Chocolate Brown Ale

Beer lovers and other marginally interested parties-

This past Saturday, I decided to flex some creative muscles and set about formulating my own beer recipe.  As with cooking, most homebrewers follow recipes for an extended period of time until they gather enough practical and academic knowledge to experiment with various combinations of ingredients.  Well.....some brewers (and chefs for that matter) start experimenting earlier and cross their fingers hoping for the best.  I've tried to follow the knowledge and experience route for the most part because I know how much it sucks to dump a 5 gallon batch of beer that you've worked on for 6 weeks!

I've brewed an English Brown Ale before, and it was one of the best beers I've made.  Brown in color (obviously), low hoppiness/bitterness, rich caramel flavor, and full body.  I wanted to include many of these qualities in my brown ale recipe, but I definitely wanted to up the hop additions, up the alcohol content, and add a combination of pale and chocolate malt in an attempt to make the malt background even tastier.  Here's what I came up with:

Grain Bill
9 lbs British Mild Malt
4 lbs British Amber Malt
2 lbs. Marris Otter Pale
2lbs. Corn Sugar *
0.5 lbs Medium Crystal Malt**
6oz Chocolate Malt

*Corn sugar (dextrose) is the sugar that is added during bottling to carbonate beers.  It is used in recipes because it is a directly fermentable compound and does not leave a flavor profile.  In layman's terms, that just means it's added to make beers more alcoholic.
** Crystal Malt is typically added to beers to add "body."  "Body" refers to the thickness/fullness of the beer that is perceived when you drink it.  Mass produced commercial beers have little to no body.

Hopping Schedule 
1 oz Northern Brewer                   90min
1 oz Northdown                            30min

Grains in the mashing ton.  The grains need to be soaked in water between 145-155 to activate enzymes that break down the complex carbohydrates into fermentable compounds.

Fermenting beer!

The brewing process went really smoothly, but there were a couple problems with our recipe that could be attributed to a number of factors.  The corn sugar addition was meant to boost the alcohol content to 8-9% in the finished project, but after taking a specific gravity reading* we found that the potential was only around 7%.  The beer also turned out way darker than we were expecting.  The chocolate malt (even though it was a very small addition), heavily influenced the color of the beer.  Depending on the finished product, we might replace more of the British Mild Malt (a darker malt) with the Pale Malt next time we brew this beer in an attempt to lighten the color.

Later this week I'll be posting about the BREAD that we made from the grains of this beer.  Very exciting development.

Todd

Brew Log 1/7

Now that the New Year has started and I'm back at school, I can return to the best hobby that anyone can have, BREWING.  This post is the first in a series that will document the beer that I brewed the past Friday, show some pictures of the process, provide some background on the style, and attempt to give you guys some more insight into the home brewing process.  For details on the brewing process, refer to the "How is it made?" post.

Beer o' the Week: Belgian American IPA
If you've been keeping up with the blog, you should know that the IPA style includes a wide variety of beers, but the two traditional styles are British IPA and American IPA.  The British IPA uses British Pale Malt as the main grain, and is heavily hopped with British hops at all stages of the brewing process to produce a very bright, bitter flavor.  The American IPA uses American 2-row Pale Malt as the main grain and is heavily hopped with American hops at all stages to produce the distinct IPA bitterness and hop flavor.

The Belgian-American IPA is somewhat of a hybrid beer.  The backbone of the grain bill is Belgian Pilsener Malt, a light Belgian style that provides a sweeter background than American or British Pale Malts.  The beer is then heavily hopped with an American strain of Saaz hops, Mt. Hood.  Saaz hops are added later in the boil for flavoring and aroma, which is very typical of Belgian style beers.

Here's an overview of the recipe:

Grain Bill
10 lbs Belgian Pilsener Malt
1.5 lbs Crystal Malt (10L)

Hopping Schedule (where minutes indicates minutes IN THE BOIL)
2.0 oz Mt. Hood        60min
2.0 oz Saaz                30min
1.0 oz Saaz                5min

Yeast: White Labs Belgian Ale Yeast

All the Ingredients!

The resulting beer will have a relatively sweet, full bodied background with a strong floral/spicy hop flavoring that will be accented by the Belgian Ale Yeast.  Here are some pictures of fermentation (which started about 18 hours after the yeast was added:

Visible fermentation will continue for another 5-7 days, after which we will transfer the beer to a different fermenter for another week or so, ensuring the beer has fermented completely.  Then we'll keg the beer and enjoy it about 2 weeks after!

