Screwys Recipe #57b - Screwy Pale Ale (All Grain)

I have two batches of my Screwy Pale Ale in various stages of production now, one is just finishing up primary fermentation and the other had been moved to corny kegs a few weeks ago for conditioning. The weather was lousy this past weekend and I saw it as an opportunity to sneak in another brewday.

The only question was what was I going to brew, a nice Chocolate Barley Stout, another batch of my Screwy Noble Wheat recipe or maybe another Screwy Oktoberfest/Marzen lager. This brewing thing was really starting to get interesting.....so many great tasting beers, so little time.

Marris Otter, Crystal 40L, Biscuit, Magnum, Kent Golding And Cascade

I had an extra tube of White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™ in the mini refrigerator, left over from last weekend's brewday when I brewed my Screwy Pale Ale for the second time. The latest samples I took of the now nearly fermented ale tasted amazing so I decided I would be brewing it again.

Brewdays Always Start Out With Coffee And qBrew

I loaded my SPA recipe from last week into qBrew and made some changes to the grain bill cutting back on the Crystal malt and adding a shade more Biscuit malt this time. The plan is to reduce the sweetness and increase the biscuit flavor while leaving the hop schedule the same. This should produce a beer that has subtle differences when compared to last week's recipe.


Size 5.00 gallons: Estimated IBU=65, SRM=11, OG=1.062, FG=1.016, ABV= 6.0%

I pitched White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™ directly into the 70F wort right after aerating it. I soaked the tubes in One-Step™ as an extra precaution against infection.

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew 
10.0 pounds Marris Otter Malt (UK)

  0.5 pounds Crystal 40L

  0.5 pounds Biscuit Malt (Belgium)

 1 ounce Yakima Magnum (pellets)

 2 ounces Kent Golding (UK) (pellets)

 1 ounce Cascade (pellets)

 1 - White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™

Aerate, pitch at 70° F and ferment at 68° F until final gravity is reached

Raise to 70° F over 2 days and rack to secondary fermenter

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34° F

Keg at 30 psi for 2-3 days and serve at 34° F

Infusion Mash at 158° F for 60 minutes.

Boil for 60-90 minutes.

Ferment at 68° F (18.8 °C).

The only real changes I made in the ingredients from last week's recipe was to substitute 1.75 pounds of Crystal 60L with 0.5 pounds of Crystal 40L this time and to add another 0.25 pounds of Biscuit Malt. To keep the total grain weight at 11 pounds, the maximum I can mash in my 5 gallon mash tun, I added another pound of Marris Otter.

Hitting The 158F Mash Temperature

 I know that 11 pounds of grain when mixed in with 172F strike water to a total volume of 4.5 gallons give me a 1.25 mash thickness at 158F. This also leaves me enough room to add a small amount of cold water, or some hot water to lower or raise the mash temperature if needed.

30 Minute Lauter With First Wort Hops In One Pot

I decided to toss some hops into one of the boil pots at the start of the lauter to see if I or anyone else will be able to taste the difference between this batch and the other one without the FWH. I always boil the pot on the right first for 60 minutes and it's the first one in the fermenter. The other pot usually boils for 90 minutes because I have to wait until the first pot has cooled down enough to pitch since I only have one wort cooler.

Start Of Lauter Gravity Was 1.092

Once the wort was flowing clear I drew off a sample and cooled it down to 60F to get a reading on the gravity of the wort at the very start of the lauter. The sample tasted very sweet and it was also somewhat thick as well, it had a lot of nutty caramel grain flavor to it that was very pleasant.

Left Pot 90 Minute Boil Right Pot 60 Minute Boil

 Both pots of wort got a good hard boil and a fast cool down to remove any DMS produced quicker than it could form. I also skim off any break material I see floating on the top, I like to keep the wort as free of any unwanted grains or proteins as I can before siphoning it off into the fermenters.

The Wort Took About 20 Minutes To Cool Down To 70F

 Once the wort was cooled down to pitching temperature I used my auto siphon to move the wort to the primary fermenter. I pitched half a tube of WLP005 yeast directly into each of the Mr. Beer fermenters after briskly aerating the wort before and after pitching the yeast.

