  23g    0 min

Centennial   10.1%AA  40g   dry, after 5 days
Citra              15%AA   20g   dry, after 5 days

Water treatment: 10g gypsum, 1g MgSO4
Yeast: Safale US-05
Batch size: 20l
Mash temp: 66C
Mash time: 60 min
Boil time: 60 min
OG: 1.077
IBU: 157 (Rager)
FG: 1.013
Fermentation Temp: Initially 17C, slowly ramped to 21C after 6 days

Invert Sugar Syrup

I was recently given a copy of The Home Brewer’s Guide to Vintage Beers by Ron Pattinson. The author has spent a lot of time researching historical beer recipes going back as far as 1800. There are many interesting differences to modern beers explained in the book, such as the difference between aged (or “stock or “keeping) beers and unaged (or “mild” or “running”) beers.

But what was particularly interesting is the considerable use that brewers used to make of sugar, or more specifically invert sugar syrup. This was added to many beers, sometimes in very high proportions. Some of the recipes show that up to 25% of fermentables was invert sugar syrup.

There were four types of invert sugar syrup, each one darker in colour than the last. The book gives a method for making each syrup, which involves simmering it for a long time.

We decided to make Fuller’s 1910 Porter, which uses 1.32kg No.3 syrup (28.95% of fermentables).

To make it 1.32kg granulated sugar was dissolved in 1.7 litres of boiling water. A small amount (3/4 tsp) of citric acid was added, then it was simmered at 115C for 2 hours and 2 minutes.

Initially we found that we could not reach 115C – it was boiling at 110C. But over time the syrup became more and more concentrated and the boiling point increased. We missed this, and only realised at 2 hours that it was simmering at over 130C. At this point the colour started to change rapidly, and in the remaining 20 minutes the syrup went from a golden honey colour to a deep brown (see photos below). At that point we declared it “ready” and let it down with some of the wort running from the mash tun then added it to our boil. We tasted it and it had a strong treacle toffee flavour – almost burnt. We’re worried that we shouldn’t really have gone so far as to make these flavours so the learning point for next time is to keep a much closer eye on the temperature as it simmers.

I’ll let you know in a follow-up post what the beer tasted like and whether this had an adverse effect. I don’t think it will – after all we made a stout with caramel in it recently and that was delicious.

The recipe also used “flaked corn”, which in our case I have interpreted to mean “corn flakes”. It was only 125g, but they were a right pain because they floated on the top of the mash! I can’t see them making much difference to the flavour. Maybe they were used to slightly reduce the cost of the malt.

Syrup ingredients

Start of simmer

Two hours

Two hours ten minutes

Two hours twenty minutes

Finished syrup before adding to boil

 

Alt Bier

We’ve brewed our way through many of the beer styles in Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer over the years but one we have not tried until recently is Alt Bier. This is a bit strange because alt bier is an old German style (hence the name, “old beer”) which is a rich and malty ale with low hopping and fermented at ale temperatures (ie warm). You would think we’d have done that long ago – right up Andy’s street (apart from perhaps some of “those nasty continental malts”!). I think the reason is probably down to the effort involved in getting the correct yeast.

For our English ales at Cheshire Peaks we rarely use anything other than Safale S-04. It’s dried, so easy to use and store; it is easy to buy (in all the local homebrew stores); it “drops like a stone” (ie does not leave a very dusty sediment that kicks up into the beer very easily) and of course it tastes good too. Just the right level of English ale fruitiness and sweetness without overpowering anything.

But you can’t brew an alt bier using English ale yeast, or it will just be an English ale with some German malts in it. So I mail ordered some White Labs WLP036 Dusseldorf Alt Ale Yeast as required by the recipe and kicked it off with a starter.

What was the beer like?

Mr Zainasheff’s book describes alt bier as “a well-balanced, bitter and yet malty, clean, smooth, well-attenuated, copper coloured German ale”. This sums up what we got very well. The only thing I would add is that the final gravity was on the high end of what the book said (book said 1.010 to 1.015 and we got 1.015) and there was certainly a sweetness to it as well.

In general it has gone down very well with everyone that has tried it. Opinions are divided as to the serving temperature. Served from the fridge (6C - my preference) it is a cleaner flavour. Served at English ale temperatures (12C - Andy’s preference) gives a fuller flavour and greater mouth feel. I doubt if it is served through a beer engine in Germany, but we found that worked a treat.

