This post is one in a series of making small adjustments to a single recipe in order to improve it, learn more about the impact each ingredient has on the finished product, and the art of recipe creation. The rest of the series can be found here.

Author: C. McKenzie

Brew Day

The first truly cold days of the year had arrived. In order to have my beer ready in time for the competition I wanted to put it in, I knew I had to brew by a certain date. Unfortunately, my self-imposed deadline was right when it got truly cold (I live in a warmer area so “truly cold” is relative, but it was in the 30’s the night I brewed). So, I steeled myself up, set up my brew equipment, and opened the garage door.

Everything took a little longer to heat up than what I was used to, and while my strike water was heating up, I preheated my mash tun with water I had heated on my stove. Once my water was at my calculated strike temperature, I mashed in and hit my target mash temp.

I let the mash do its thing while I went inside and warmed up for a little while. After that, I batch sparged to gather my desired preboil volume of wort.

I brought my wort to a boil, added my first charge of hops, and went back inside until it was time for another hop addition. Once the boil was complete, I used my immersion chiller to cool the wort down. I then left it to let any trub and hop matter settle out before transferring the wort to my carboy.

The carboy went into my fermentation chamber to bring the wort down to my desired fermentation temperature. Once the wort was at the appropriate temperature, I pitched the yeast. There were early signs of fermentation by the next morning, and shortly after that, the yeast began working vigorously.

The krausen began to drop even before the 48 hour mark. At this point, I raised the setting on my temperature controller, but with the combination of my fermentation chamber being in my garage, below freezing temperatures, and a heating pad that didn’t produce nearly enough heat to keep my fermentation chamber warm enough, my beer dropped a few degrees lower instead of raising to the temperature I wanted the beer to finish at. Because of this, I let the beer sit a little longer than I would have otherwise before I packaged it. I also ensured that the beer was able to get to a higher temperature and sit there for a couple days before kegging. Nonetheless, I was a bit worried about potential diacetyl due to the cooler temperatures at the tail end of fermentation.

When I kegged the beer, I noticed that the yeast had attenuated a little more than I would normally expect that strain to. I didn’t know what to make of it, but I didn’t worry too much about it at the time.

Recipe

Iteration 4 was delightful. The only issue I had with the beer was that it seemed a little heavier than I wanted it to now that I was leaning into this being an English brown ale rather than an American brown.

I mentioned previously that slightly reducing the level of roast might bring this beer more into balance and would have the added benefit of lowering the SRM (to a color more appropriate for an English brown). The more I thought about it, the more I felt that this was the right choice. I wasn’t quite sure how much to reduce the chocolate malt though. My first thought was to half the amount of chocolate. 5% of the grain bill wasn’t a large number to start with though, so I worried that the differential would be too much. After some back and forth, I ultimately decided to use 3/4 of the amount of chocolate malt that I had used in the previous version of this beer.

These considerations resulted in the following recipe:

Mashed at 151°F 77.7% 2-row [8.25 lbs.] 9.4% Crystal 60 [1 lb.] 9.4% Victory [1 lb.] 3.5% Chocolate [0.375 lb.]

Boiled for 1 hr. 23 IBUs Nugget (60 min.) [0.5 oz. at 13.3% AA] 16 IBUs Nugget (30 min.) [0.5 oz. at 13.3% AA] 3.5 IBUs Willamette (5 min.) [1 oz. at 5.1% AA]

Pitched S-04 Fermented at 68°F Raised to 70°F on Day 3

OG: 1.059

FG: 1.012

ABV: 6.17%

Tasting

This beer poured clear, but it honestly took forever to clear up. It was hazy for a long time (uncharacteristically so for S-04, I thought). The color was a light-medium brown that had a slight reddish hue. There was a white to off-white head with moderate retention and fell to a thin layer of foam atop the beer.

The aroma was foremost that of fruity esters—apple and pear. There was also some roast and light coffee in the nose. A definite earthy character came through at the end as well.

