Thursday, July 30, 2009

American Bitter


Coming back to the basics after a bit of some crazy beers, I decided to make something simple, low alcohol and hoppy to have on tap for the last months of hot weather. Since I've made so few English style beers, I thought it would be one to tackle. I aimed for a low gravity bitter, between a Standard/Ordinary and a Special, but with all American hops as I'm not a huge fan of English hops. I intended on using all Centennial but noticed I didn't have quite enough, so I used up the remainder of my Amarillos from the Gumballhead brew. In this beer, it'll also be my first opportunity to hop in the keg, so any advice on that procedure will be greatly appreciated.
Recipe:




Stats

OG

1.046

FG

1.010

IBU

34

ABV

4.7%

SRM

10

Specifics

Boil Volume

7.5 gallons

Batch Size

5.5 gallons

Yeast

77% AA

Wyeast 1275







Fermentables

% Weight

Weight (lbs)

Grain

Gravity Points

Color

91.4 %

8.00

British Two-row Pale

39.8

3.6

5.7 %

0.50

American Crystal 120L

2.2

10.9

2.9 %

0.25

American Special Roast

1.1

1.8


8.75


43.0


Hops

% Wt

Weight (oz)

Hop

Form

AA%

AAU

Boil Time

Utilization

IBU

14.3 %

0.75

Amarillo

Whole/Plug

9.2

6.9

60

0.272

24.8

9.5 %

0.50

Amarillo

Whole/Plug

9.2

4.6

10

0.099

6.0

19.0 %

0.50

Amarillo

Whole/Plug

9.2

9.2

5

0.054

3.3

19.0 %

1.00

Amarillo

Whole/Plug

9.2

9.2

0

0.000

0.0

19.0 %

1.25

Amarillo

Whole/Plug

9.2

9.2

DH

0.000

0.0

19.0 %

1.75

Centennial

Whole/Plug

10.5

10.5

DH

0.000

0.0


5.25







34.1


7/29/09: Brewed today, rather quickly. I built up just a 1L starter the night before and the yeast finally showed big activity the afternoon after. I got tired of running my chiller for such a long time ran off the wort, oxygenated (likely too high in temp. but we'll see if there's an effect), and stuck the carboy in cool water. Once it was down to about 75 degrees I pitched the yeast. Lag time was pretty short, and now it's producing just the most amazing krausen: full of huge bubbles reaching to nearly the top of the carboy. Efficiency was nearly a consistent 72%, but I was a bit low on volume, I think only about 5.25 gallons into the carboy.
8/12/09: First sample taken. Gravity is at 1.010. Flavor was really thin and lacked the Amarillo punch I hoped for. I also tasted a bit of vegetalness. I'm hoping it will dissipate and that keg hopping with help give it the hoppiness I want.
8/19/09: Kegged her up after the Gose kicked. Didn't take a gravity reading so I'll assume somewhere around 1.009-1.010. I increased the amount of keg hops to account for its lack of hoppiness. I had a cask pint of Victory's Uncle Teddy's Bitter a couple days ago and it was amazing. I hope this one turns out half as good. I think I'll give it a bit more time before I start ramping up the PSI to let the hops settle and meld in. I used a snipped piece of panty hose for the whole hops.

1 comment:

  1. Dan,
    I dry hop in the keg all the time. Toss the hops in a sanitized hop bag, toss in the keg then rack. Some people remove the bag after a week, I usually will leave the bag in for the duration of the keg. Haven't experienced the "grassy" thing the some people talk about.

    ReplyDelete