80 Shilling Brew Day

[DC]

Hey all, I finally managed to get my first brew day in over 2 years done today, decided to do a recipe to use up what malt & hops I had laying around. Thanks to Seymour for the recipe suggestions. Decided to tweak it a little as there were conflicting reports on the ingredients for the recipe.

Recipe

3.8Kg Golden promise
200g Light crystal malt
130g Wheat malt
130g Amber malt
40g Chocolate malt

20g Target first wort addition
16g First gold 20 mins

Yeast WLP 099

Usual grain shot



Strike water heating up nice to get a brew day started at last went with 2 vessels as I was doing a full volume mash and needed to heat 35.3L of water



Tried out solar pump for transferring strike water to mash tun 8 mins to transfer 35.3L of water



Hit 70 degrees



First runnings



Spent grain, who needs Oats so simple



Coming to the boil





First addition



Second addition at 20 mins left



Boil finished and new plate chiller seems to be working great, took a bit of fiddling with taps to get temp right but got there in the end, 20 mins to get 23L from boiling to 20degrees



Into the FV she goes



All tucked up ready for fermenting



The Money shot was aiming for 1050 but ended up with 1038 so might need to add extra grain if doing a full volume mash again next time



All in all it was a smooth brew day which took 5 hours 15 mins including washing & tidying up, can't wait to get my next brew day started

Cheers DC

[Dave S]

Interesting choice of yeast. Didn't fancy 028 then? 099 is usually best suited to strong Barley Wines. Not that you shouldn't use whatever yeast you see fit. Good to see you brewing again.

[DC]

Hi Dave, Yeah the 028 would have been a better choice but I didn't have any too hand and I was trying to resurrect yeast that has been in my Fridge for over 2 years the WLP 099 was the only 1 I managed to resurrect successfully I do have a bottle of McEwans No 1 Champion Clone with WLP 028 but I didn't want to open as it's been in the bottle 2 years and i am saving it ! Will try & grow the yeast on from that when I eventually open it

Cheers DC

[Dave S]

I like your recipe. I'm thinking of trying an 80/- sometime. Are you sure you've got your OG right? Punching your numbers into BS I get 1041 for 23L.

[DC]

Hi Dave, I put my recipe into Beer Smith and I got 1050 at 5.02% but I did a full volume mash so my efficiency may have been a bit lower plus I mashed at a higher temperature 70 degrees C so the beer would be a lower abv but better mouthfeel and body too the beer ! So that might explain the lower OG

Cheers DC

[DC]

Just a quick update on the 80 Shilling, the WLP099 is going great guns for being over 2 years old



Cheers DC

[seymour]

Looks good, can't wait to hear how it tastes!

…was aiming for 1050 but ended up with 1038 so might need to add extra grain if doing a full volume mash again next time…

No worries, that original gravity just means it would've been taxed at 70/- per barrel instead of 80. You're saving money already.

Interesting choice of yeast. Didn't fancy 028 then? 099 is usually best suited to strong Barley Wines. Not that you shouldn't use whatever yeast you see fit. Good to see you brewing again.

As you imply, that's the historic Eldridge Pope Thomas Hardy yeast, which is super-attenuating making it great for high-gravity brews such as barleywine, but it can also be a great choice for most styles of English ale. By all accounts, it's the same strain which Eldridge Pope used for their session-strength brews too. That same yeast went on to Palmers, who also uses it for their session-strength brews.

DC, I know it was a pragmatic choice because it was your only viable yeast on hand, but I think that was a happy coincidence. It's a real workhorse. There's a reason it was the only one of your yeasts which survived two years.

You did something really cool there: you got a lower-than-predicted mash efficiency, but allow this yeast plenty of time to finish fermenting, and with a higher-than-predicted apparent attenuation you could still end up around 3.8% abv (or higher). If this were a 100% pale malt brew, you might worry about it becoming too thin and watery. But with our Scottish grainbill complexity and high mash temperature, you should nonetheless retain plenty of caramelly flavour, body and mouthfeel. Good way to compensate, there, you brewing genius! Those are the same considerations clever Scottish brewers made for generations. They were taxed on the gravity of their unfermented wort, so they had very real financial incentives to brew lower gravities but then turn around and ferment with the highest-attenuating yeast available in order to get their alcohol content back up where drinkers demand.

[DC]

Hi Seymour, I checked on the brew on Sunday and it appeared to have stopped fermenting at 1.022 which I was not expecting from the WLP099 even after 2 years laying dormant. I had made a starter with some of the 80 shilling wort using the yeast from a bottle of Coniston Blue Bird Bitter to restart my yeast bank so I decided to throw that yeast in and see if it would rouse the beer. Checked yesterday and still no signs of life so I decided to go for plan C I've had a block of Jaggery sugar in my cupboard for ages now which I had planned on using in a brew but never got around to it so I dissolved it in boiling water for 10 mins and added that to the 80 shilling and stirred it for a good few minutes came home from work today to find this !

Looks like it's woken from its sleep


Hoping the mix of the WLP099 & Blue Bird yeast will result in a new Hybrid yeast, will have to wait & see what the results are like

This has deviated from the original plan to try and keep the recipe as an 80 Shilling but I figured why not try and put another slant on it and mix it up a bit more and just play with it a bit

Cheers DC

[seymour]

Cool ideas, DC. Your Jaggery sugar increases your strength back into 80/- range, you wicked tax launderer. You won't likely have a hybrid yeast, per se, since they are single-celled organisms which reproduce after their own kind by cell division. But you have blended a fun Eldridge Pope-Coniston dual-strain yeast which will be worth reusing as many times as you like. This just keeps getting better and better!

[DC]

Hey Seymour, I know it won't be a hybrid yeast as such but as they're now mixed together in the 80 shilling they will both contribute different things to the finished beer, which I am excited to see what it tastes like and like you said I can re use it again & again. I still have a 1.5L bottle of my McEwans No 1 Champion clone from 2012 which should still have a viable amount of WLP028 yeast so I could reuse that in future brews also

Cheers DC

[DC]

Well I just cracked a bottle of my 80 Shilling after 2 weeks in the bottle and I must admit I am surprised how well it's turned out after a slow start and a stuck ferment I added 1 lb of Jaggery sugar and some yeast from a bottle of Coniston Blue Bird Bitter and after seeing a white film on top of the beer after around 10 days and an Emergency bottling session to try and save the 80 Shilling going off it's turned out quite well Not a lot of hop flavour, but that's how I like my beers. Does taste like a Scottish Ale and the Jaggery sugar has added some sweetness and the beer has a sweet smell too it ! All in all it turned out well for a mish mash of yeasts and sugar addition and almost going off

It's clear as a bell will a nice head and nice lacing on the glass when drinking it, the pictures aren't the best and don't do the head & clarity justice





Cheers DC

[seymour]

Excellent work on an imaginative brew. Looks delicious!