Dark Earth - India Brown Ale Recipe and Documentation

Dark Earth India Brown Ale

Category: Beers
Subcategory: Top Fermented - Dark
Monday April 19, 2010
(Recipe for 5 gallons)

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (Gal):         5.00    Wort Size (Gal):   5.00
Total Grain (Lbs):       11.00
Anticipated SRM:          21.7
Anticipated IBU:          49.7
Wort Boil Time:             75    Minutes
Actual OG:  1.077   Plato: 18.65
Actual FG:  1.012   Plato:  3.07
Alc by Weight:  6.74      by Volume:  8.62  From Measured Gravities.
ADF:            83.6      RDF         69.6  Apparent & Real Degree of Fermentation.

Grain/Extract/Sugar
%     Amount            Name                       Origin        Potential        SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 81.8     9.00 lbs. Coopers LME – Light        Australia      1.038          3
   9.1     1.00 lbs. Crystal 40L                     America        1.034        40
   4.5     0.50 lbs. Chocolate Malt               America        1.029         350
   4.5     0.50 lbs. White Wheat                  Belgium        1.040      3

Hops

Amount     Name                              Form    Alpha               IBU     Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.00 oz.    Cascade                      Pellet    5.75                     20.3    75 min.
0.50 oz.    Galena                                 Pellet    13.00          22.9    75 min.
2.00 oz.    Willamette                  Pellet      5.00         6.5     5 min.
2.00 oz.    Cascade                                Pellet      5.75         0.0     0 min.

Yeast
-----
White Labs WLP002 English Ale

Process:

Made starter for yeast on Sunday, bubbles were forming on Monday morning. Used 2 cups of boiled water and ½ cup malt extract and yeast nutrients.

Brewday, Tuesday 4/21

Heated 2 gallons of water to 165° and added grains. Temperature dropped to 158°. Steeped grains at 158° for 45 minutes.  Sparged with 1 gallon at 180° for 30 min.  Added 2 gallons of wort and 5 gallons of water to brew kettle. Began boiling, added 1 oz cascade and .5 oz of galena hops at 75 minutes left to boil. Added 2 oz of willamette at 5 minutes, and 2 oz of cascade at flame out. Total wort at flameout was just over 5 gallons.

Bottled on 5/25/10

Log Notes:

This beer was an experiment to me. I tried Sublimely self-righteous ale by stone brewing, which is a very hopped black ale, somewhere between a porter and a stout in color, but not in consistency. That got me wondering about darker, hoppy beers. I went searching for recipes. This recipe is based on Eric’s Bodacious Brown ale from B3. Here is his recipe as pulled from the Brewing Network Forums

11 lb 2-Row
1 lb Crystal 40L
.5 lb Pale Chocolate
.5 lb White Wheat
Mash at 154

1.5 oz Cascade ● Mash Hops
.5 oz Galena ● Bittering Hops are boiled for 75 minutes
2 oz Cascade ● Flavoring Hops boiled the last 10 minutes
2 oz Willamette ● Aroma Hops added at flameout
Cal Ale Yeast - ferment at 68 f

I substituted English ale yeast for the California ale yeast to add more of an English style to the beer. The results are very pleasing and what I was looking for. However, I believe the wheat in the recipe added a cloudiness in the beer that I would omit if I were to make this again.

This was also my first beer I was able to brew with my converted keg brew kettle. I underestimated my need to have a better plan for cooling beer the wort quickly. In the past, I was only able to boil 2-3 gallons at a time, and that left me with extra volume to fill with cool water, enabling me to get my wort down to pitching temp relatively quickly. However with this beer I was able to have a full 5 gallons of hot wort to chill. I solved the problem by freezing 3 two liter soda bottles of water, sanitizing them in iodine solution for 5 minutes and placing them in the fermenter. I opened the spigot on the brew kettle and let the hot wort flow over the icy two liter bottles. This enabled me to get the beer cool relatively quickly. I have since invested in a wort chiller.

Bottom line, my goal was to create a rather hoppy brown ale that had a balance between maltiness and hoppiness. The balance I’m looking for is not quite 50/50, but about 1/3 malt flavor, and 2/3 hops.

Historical notes.

This is not a period beer. This is a historical redaction, a what if, if you will. The legendary story of how the india pale ale is already well known. George Hodgson of Bow Brewing was producing pale ales in the 1750’s and they had become quite popular as exports. In 1790 Hodgson began to ship his export pale ale to the recent British colonies in India. In order for them to survive the journey, they increased the amount of hops in the mix to take advantage of the preservative qualities of hops. The rest, as they say is history!

However, I wondered if there might be someone in the Indian colonies that didn’t want a pale ale. What if they wanted one of the brown ales that were also popular in Britain at the time? The result was a highly hopped brown ale. There are no historical references to indicate that this beer was created and was shipped in this time frame.

