1922 Camden PA

[Fuggled Mind]

Hi

Planning on brewing this one tomorrow. Just getting the kit ready.
It's from Ronald Pattinson's Homebrewer's Guide to Vintage Ales (and his Bitter! book). You can see both recipes by typing Ron Pattinson & 1922 Camden PA in google and looking at the google books entry.

The recipe will need some tweaking - I don't have any access to 6 row. It's the lesser of the two pale malts so I went with Maris Otter. It's described as Chilean in the Bitter book.
OG is 1.055
FG should be 1.014 producing a beer of 5.42%

In the Bitter book - the boil is 2 hours. Not sure I want to be quite so authentic. There is also dry hopping mentioned which is not in the Homebrewer's Guide to Vintage Beer. Not sure whether to go along with this.

Here's my take on it - for 19L
60.5% Pale Malt (Weyermann)
31.2% Marris Otter
8.3% Glucose

Hops
Fuggles @ 90 mins - 33 IBUs
Goldings @60 mins - 21 IBUs
Goldings @30 mins - 16 IBUs

Yeast - recipe recommends Whitbread Ale (S-04) but I'm tempted to go with Windsor in case the glucose creates a thin beer. I thought the Windsor might improve the flavour and mimic the 74% attentuation given.

So has anyone had a go at this or any of the other pale ale recipes? I'm not sure if it's going to be a good one or not but I have plenty of beer to weather the storm if it turns out to be a dud.

Cheers

Jason

[GeeThom]

I have only used Windsor once for an English bitter ABV 4.5% and it finished at 1015 and would not go any lower. The beer turned out about 3.9% and sweet.

May work well if you are after FG of 1014

[Piscator]

I wouldn't expect it to be thin but Windsor is a nice yeast for a bit more flavour than SO4 so may not be a bad choice anyhow.
I've used up to 9% copper sugars with OG's below 1.040 and SO4/Notty before without feeling the beers were thin - I quite like Ron's recipes too.

Cheers
Steve

[Fuggled Mind]

Windsor it is then. I'm mashing at 65°c so there should be plenty of fermentables.

The IBU's are 73 and the glucose should accentuate the bitterness further so a bit of sweetness might be welcome here.

I always wondered if the hopping rates in the past were high due to the hops being old and because of poor storage but one look at the recipe in the Bitter! book shows that they were the previous year's harvest in this recipe.

Or of course, our grandfathers were probably hop heads.

Cheers

Jason

[jaroporter]

love ron's recipes so be interested to follow this. if you let windsor finish fermenting though, it'll get ya to 1,010 or similar. it's just slooooooow..

[Fuggled Mind]

love ron's recipes so be interested to follow this. if you let windsor finish fermenting though, it'll get ya to 1,010 or similar. it's just slooooooow..

That's never a problem with me. I bottle everything and it usually takes me 3 weeks to a month to get round to it.

I also like Ron's recipes and his website but the only recipe I brewed was the 1924 Camden S (stout) which was a nice pint and is worth brewing again.

Cheers

Jason

[Hanglow]

Yeah they are good recipes. Certainly opened my eyes to how good the various sugars can be in british beers, even lower abv ones.The last brew i did was based on the maclays oatmalt stout from his site and next one I brew (apart from Jims ESB) will be a strong burton based on one of his

[Fuggled Mind]

Got this one brewed yesterday. Was a pleasant brewday with quite an intense aroma of fuggles and goldings coming from the boiler. I used pellets and you could see them churning in the boiling wort. The green swamp at the bottom of the boiler was one of the biggest I've ever seen. I opted for the 90 minute boil, not the 2 hours suggested in the Bitter! book (I'm brewing with a converted Burco and for the sake of time and the electricity bill, I figured this is one break with tradition that makes sense).

Had a slightly higher than usual gravity which may be due to improved sparging but more probably the use of glucose powder instead of syrup (well I assumed they would have used syrup back in the day). I topped up with water to get the target gravity of 1.055.

Sample in the trial jar was very sweet and very bitter - almost herbal. I could still taste the hops an hour later. Imagine what it'll taste like once the yeast eats all the sugars.

Went with Windsor in end.

As previously mentioned, in one of Ron's books, the recipe is dry hopped with a very generous amount of goldings (about 42 grams for 23 litres) and in the other, it's not. I'm tempted to give it a go but I haven't done it in years and it sort of makes me nervous. Maybe I'll rack half to a secondary and dry hop that to see the difference.

Yeah they are good recipes. Certainly opened my eyes to how good the various sugars can be in british beers, even lower abv ones.The last brew i did was based on the maclays oatmalt stout from his site and next one I brew (apart from Jims ESB) will be a strong burton based on one of his

I've also had my eye on the Maclay's Oatmalt stout and I bought malted oats when I was in England in summer. It definitely looks like the perfect winter beer.
Now that I've brewed Camden S and and have the PA on the go, I'm tempted to give the 1924 Camden WA a go - Camden's own Burton style beer. I've never had a Burton before but I can imagine what it tastes like.
Cheers

Jason

[seymour]

Very cool, can't wait to hear how it turns out!

[Fuggled Mind]

I'm reviving this one.

The original brew spoiled. Not sure what I did wrong but something stripped it of flavour and made it very cloudy. The hops could hardly be tasted so down the sink it went (after a three week wait).

Never one to give up, I brewed it again. This time, it's worked. Down to 1.012 (target was 1.014). I didn't have any Windsor like in my previous attempt so went with S-04. I brew on my balcony and ferment in the cellar. The temperature has varied between 15-16°C. After 2 weeks it's finished. There's a hint of sweetness in the initial flavour but not overpoweringly so. It finishes with quite a herbal kick which can only be expected for a beer of 73 IBU.

Now that the beer is sat in the primary FV and all activity has finished, I'm just wondering whether to dry hop it as mentioned in previous posts or just to go ahead and bottle it next week. I tried dry hopping in my early extract days and occasionally it worked but mostly because my extract brews were very hit and miss, sometimes it didn't (probably unrelated to the dry hopping to be fair). It did put me off dry-hopping however.

So, should I just bottle it (the sample already tastes good) or should I take the plunge and chuck some Goldings pellets in?

Cheers

Jason