Brewing small part 1 - Bitter and Mild

I know, Why didn't you brew these lighter beers in the summer? You're right and if I was only thinking of my drinking pleasure, I'd have gone that route. But of course there are those time where you're tastes and curiosity don't happen to sync with the seasons.

Whatever, it's the beginning of fall and I'm brewing a Bitter, Mild and a Pale Ale.

From what I can guess, the Bitter is an English equivalent to the American Pale Ale or maybe it's better to equate the Bitter to historic British Beer and Mild to a historic English Ale? Scratch that, I'm starting to talk out of my ass... If you're looking at delving into historic English ales you're better served here.

Comparing and contrasting these two beers ...
( to be clear we're talking about the modern recipes and BJCP style guide)

Alcohol: both are on the low side 2.5 - 4 ABV would be common
Color: the Bitter is pale to copper, the Mild light to dark brown
Malt: the two beers are solidly malty with the Mild being more roasty-toasty
Hops: the Bitter will have more hop presence with a full hop schedule. The Mild will only have its bittering addition

OK enough pondering, what did I brew

Patterson's Bitter

Grain Bill:
7 lbs Maris Otter
8 oz C120
4 oz Special Roast

Hops:
1.09 EKG at 60 minute
.5 EKG at 20 minute
.5 EKG at 1 minute

Brew In A Bag
Single infusion mash at 153 F
60 minute boil

WLP 002 English Ale - 1 liter starter

Mild!

4 lbs Maris Otter
3 lbs Pale LME
8 oz C80
6 oz Victory
2 oz Pale Chocolate
1 oz Chocolate Wheat

Hops:
1 oz EKG at 60 minutes

Brew In A Bag
Single infusion at 155 F
60 minute boil

WLP 002 English Ale - 1 liter starter

***********************************

The Mild's fermentation was a bit slow going. It perked up at a normal speed
but then just never came to a halt. The airlock was burping once a minute after
about 10 days; Half of which was at room temperature. I'm not too worried about
an infection, though I'll keep my nose out for one down the road. I'm chalking it
up to the English Yeast.  

At some point in the future, I'll have to get into my love - hate relationship with
WLP 002 and my successes and misfortunes. It's obviously a fine yeast and trust me
I've used others but when you're looking for that lower attenuation and British esters
it's hard to look elsewhere.

Good Bye Grandpa's Coffee Porter

The first cups of coffee I ever had were at my grandparents house. It was brewed in one of

those percolators and it made me a tea drinker

for many a year.

Now this porter wasn't that bad and I've come to accept that the beer that is in my keg is not the beer I set out to make.

So, I'm glad to finally get it out of my keg. They way it turned out this porter was far closer to my coffee stout. After tasting this brew I came to the conclusion that something was wrong with my technique. This was the 2nd beer in a row that came out darker and more astringent. So, what's up? It turns out my mash thermometer was 14 degrees off. I thought I was resting my mash at 154 degrees. Sadly, I was at 140. I guess it makes sense that it was taking so much longer to see full conversion with an iodine test.

I look forward to brewing this porter again come fall. In fact, I'm looking into that Peanut Butter Chocolate Porter recipe too!

Here's the recipe:

JFP (Just F'ing Porter)

Target OG 1.060

Actual OG 1.048

Target FG 1.014

Actual FG 1.007

ABV 5.5%

3 lbs pale malt extract (LME)

3 lbs American 2 row

3 lbs Maris Otter

1 lb Crystal 60

12oz brown malt

5 oz chocolate malt

4 oz special roast

2 oz wheat

2.5 oz fuggle @ 60 minutes

.5 oz fuggle @ 15 minutes

Single infusion mash at "154"

60 minute boil

White Labs 007 dry English yeast

Upon further though I think I'll be making some adjustments to this recipe as well.

I'll probably not make the leap to whole grain yet. So, I'll either go with 6lbs of LME and 3 lbs of Maris Otter. Or the inverse 3lb of LME and 6 of Maris Otter. I'll swap out the wheat with Carapils. Now the other grains ... there are just too many. The brown is staying no matter what. From everything I'm reading, the special roast sounds slightly redundant. Now, the Chocolate malt is really for color and I thought the beer was too dark. So ....

3 lbs pale malt extract (LME)

6 lbs Maris Otter

1 lb Crystal 60

1 lb brown malt

2 oz chocolate malt

2 oz CaraPils

If target stats are hit, this would weigh in at just under 6% (5.8%)

and have an SRM just over 17 ... much, much, much more brown.

I'll also be switching the hops to a UK Kent Goldings variety ( I bough

some in bulk)

Kolsch - 2nd brew

This was probably my sixth or seventh brew of the year. It was my second time brewing this recipe. The first time, I fermented waaaaay too warm. I had used Wyeast 2565 and had fermented at the upper part of it's range (68-70 degrees). The result was an estery mess. Nothing like the near lager like brew I was expecting. This second time around I was able to score a vial of East Coast Yeast's ECY21 and used the technique of "using frozen two liter bottles of water in a Rubbermaid trashcan with water" (yes, very technical) to push the fermenting temp below 60 degrees for the first few days.

The result was a superior beer. Not perfect but close. There is still a slight papery taste which I hope to solve with some more accurate thermometers during the mash.

Here are the stats

Recipe:

Batch size: 5 Gallons

Total grains: 9 lbs 3 oz

Target OG: 1.052

Actual OG: 1:042

Target FG: 1:013

Actual FG: 1:01

ABV: 4.2

6 lbs Extra Pale (pilsner) LME

3 lbs German pilsner malt

3 oz white wheat

Hops:

2 oz. Hallertauer at 90minutes

90 + minute mash

90 minute boil