Recipe

Grain bill
Pilsner malt        3630g  68.6%
Munich malt        900g   17%
Aromatic malt     450g    8.5%
Caramunich        227g   4.3%
Carafa Special I  85g     1.6%

Hop schedule
Magnum     17.3%AA  22g  60 min  43 IBU
Tetnang      5.1%AA   14g  15 min  3 IBU

Water treatment: None
Yeast: White Labs WLP036 Dusseldorf Alt
Batch size: 23l
Mash temp: 65C
Mash time: 90 min
Boil time: 90 min
OG: 1.058
IBU: 46 (Rager)
FG: 1.015
Fermentation Temp: Initially 16C, slowly ramped to 19C after 6 days
Fining: Kwik Clear on racking to keg
Lagering: At 6C for 4 weeks

With apologies to Jamil, because what we brewed is exactly what is in the book. (Buy a copy).

Salted Caramel Oatmeal Stout

Salted caramel is still hugely popular at the moment and we wondered whether it would work in a rich dark stout.

We hit a problem in that you can’t actually buy “caramel” in the shops. I thought you might be able to get it in a jar or something. All I found was Cadbury’s Caramel, which is caramelised condensed milk. We did have a discussion about whether this might work in our beer, but I was rather concerned about dumping that much milk fat into our beer.

No, a better approach was needed. So I researched how chefs make caramelised sugar for desserts and cake decorating. Naturally Delia came to our rescue. I followed these instructions to the letter and it worked like a dream – see my photos below.

http://www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook/sauces-and-dressings/how-to-make-caramel 

Once made, we let the caramel down with some hot water (just to make sure none was left round the inside of the pan) and added it to the boil at the start.

As for the salt – well that was a bit of a stab in the dark. We didn’t want to overdo it, so went for something just over the amount of salts you might add to a regular beer for water profile treatment. We chose 22g of sea salt.

What did it taste like?

This was a hugely popular beer with our friends. It was soft, dark, rich and chocolatey. But there was also something else in there. I can’t say it tasted clearly of salted caramels. But there was definitely a subtle rich taste in there that would probably not have been there in a regular oatmeal stout.

When we do this again (for it was certainly good enough to re-brew next winter) I would probably increase both the caramel and salt by half – 450g caramel and 40g salt. I know now that this would not be over-doing it.

Recipe

Grain bill
Maris Otter       4260g  69.3%
Rolled Oats      450g    7.3%
Biscuit malt       340g   5.5%
Chocolate malt 340g   5.5%
Crystal 70         227g   3.7%
Roasted barley 227g   3.7%
Caramel            300g   4.9%

Hop schedule
WGV       5.5%AA  68g  60min  36 IBU

Water treatment: 22g sea salt
Yeast: Safale S-04
Batch size: 23l
Mash temp: 68C
Mash time: 60 min
Boil time: 60 min
OG: 1.056
IBU: 36 (Rager)
FG: 1.013
Fermentation Temp: Initially 16C, allowed to free rise to 19C after 3 days

King Keg Pressure Gauge

We’ve got three King Kegs in the Cheshire Peaks cellar (OK, garage). Back in 2012 I bought a pressure gauge for one of them off eBay. You can read the post about it and the quest to make lager fizzy.

But the other two kegs remained without gauges. This has proved to be a complete pain. Here’s why.

When we serve beer through the beer engine, it is necessary to put some gas into the top of the keg to prevent building up a vacuum that eventually stops the beer coming out, or worse sucks air back into the keg through the tap. In a British pub cellar the gas going into the top of a cask is air (in other words there is a hole in the top of the cask). This keeps the pressure in the cask at exactly ambient pressure but also means the beer stales in a few days.

The solution at home is to inject carbon dioxide to fill the head space rather than allow air in. This keeps the beer fresh for many weeks. But without a pressure gauge it is always guesswork as to whether the keg needs gas adding or not. If you get it wrong you build up a vacuum and end up sucking air back into the keg through the tap next time you try to draw some beer. Bad.

The other problem I have encountered is that especially during the summer there will still be a little yeast activity in the keg which gradually builds up pressure in the keg. This is OK as long as it does not get too high. But I have had one or two incidents where the pressure in the keg built up too high and I was not aware of it. Fortunately I never had a catastrophic failure like a split barrel. What King Kegs tend to do instead is seep round the hole where the tap screws into the keg. Eventually I was discovering a beery smell in the garage and the keg sat in a sticky pool of beer.