The taste was earthy and mildly reminiscent of a weakly brewed, light-roast coffee. There was a slight fruitiness (again, apple and pear). Bread crust came through near the end, and it finished with a slight harshness. There’s definitely something there that I can’t put my finger on—something off (no diacetyl, like I was worried about, but something).

Goals for the Next Brew

Overall, I’m very confused by what happened with this beer. I’m convinced that something was off with the fermentation. The higher than normal attenuation for this yeast (achieved 79% with a standard max of 75%) plus the exceedingly rapid fermentation (2 days) is enough for me to want to point to something outside of my control (or that I can’t pinpoint) being the cause of the strange “something” that I can’t quite pinpoint about this beer. It also remained hazy for a long time, which was not my experience with Iteration 4 using the same yeast, making me further question the fermentation. I will probably brew this exact same recipe again because I don’t think it’s a fair representation of the recipe—and to prove to myself that it’s not the 2 oz. reduction of chocolate malt that ruined this beer.

Competition Results

Since I had planned on this being my last iteration of this brown ale due to the quality of Iteration 4, I had planned on sending this beer to a competition. When it didn’t turn out as hoped, after some deliberation, I decided to send it anyway since I’d already committed to the competition. I almost didn’t include the results in this post because I knew that this beer wasn’t what I wanted it to be, but in the spirit of transparency and the fact that this post was the entire reason I sent it to the competition, here we are. I’ll note ahead of time (if it wasn’t already clear) that I sent this to competition not expecting much in terms of praise. Ok, here we go.

I’ll be commenting on what I agree with and disagree with instead of rehashing what they say.

My overall score was a 33. Not great. Could be worse, but not great.

Appearance: I disagree with Judge 1 that the beer is dark brown, but Iteration 4 was much darker, so perhaps it’s relative. I agree with Judge 2’s assessment.

Aroma: Judge 1 noted slight lactose, and I’m a bit confused on that. I definitely disagree that this beer has that quality of sweetness. He also noted that there were no fruity esters—I definitely disagree, as that’s the first thing I smell. I do agree that the toffee and caramel flavors are low. I mostly agree with Judge 2.

Flavor: I agree with Judge 1’s assessment except on the lack of fruity esters. Judge 2 didn’t note roast (though Judge 1 did) and noted caramel, which I thought was interesting. I don’t get much floral from the hops, like Judge 2 did.

Overall impression: I mostly agree with Judge 1. I’m confused as to how the roast was so pronounced in this beer since that’s what I was aiming to lower by reducing the amount of chocolate malt in the beer compared to previous versions of the recipe. Again—I blame a wonky fermentation. Judge 2: I disagree about the hop flavor, but I do agree that more caramel/toffee would be desirable. I wonder if those flavors would be more prominent with this same recipe if brewed again. I think the accented roast flavor is what’s really driving the balance away from caramel in this iteration.

Recipe Comparison

Iteration 1 Iteration 2 Iteration 3 Iteration 4 Iteration 5 2-row 75% 75% 77% 77% 77.7% Crystal 60 9% 9% 9% 9% 9.4% Victory 7% 7% 9% 9% 9.4% Chocolate 4.5% 4.5% 5% 5% 3.5% Biscuit 4.5% 4.5% N/A N/A N/A Hop Addition 1 32 IBUs Nugget (60 min.) 23 IBUs Nugget (60 min.) 23 IBUs Nugget (60 min.) 23 IBUs Nugget (60 min.) 23 IBUs Nugget (60 min.) Hop Addition 2 7 IBUs Nugget (20 min.) 16 IBUs Nugget (30 min.) 16 IBUs Nugget (30 min.) 16 IBUs Nugget (30 min.) 16 IBUs Nugget (30 min.) Hop Addition 3 3.5 IBUs Willamette (5 min.) 3.5 IBUs Willamette (5 min.) 3.5 IBUs Willamette (5 min.) 3.5 IBUs Willamette (5 min.) Yeast US-05 US-05 US-05 S-04 S-04 OG 1.063 1.064 1.053 1.060 1.059 FG 1.013 1.011 1.010 1.016 1.012 ABV 6.6% 6.96% 5.6% 5.8% 6.17%