Mankind's Greatest Achievement The Auto Siphon

I view every time I move my beer as being another opportunity to clean it. Usually there is about half a quart or so of thick gooey sludge left in the bottom of the boil pot after transferring the cleaner wort to the fermenter.

Allow For Boil Off And Trub Loss When Figuring Boil Volume

When I looked at the fermentation progress 24 hours after pitching the yeast I saw that there was already a nice thick layer of krausen floating at the top and a layer of trub forming on the bottom of both fermenters.

Fermenting Away Nicely At A Steady 68F

  I could also smell the nice fruity aromas seeping out of the fermenters along with the Co2 being produced. This was a great brewday.

1.016 Final Gravity And Ready To Bottle

I took another final gravity reading today and it was spot on according to my qBrew recipe calculations. Tomorrow I plan on bottling this up into the 12 ounce Sierra Nevada glass bottles I've been stocking up on until now. I like buying the Sierra Nevada bottles because of their unique stubby shape and because they come with free beer inside them to drink.

If I can find the time in the next few days I would love to brew this same exact recipe again and pour the cooled wort right on top of the same yeast. When a brew comes out tasting exactly the way I wanted it too I hate pouring the poor yeast down the drain especially after they did such a great job.

Bottle Carbonated Sample Tasted Awesome

 I had to try a sample of this beer while I was brewing up another batch and I'm glad I did. This beer tasted good even though it's only been carbonating and conditioning in the bottle for a little under 3 weeks. I also kegged 2.5 gallons of this batch and batch primed it with the same amount of pure cane sugar I had used for the bottling bucket. Allowing the beer to naturally carbonate in the corny keg as it conditioned.

Natural Carbonation Was Done In The Corny Keg

Screwy's Double Recipe #51 - Extra Special Strong Bitter (All Grain)

This recipe is a retake on my latest attempt, 2 weeks ago, to brew the perfect ESB using all grain, select hops and the yeast pitched in my previous ESB fermentation. I call it a double recipe because of the way it's brewed. I used 11 pounds of grain and 7 ounces of hops in this recipe. The recipe is calculated using a 4.25 gallon batch size, which is 2 times the volume of a Mr. Beer keg, this way I can fill 2 Mr. Beer kegs from a single batch.

Marris Otter, Biscuit, Fuggle, Kent Golding, Willamette and WLP005

The trick to doing a double batch using my method is to have two 12 quart boil pots filled with hot wort during the lautering process. I now put 1.5 ounces of Fuggle hops in each of the 2 boil pots at the start of the lauter and then alternate between the 2 pots when filling. If you completely fill one pot before filling the second pot the first would have a much higher OG than the second.

3 Ounces Of Fuggle First Wort Hops In 2 Boil Pots

  Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database   

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew 
Size 4.25 gallons: Estimated IBU=66, SRM=11, OG=1.073, FG=1.018, ABV=7.1%

10.0 pounds Marris Otter Malt (UK)

  1.0 pounds Biscuit Malt (Belgium)

 3.0 ounces Fuggle (U.K.) hops (first wort hops)

 2.0 ounces Kent Goldings (U.K.) hops (15 mins)

 2.0 ounces Willamette hops (7 mins)

1 Tube White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™ 

Aerate, pitch at 70° F and ferment at 66° F for 12 days

Raise to 70° F over days 13 to 14 then rack to secondary fermenter

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34° F

Keg at 30 psi for 2-3 days and serve at 34° F

Mash at 156° F for 90 minutes.

Boil for 60 minutes.

Ferment at 66° F (18.8 °C).