So more pressure gauges had to be procured. Last time I bought a ready made kit -  a pressure gauge and the necessary washer, nut and rubber seal all ready to fit to a King Keg. It took me several months to see a similar kit appear again on eBay, so when it did I grabbed two. (Sold by rocnsoc1969 if you want to see if they have any more on offer). They were £18 each.

Fitting is simply a case of carefully drilling a 10mm hole in the soft plastic of the keg lid. I started with a pilot hole, then expanded it to 9.5mm because that allowed me to screw the threaded shaft snugly into the plastic and it “self tapped” into the plastic.

I had to be accurate with the positioning of the hole so it was not too close to the S30 valve in the middle of the lid – it needs clearance for the CO2 bottle to be able screw down without hitting the pressure gauge (see second to last photo). But it must also not be so far out that the brass washer inside the lid hits the channel in which the rubber seal sits – see the photo above.

Audlem Unusual – back to basics

When we started making beer one of the first beers we tried to replicate was Theakston’s Old Peculier because it is, in my opinion, one of the best beers in the world (no probably!).

In looking for a Cheshire placename reference we came up with the rib-tickling name Audlem Unusual. Or just “Audlem” to its friends.

We’ve brewed this recipe every year (this is the eighth time), but in 2014 and 2015 we tweaked the recipe. In 2014 it was heavily Christmas spiced. In 2015 it was vanilla and oak. This year we have decided it’s time to go back to basics and just brew a damn good ale, fermented well with clean and not muddled flavours.

So that was last night’s brew day and it is currently in the beer fridge at 16C starting fermentation. I always like to ferment English ales cool to start with then ramp up the temperature after a couple of days. If you start them warm (say 20C) the yeast just goes crackers and you end up with a nice enough beer but it is confused by all sorts of fruity flavours. A cool, restrained start helps to avoid this.

There is just one thing that I am not happy about with this recipe. When I visited the Theakston’s brewery with my mates Ian, John and Chris back in February the lady in the visitor centre pointed out the cherry flavours in Old Peculier. In all the years I had been drinking OP I must confess I had never singled out that flavour, but sure enough there it was. Coupled with that, if you hold a pint of OP up to the light there is a distinct red hue to the beer.

Audlem Unusual doesn’t have that. I wish it did. I’d like to find out what we’re missing. Recipe improvement suggestions welcome!

Audlem Unusual

Grain bill
Maris Otter       5240g 91.5%
Crystal 45         285g   5%
Chocolate malt 200g   3.5%

Hop schedule
Fuggles  3.9%AA  45g  60min  16IBU
Goldings 4.8%AA  25g  60min  10IBU
WGV       5.5%AA  20g  10min  3IBU

Water treatment: None
Yeast: 1 sachet Safale S-04.
Batch size: 23l
Mash temp: 68C
Mash time: 60 min
Boil time: 60 min
OG: 1.058
IBU: 29 (Rager)
Target FG: 1.015

Brewing Podcasts

I listen to a lot of podcasts. They keep me sane in my hours on the M6. A number of them are brewing podcasts and today I just discovered a fantastic new one: Experimental Homebrewing by Drew Beechum and Denny Conn. I’ve just listened to Episode 1, and the style, structure and delivery of the podcast is very mature given that it’s brand new. Most podcasts are a little “ropey” for their first episode, but not this one. It was clear and well delivered. And it’s pretty detailed homebrewing stuff – not just the basics or woolly answers.

Anyway, enough on that podcast. Since this got me thinking about brewing podcasts I thought I’d list out all the brewing podcasts I listen to, just for your interest. If brewing and podcasts are your thing, then see if any of them are new to you. And if there are any great brewing podcasts I am not aware of, please leave a comment.

All but one of these podcasts is US-based, which shows the extent of the homebrewing hobby across the pond. (Or podcasting. Or both.) I wish there were more here in the UK. Maybe I should start one? No, maybe not – I have enough difficulty finding time to write this blog!

Brew Strong

Brewing With Style

The Sour Hour

Basic Brewing Radio

The Beertalkers  This isn’t actually a brewing podcast. It’s a podcast about beer, but it’s the only one in this list with a UK focus, so worth a mention anyway. Unfortunately it has been disappointingly quiet for the last few months.

Experimental Homebrewing  I had to laugh in episode 1 where one of the presenters (can’t remember if it was Denny or Drew) was saying how much he hates Fuggles hops. He said “if I want my beer to taste of dirt there are much cheaper ways of doing it than using Fuggles”! Heresy!