It's from 11th November 1930 and P1B and P2B. So bottling versions of their two strongest Pale Ales.
The first gyle is for P1B:
37 barrels @ 30 lbs barrel (1083.1)37 barrels @ 10 lbs barrel (1027.7)
combined to make:
74 barrels @ 20 lbs barrel (1055.4)
The second for P2B:
37 barrels @ 30 lbs barrel (1083.1)
37 barrels @ 10 lbs barrel (1027.7)
combined to make:
74 barrels @ 20 lbs barrel (1055.4)
18 barrels @ 30 lbs barrel (1083.1)
54 barrels @ 11.5 lbs barrel (1031.86)
combined to make:
72 barrels @ 16.13 lbs barrel (1044.67)
It's definite that these worts were fermented in this state. Because here's the fermentation record:
You can see that P1B starts at 20 lbs per barrel and finishes at 5.2 (1014.4). P2B starts at 16.1 lbs per barrel and finishes at 4.2 (1011.63). These have the starting gravities of the original wort blends.
Then there's the figure in the bottom right-hand corner. "Ave. G. 4.5". That's showing the FG of P2B AFTER post-fermentation blending. It can't be the average OG of all of P1B and P2B because that's 4.7.
34 barrels of the fermented P1B wort were mixed with the 72 barrels of P2B wort to give a nominal OG of 1048.12.
They brewed certain beers this way all the time, so it's not just some weird mistake. Other beers were always party-gyled in the normal way. I would love to know why the hell they did this. It seems like the same could be achieved much more simply by blending to the right gravities pre-fermentation.
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7 comments:
Maybe they were hopped differently, to get a certain result in the blend.
Gary
Apart from palate again - an 8% ABV beer blended with e.g., a 3.5% one will show estery and other traits different from a 5% one party-gyled in the standard way - there may have been reasons related to what is called throughput today. Capacity may have differed for the different functions at different times.
Maybe was easier to brew smaller amounts of two different beers than double the quantity of the same one, e.g., some of the plant you would normally use for that might have been in use at certain times to make something else. What is called a throughout issue.
But I come back to palate. They were doing what some people did in the bar, a kind of Burton and bitter or Burton and mild maybe. IT was probably to reach a certain profile. You can't look at it I think as just way to reach a certain FG, other factors would have been involved.
Gary
It just hit me: surely this was an early version of high gravity brewing, which is done principally as a means to boost production without a concomitant increase in plant capacity.
Gary
Gary, it isn't high gravity brewing. The volume of wort from the mash is unchanged, just shifted around between different beers.
I've been looking through a whole load of 1930's Truman's records and they did this sort of thing just about every brew. Except not always the same way. One time XX would be diluted with X, another X boosted by the addition of some XX. It's very inconsistent. Yet the nominal SG of each beer is always the same.
But broadly I think there is an analogy because it has to be more efficient to brew a strong ale which represents 2/3rds (at any rate) of the extract needed for the FG than starting with the right length for 1055 OG. Energy, manpower, mash vessel utilisation rates ... there has to be a reason I think connected to that.
Palate is the other possibility because a high-test brew will often be more estery than a waeker one. Uou can see this with many U.S. malt liquors and almost any strong ale in fact. I incline now to the former reason (efficiency).
Gary
Gary, I think I might know why they were doing it. It's the fermenters.
It looks as if they're trying to get the fermenters as full as possible. So when they wanted a small quantity of beer or one of an awkward size, they blended gyles to fun the squares. Post-fermentation, they fiddled with those to get nominally the correct SG.
Well that could be Ron. It might be that the cost to run it full or half-full was the same, so better to have it full, which might dictate a bigger brewing length than normally. Or to avoid two runs in the squares, make a brew higher gravity than normally, especially if the weekend was coming up.
Maybe too to make the squares work correctly they simply needed to be full.
It is probably something of that order, not palate connected.
Gary
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