The day before brew day, I like to start my yeast. This isn’t mandatory but I like to proof my yeast before I start brewing. About a quart of water, 3/4 cup light dry malt extract, 1/8 tsp yeast nutrients boils for 15 minutes, cooled, yeast added the it sits on the stir plate overnight. This yeast is US-04.
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This recipe is called nut brown ale. The grain bill is 20# of maris otter in the big bucket, and the small bucket has the specialty grain which consists of 1# crystal 60, 1# caravienne, 1/2# chocolate malt, and 1/2# victory malt.
Next, all the grain goes through the roller mill. This leaves the hulls in tact but pulverizes the meat of the grain. This will be important later.
Next I prepare my tap water. 16 gallons, along with some brew salt additions to get everything in range and fine tune the sulfate/chloride ratio to match the style of beer. For this brew I’m going slightly malty.
Now we have to prepare for the mash. I want a lighter body beer that can be enjoyed before or during a meal. This can be adjusted with the mash temperature. I’m looking for 148F for 75 minutes. The grain and the mash tun have been in the garage all night and are cold. We have to over shoot the temperature of our strike water a bit to hit our target. 8 gallons at 160F did the trick.
We got ourselves a mash. Temperature right on the money. My tap water is a bit hard and I usually have to knock down the pH with some lactic acid. Malt by nature is acidic and the darker roasted and toasted grains even more so. I was going for a mash pH of 5.2 and my reading was 5.22. Close enough for me. I didn’t add any acid.
Been mashing now for 75 minutes and it is time to lauter (drain) and sparge (rinse). We start draining into a small bucket first until the wort runs clear. This sets the grain bed and the intact grain hulls from the roller mill become the filter medium. We don’t want hulls or grain going into the boil kettle, tannins get extracted and lead to off flavors. This is known as the vorlauf method.
Once the beer runs clear, start draining into the boil kettle and set up the sparge. As we are slowly draining the wort from the bottom of the mash tun, we are sprinkling 168F water on top of the grain. This hotter water rinses out the sugar well but isn’t too hot to extract tannins.
We have ourselves a kettle full. I take and record some readings and light the burner. I’m using a 100,000 BTU natural gas burner but throttled down a bit.
When you start getting to a boil, keep one hand on the burner valve and have a spray bottle of water in the other. You will have this big layer of foam build up and it will boil over. Adjust the heat and knock it down with water and eventually the foam goes away.
Next is to measure out your hops. I am using northern brewer for this recipe. Three two ounce portions each in their own mesh bag. Set a timer for 60 minutes, drop one bag of hops in the boil, start timer, and knock down the resulting foam eruption with the spray bottle. When it’s been boiling for 55 minutes, add the second bag of hops and a finning agent. With 59 minutes on the clock add the third bag of hops.
Also at the 55 minute mark I hang my cooling coil into the boil to sterilize. I could dip it into the sanitizing solution but boiling works fine. This is just a copper pipe wound into about 10 loops. Cold tap water flows through the coil to speed the cooling of the wort. The hot water coming out of the coil is run out back to a sprinkler in the yard that sprays pretty high. The water is cool by the time it hits the ground.
Once your timer beeps at 60 minutes, turn off the burner, turn on your cooling water. Now it’s time to sanitize the fermenter and all of the assorted parts and pieces. I use star-San. It’s a no rinse surface sanitizer.
Got the wort down to 75F and into the fermenter. This is the only time you want to aerate your wort. The yeast need a bit of oxygen in the beginning but avoid aeration like the plague after that. I add two vials of clarity ferm to make it low gluten, and then pitch the yeast.
Install the sanitized lid, gasket, and air lock. It will live in this fermenter for a week then get siphoned into two five gallon secondary fermenters and live in those for two weeks. After that, it will get refrigerated for a couple of days, put into kegs, and force carbonated with CO2. More pictures as that happens. Cheers.
Rule Britannia comrade. Adnams used to make a lovely nut brown in the winter. I like a good brown but it's hard to find one which isn't too strong.