Directions:  

** Infusion mash at 156°F for 90 minutes ** 

(Soak mash tun in 8 quarts of 180° F water for 20 minutes to pre heat it)

Heat 21 quarts of filtered water to 174° F

Pour 14 quarts of 174° F water into mash tun

Mix in 11.0 pounds of crushed grain mix at 58° F

Pour the remaining 174° F water to fill mash tun to 4.50 gallon mark

Stir water and grain mixture and adjust to 156°F and mash for 90 minutes

Sparge with 170° F strike water to set mash bed to 168° F

(Split these quantities between both boil pots)

Add 3 ounces of Fuggles (UK) hops to boil pots as first wort hop addition

Lauter for 30 minutes adding 11.5 quarts of sweet wort to both boil pots

Full Wort Boil:

Add 2 ounce Kent Goldings (U.K.) hops with 15 minutes remaining to boil

Add 1/8 tablet WhirlFloc with 9 minutes remaining to boil

Add 2 ounce Willamette hops with 7 minutes minutes remaining to boil

Use Screwy's Cooler wort chiller to cool wort to 70°F

Primary Fermentation:

Pour wort through strainer to remove excess hop and grain debris

Fill the Mr. Beer fermenter with wort to just above the 8.5 quart mark

Aerate wort and pitch 1 package of Wyeast 1968 (London ESB) at 70°F or WLP005

Ferment at 68°F for 12 days, raise to 70°F over days 13 to 14 for rest
** WLP005 Rouse yeast occasionally if needed to promote fermentation

Secondary Fermentation:

Rack to secondary fermenter

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34°F

Keg/Bottle:

Keg and force carbonate at 30 psi for 2-3 days at 34°F

Bottle prime and carbonate at 70° for 7-14 days

Setting The Grain Bed For Before The 30 Minute Lauter

I use a 5 gallon mash tun that I made myself with parts purchased from Home Depot. I used the calculation below to determine how much water and at what temperature it had to be added to hit my 156° F mash temperature. I set my mash thickness to 1.25 using 11 pounds of grain and that came out to 13.75 quarts of water

** Infusion mash at 156° F for 90 minutes **

Mash Thickness:   11.0 * 1.25 = 13.75 quarts

Grain Absorption: 11.0 *  .13 =  6.0  quarts

                               ---------------

                                19.75 quarts 174°F (Strike Water)

The combined grain and water mash volume would take up 4.32 gallons of space in my 5 gallon mash tun, leaving me a little over .5 gallon of room for making temperature adjustments if needed.  Using a Strike Temperature Calculator I found that a mash thickness of 1.25 and a grain temperature of 58° F would require the strike water temperature to be 174° F to hit the 156° F mash temperature.

Two 12 Quart Boil Pots One Boils 60 Minutes The Other 90 Minutes

By boiling one pot for 90 minutes and the other pot for 60 minutes I am able to use a wort chiller to cool the first pot down to pitching temperature and pitch the yeast with about 10 minutes to spare before the end of the second pot's boil. This saves considerable time over doing two 90 minute mashes followed by two 60-90 minute boils.

Wort Chiller Quickly Lowers The Temperature For Pitching

As the wort was cooling down I filled a keg from one of the Mr. Beer fermenters that had my original ESB recipe in it for 14 days. I left about 1/4 inch of beer on top of the trub at the bottom and screwed the lid back on it for safe keeping until I was ready to pour the cooled wort into it. 

Kegging The Original ESB Recipe To Make Room In The Fermenter

Once the wort had been cooled down to the same temperature as the trub in the fermenter I poured it directly into the fermenter stirring up the trub and yeast that was left there after filling my keg. 

Trub And Yeast Reused From The Previous Fermentation

Pouring the cooled wort directly onto the trub at the bottom of the fermenter allows air to get mixed into the wort and it also breaks the trub up into smaller pieces. This has the same effect as aerating the wort before pitching new yeast.

Pouring Directly Onto Trub Aerated The Wort

Five hours later I looked in to see a nice thick layer of krausen at the top of both fermenters. The temperature inside the fermenters had already climbed a few degrees.

Fermenters With Thick Krausen After 5 Hours

By the next morning both fermenters had really taken off, the krausen was touching the tops of the lids and the inside temperature had risen to 70° F  a full 5° F higher than room temperature.

Fast And Furious Fermentation In Action

Screwy's Recipe #49 - Extra Special Strong Bitter (All Grain)

After months of brewing German style beers like Pilsener, Okoberfest/Marzen and Weissbier I now have locked down quite a few recipes that produced beers I really enjoy drinking. I also turned my attention to producing some nice American ales based on recipes that included hops like Cluster that were available to Prohibition Era immigrant brewers.