Always down to split a homebrew or answer any questions
Todd

Ingredient Profile: Malted Barley

The 4 essential ingredients of beer.  How many can you name off the top of your head?

1) Water- Probably the most obvious of the 4.  Beer wouldn't be a liquid if water wasn't used in the brewing process

2) Hops- Another essential ingredient that most would probably name.  One of the most clearly definable characteristics in most beers.  Used for bittering, flavor, and aroma

3) Yeast: Although many beer drinkers consider fermentation and the use of yeast more of a process than an ingredient (similar to an oven), the type of yeast you use in a particular beer effects the flavor and alcohol content enormously.

4) Malted Barley- Last but certainly not least!  Malted barley is the specific term for this ingredient, although many refer to it under the more general category of "grains."

What is Malted Barley?

Malted barley (left) and a beer that might result from using that malted barley in a recipe (right)

A superficial glance at malted barley would probably provoke images of grain or bread, but that glance would be ignoring the chemical complexity of this ingredient.  In order to produce it, barley is germinated to a certain degree, usually through soaking for 4-6 days.  Once it reaches a certain level of germination (before the plant would sprout above ground if it were planted), it is dried and slowly roasted over a period of 24-36 hours.  Where the barley is grown, as well as the temperature that the barley is dried and roasted at, determines it's type.  Most malted barley that is used to make lighter colored beers (Pilsener and Pale malts) is roasted at around 120F while darker "specialty" malts are roasted at temperatures up to 220F.  Malt is a source of sugars, starches, and enzymes that are essential in the brewing process

How is Malted Barley Used in the Brewing Process?

Malted barley is first put through a grain mill, which removes the husks and increases the surface area of the grains.  The grains are then soaked in hot water normally ranging from 145-155F.  This process is called "mashing."  For more on this process, refer to the "How is it Made?" post.  After the mash (anywhere from 30 min- 2 hours), the liquid is drained off the grains and they are rinsed with 170F water until the desired boil volume is reached.  During the mash and the sparge, enzymes within the barley are activated that break down the starches in the grain into fermentable sugars.

How Does Malted Barley Affect the Final Product?

The type of malted barley used determines the color and the flavor background of the beer.  Lighter malts and the lack of specialty malts produce lighter beers, while darker malts and the addition of specialty malts usually produce darker beers.  Malt also effects the texture, carbonation, and alcohol content of a beer to a certain extent.  Smoked malts can be used to produce smokey, barbeque flavors, while the combination of pale and dark roasted malts can produce chocolate flavors in beer (typical of stout and porter styles).  Here are some standard grains that are used to brew and a brief description of each.  Luckily the name of the malt corresponds relatively well with the style it is meant to be used to brew.

Belgian Pale - Used to brew various Belgian Pale Ale styles, typically lighter in color and flavor than its cousin.....

Belgian Pilsener - Common malt in Abbey Ales and other pale Belgian styles.  Light, golden color with a sweet background that complements Belgian hop varieties very well

German Pilsener- Similar to Belgian Pilsener, but is used more extensively in German and Czech lager recipes

German Munich- Slightly darker than German Pilsener malt and often used to brew Amber or Blonde Ales, but also various German lager styles

British Pale- Used extensively in British Pale Ale and Bitter styles.  Also used as a background malt for many stouts and porters

British Mild-  A darker cousin of British Pale malt.  Used extensively in stout recipes and also as a portion of the grains in Brown Ales.

American 2-row Pale- Used in American Pale Ale styles, also as a background malt in American versions of English styles such as Irish Red Ale, Stout, and Porter

Specialty Grains: 

Crystal Malt (Often used to increase the body/thickness of a beer.  Available in pale, medium, and dark varieties)

Roasted Barley (Very dark malt that gives a bitter, mocha flavor.  Usually used in small amounts as it greatly influences color)

Chocolate Malt (Another very dark malt that gives more of a bittersweet flavor than a chocolate flavor.  Also used in very small amounts

This is a lot of information, but I'll try to summarize the important things:

-Malt is one of the most important ingredients of beer

-Types of malts are determined by region where the barley is grown and the temperature of roasting

-Malt highly influences the flavor, texture, alcohol content, and carbonation of beer

-I skipped over A LOT of different varieties of malt that can influence beer because it would take me a book to cover them all

Can't wait to start my first batch of 2011!

Todd