Bibliography

More Beer forums

Brewing Network Forums

Designing Great Beers, Ray Daniels, Brewers publications

A History of Beer and Brewing, Ian S. Hornsey, The Royal Society of Chemistry

Wit of Baldur - Belgian Wit Recipe and Documentation

Here is the competition Documentation for my Belgian Wit:

Wit of Baldur Belgian Wit
Category: Beers
Subcategory: Top Fermented - Light
Tuesday July 06, 2010
(Recipe for 5 gallons)
Recipe Specifics
Batch Size (Gal): 5.00 Wort Size (Gal): 5.00
Anticipated SRM: 6.1
Actual OG: 1.056 Plato: 13.80
Actual FG: 1.012 Plato: 3.07
Alc by Weight: 4.53 by Volume: 5.80 From Measured Gravities.
ADF: 77.8 RDF 64.7 Apparent & Real Degree of Fermentation.
Grain/Extract/Sugar
% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
80.0 6.00 lbs. Alexander LME - Wheat America 1.037 4
6.7 0.50 lbs. Aromatic Malt Belgium 1.036 25
6.7 0.50 lbs. Flaked Oats America 1.033 2
3.3 0.25 lbs. Wheat Malt Belgium 1.038 2
3.3 0.25 lbs. Rice Hulls America 1.000 0

Hops
Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
0.50 oz. Styrian Goldings Pellet 5.25 11.7 60 min.
0.50 oz. Saaz Pellet 4.30 9.6 60 min.
0.50 oz. Saaz Pellet 4.30 1.6 5 min.
Extras
Amount Name Type Time
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.00 Oz Bitter Orange Peel Spice 15 Min.(boil)
1.00 Oz Corriander Seed Spice 5 Min.(boil)
Yeast
-----
White Labs WLP400 Belgian Wit Ale

Process:
Heated 2 gallons of water to 172°. Added grains (premixed) , stirred and let steep for 60 min. Strained grains. Added 1 gallon of 168° water to grains, stirred and let stand for 20 min. Strained liquid into rest of the wort. Brought 3 gallons to a boil. Added Syrian Goldings and Saaz hops. Let boil for 45 minutes. Added Bitter orange peel. Let boil for 10 minutes. Added Corriander and rest of Saaz Hops. Let boil for 5 minutes. Flameout.
Cooled wort using sanitized 2 liter bottles filled with ice in the brew bucket. Transferred wort via spigot on my converted keg brew kettle. Once converted pitched yeast at 86° with OG at 1.053 (1.056 when factoring temperature.)
Bubbling active next day for 4 days. After 4 days noticed just a few bubbles. Waited it out and bottled after 14 days.

Log Notes:
This recipe is from a kit from stein fillers. My goal at this point is to make good examples of each style in order to understand the brewing of many different styles. I knew that this beer would not have a true wit color due to using malt extract, as extracts tend to be a bit darker than their all grain counterparts.
I did encounter a couple issues with brewing this beer. Bits of orange peel kept clogging the spigot as I was draining into the fermenter. I will use a grain bag next time. This was something I didn’t even think of. I got as much as I could out through the spigot, then had to pick up the very hot brew kettle with oven mitts and pour the rest into the fermenter. It was definitely a learning experience.
This style has become one of my favorites due to its unique flavor and refreshing drinkability. When I do this style again, I will add lemon zest to increase the citrus flavor to this beer, and do an all grain version to get the color closer to style.
Historical Notes:
Tracing this recipe through history seems to be a difficult task. Reseach I’ve done leads back to weisse beers and weizens, neither of which are very recognizable as the beer presented. There are references to a weissbeir being produced in the city of Hamburg in 1410. It is noted as being made primarily from wheat instead of barley and having very low alcohol content (2-3% ABW) and a sour flavor from open fermentation. One modern example of this style is Hottenroth from The Bruery in Placentia CA, although its flavor is drastically different from above.
Although it seems a staple to this style, I could virtually no information on the origins of a style using exclusively corriander and orange peel. Using herbs and spices in making beer of course harkens back to the style of the most medievally maligned of beers, gruit ale. Both corriander and bitter orange peel have been used in beer since the ancient Egyptians, among other ingredients. However in the mid to late 1700’s coriander specifically was viewed as an adulterant to beer. Something that lower brewers would add to their beers to allow them to save substantially on the cost of malt and hops.
In The London and Country Brewer, published in 1736, we see the following on the use of coriander:
“There is another sinister Practice said to be frequently used by ill persons to
supply the full Quantity of Malt, and that is Coriander Seeds: This also is of a
heady Nature boiled in the Wort, one Pound of which will answer to a Bushel of
Malt, as was ingenuously confessed to me by a Gardener, who owned he sold a
great deal of it to Alehouse Brewers for that Purpose, at Ten-pence per Pound. ”
Although the ingredients used in this beer were being used to make beer in period, there is little to no evidence that this specific combination enjoyed any degree of success to be documented about. A period version of this beer would most likely be a Berlinner Weisse style gruit, without hops.


Bibliography:
Designing Great Beers, Ray Daniels, Brewers publications
A History of Beer and Brewing, Ian S. Hornsey, The Royal Society of Chemistry
The London and Country Brewer