Lately I've been focusing on English ales like India Pale Ale (IPA) and Extra Special Strong Bitter (ESB) and trying to design recipes that produce interestingly complex mixtures of malts and hops. As always I began my research on the BJCP website to get the official take on how this beer should come out. The next step is to drink a few different brands to get an idea on how the bigger brewers have interpreted the style and then search the Internet to see how other home brewers have brewed the style.

Marris Otter, Biscuit, Challenger, Fuggle, Kent Golding and WLP005

I used created a new qBrew's default 'Screwy Brewer's Extra Special/Strong Bitter (ESB)' style guideline as the basis for crunching this recipe's numbers. It's loosely based on qBrew's default 'Extra Special/Strong Bitter (ESB)' guideline, the recipe download contains my complete ingredient list and brewing notes. You can download the latest qBrew database below and use it to upgrade your current ingredient database. This latest ingredient database includes more yeast, fruits, extracts and other helpful entries then ever before.

  Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database   

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew 
Size 2.13 gallons: Estimated IBU=56, SRM=11, OG=1.070, FG=1.017, ABV=6.8%

5 pounds Marris Otter Malt (UK)

1/4 pound Biscuit Malt (Belgium)

1 ounce Challenger (U.K.) hops (first wort hops)

1/2 ounce Fuggles (U.K.) hops (20 mins)

1/2 ounce Kent Goldings (U.K.) hops (7 mins)

1 Pack Wyeast 1968 (London ESB) or White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™ 

Aerate, pitch at 70°F and ferment at 66°F for 12 days

Raise to 70°F over days 13 to 14 then rack to secondary fermenter

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34°F

Keg at 30psi for 5-7 days and serve at 34°F

Directions:  

** Infusion mash at 150°F for 60 minutes **

Heat 16 quarts of filtered water to 170°F

Soak mash tun in 8 quarts of 180F water for 20 minutes and then dump out to preheat tun

Pour 8 quarts of 170°F water into mash tun

Mix in 5.25 pounds of crushed grain mix at 60°F

Pour the 170°F water to fill mash tun to 2.50 gallon mark

Stir water and grain mixture and adjust to 150°F and mash for 60 minutes

Sparge with 170°F strike water to set mash bed to 168°F

Add 1 ounce of Challenger (U.K.) hops to boil pot as first wort hop addition

Lauter for 30 minutes adding 11.5 quarts of sweet wort to the boil pot

Full Wort Boil:

Add 1/2 ounce Fuggles (U.K.) hops with 20 minutes remaining to boil

Add 1/8 tablet WhirlFloc with 9 minutes remaining to boil

Add 1/2 ounce Kent Goldings (U.K.) hops with 7 minutes minutes remaining to boil

Use Screwy's Cooler wort chiller to cool wort to 70°F

Primary Fermentation:

Pour wort through strainer to remove excess hop and grain debris

Fill the Mr. Beer fermenter with wort to the 8.5 quart mark

Aerate wort and pitch 1 package of Wyeast 1968 (London ESB) at 70°F or WLP005

Ferment at 68°F for 12 days, raise to 70°F over days 13 to 14 for rest
** WLP005 Rouse yeast occasionally if needed to promote fermentation

Secondary Fermentation:

Rack to secondary fermenter

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34°F

Keg/Bottle:

Keg and force carbonate at 30psi for 5-7 days at 34°F

Bottle prime and carbonate at 70° for 7-14 days

First Wort Hop Additions Added To Both Boilpots

I decided to double up on the recipe and mash 10.5 pounds of grains at the same time, this saved me an hour and a half since I only had to mash and lauter a single batch. I used a mash calculator to figure out my mash volumes and temperatures. Adding 50% of my hop additions to the boil pots during the 30 minute lauter lets them steep in the hot wort which makes their aromatic oils become more soluble and not evaporate during the boil.

Preheated Mash Tun With 180F Water Fro 20 Minutes

My brewing area is around 58F so I preheat my mash tun to get it closer to my mashing temperature before beginning my mash. After 20 minutes I dump out the water and prepare for mashing by pouring 2 gallons of 170F filtered water into the tun. I next add in my 10.5 pounds of 58F crushed grains and then stir in enough 170F water to fill the tun to the 4.5 gallon mark, adjusting the temperature as needed to hit my 150F mash temperature.

Mash Thickness Of 1.5 And A Temperature Of 150F For 1 Hour

After mashing at 150F for an hour I cracked open the valve on the tun to recirculate around 2 or 3 cups of wort in order to set the grain bed and clear up the wort before running it into the boil pots. Once the wort is running clear I sparged the grains with 170F strike water until both boil pots were filled with 11.5 quarts of wort each.

Pour Sparge Water On Plastic Lid To Avoid Disturbing The Grain Bed

I timed the boils of both pots to be about 30 minutes apart since it takes about 15-20 minutes to chill the wort down from boiling to the 70F pitching temperature. This allows me enough time to pour the chilled wort through a strainer into the primary fermenter while the other pot is still boiling. This takes a bit of multitasking because you don't want to miss the hops additions to the boiling pot while you're racking to the fermenter.

The Left Pot Is 30 Minutes Behind Right Pot's Boil

I keep a pot of boiling water simmering on the stovetop in case I need to add a cup or so of makeup water to the boil so I have enough volume for the fermenter.

First, Second, Third Hop Additions And WhirFloc Have Been Added

The tap water is a cold 60F this time of year in my area and the hot wort cooled down quickly. I removed the hop sacks from the wort before putting the sanitized cooling coil in the boil pot.

From 212F To 70F In Less Than 20 Minutes

My first choice for yeast was to pitch Wyeast 1968 - London ESB™ but I decided to try out White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™ instead. I've never used the White Labs yeast before although I have seen their somewhat unique way of packaging their yeast before. On a visit to an injection molding plant many years ago I saw the same type of White Labs yeast tubes, that is before they were formed into 1 liter bottles.

White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™

This yeast is pretty easy to use, just warm it to 70F and shake it up really well until it's uniform in consistency and color and it's ready to pitch. I split a single tube into 2 Mr. Beer sized batches as 1 tube will ferment up to 5 gallons of wort.

After 5 Hours Both Fermenters Showed Good Amounts Of Krausen

The White Labs website has a lot of information about all their yeast strains including WLP005, the lazy yeast. This yeast is a fast starter and highly floculant producing malty ales in a relatively short period of time. There is also much discussion among homebrewers about stalled fermentations and the manufacturer suggests rousing the yeast may be needed to re-suspend the yeast.

I pitched the yeast at 70F and put the fermenters in a 70F room and after 5 hours there was a good amount of krausen present already. When I checked the fermenters again after 15 hours of fermentation the krausen had already fallen a lot and the yeast was settled on the bottom of the fermenters. It seems this yeast unlike most Ale yeast ferments from the bottom up and racking early to a secondary will actually hurt the fermentation more than it will help.

Rousing The WLP005

On day 2, about 24 hours later, I noticed the krausen had fallen off alot. I remembered reading on the White Labs website that the WLP005 yeast may need to be roused back into action if the fermentation looked like it was stalling.

Re-energized Fermentation After Gentle Rousing Of Mr. Beer Fermenters

Apparently the folks at White Labs know their products as the gentle rousing stirred the yeast back into suspension and the fermentation really took off again. After 14 days of fermentation I took a final gravity reading of 1.011 and racked the fermented beer to my kegs for force carbonating.

Final Gravity Was 1.011 Before Kegging

I used a short piece of 3/8 inch outside diameter rigid tubing, that I cut off of a bottling wand, and a length of 3/8 inch inside diameter soft vinyl tubing to attach my Mr. Beer fermenter to my transfer tubing. This allows me to have a tight connection in the spigot and then use flexible tubing that is easy to position inside the keg.

Flexible Transfer Tube Allows Easy Positioning

Once the keg was full I sealed it tight and used Co2 to purge the air out of it by applying pressure while opening the relief valve a few times. Both kegs are inside the refrigerator at 34F and I'm applying 30 psi to each one to force carbonate them. Over the next few days I'll pull a sample pour to see how the carbonation levels are and then use about a 6 psi serving pressure.