Wednesday 2 March 2011

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1942 Barclay Perkins KK

The two world wars. Not that pleasant for those caught up in them, but a godsend for me. Loads and loads of material.

In case your memory is a Swiss cheese like as mine, I'll remind you that this is part of the public bar price list series. It will include every one of Barclay Perkins draught beers from the middle years of  WW II. Stylistically, this is a personal favourite: KK. Or, as the average punter would have called it, Burton.

I've been poking around in Whitbread's late 19th-century brewing records of late. After a couple of decade's worth, I've stared getting a feel for the qualities of each beer quality (they didn't call them styles back then). For K Ales, it's the hopping that stands out. Lots and lots of good quality hops. Even more than in their Pale Ale.

Of course, that's only logical. K Ales were Keeping or Stock Ales, meant to be matured for many months before sale. For Victorian brewers it was simple. The longer a beer was to be kept, the more heavily you hopped it. The right level of hopping was essential to keep a beer sound without refrigeration. That's the reason for the heavy hopping in British beers in the 19th century. It was all to do with the antiseptic qualities of hops, not flavour.

Today's beer is from a later period. By the middle of the 20th century, true Stock Ales had all but disappeared. Running Ales dominated. This KK is no exception. It wouldn't have been kept for any great length of time before consumption. A couple of weeks at most. During the war years, probably less than that. But, although no longer required for its preservative effect, heavy hopping was still a characteristic of Burton. Wartime hop shortages, however (about which I'll be posting more this week), had driven down the hopping rates of all types. KK remained more heavily hopped than Barclay Perkins Bitter, XLK.

I must write a longer piece on K Ales in general and Burton in particular. I'm still amazed at how quickly it was forgotten as a style. How could that have happened? Will it ever make a comeback? It would be great if it did. I'd certainly drink it down the pub. Hoppy, strong Mild is sort of what it is.Surely that would fit in with modern taste?





On that optimistic note, it's over to Kristen . . . . .







Barclay Perkins - 1942 - KK
General info: With this beer you would think the 'KK' stands for double kitchen sink! There are so many different types of malts and adjuncts. A definite mish-mash of ingredients for such a low gravity beer. Butt loads of hops really make this hop forward and reminiscent of a modern day IPA without the gravity.
Beer Specifics

Recipe by percentages
Gravity (OG)
1.043

3.4% Torrefied Barley
9% Flaked Rye
Gravity (FG)
1.012

3.1% Amber malt
3% Pilsen
ABV
4.13%

1.4% Brown Malt
6% Flaked Maize
Apparent attenuation
72.09%

4.6% Crystal malt
8% invert no2
Real attenuation
59.06%

30% Mild malt
0% 0
IBU
51.5

31.5% English pale malt
1.5Caramel
SRM
41







EBC
80.9

Mash
90min@151°F

0.97qt/lb




90min@66.1°C

2.04L/kg
Caramel to add
32srm










Boil
1.5 hours













Homebrew @ 70%
Craft @ 80%
Grist
5gal

19L

10bbl

10hl

Torrefied Barley
0.28
lb
0.127
kg
15.13
lb
5.85
kg
Amber malt
0.25
lb
0.115
kg
13.71
lb
5.30
kg
Brown Malt
0.12
lb
0.053
kg
6.35
lb
2.46
kg
Crystal malt
0.37
lb
0.169
kg
20.17
lb
7.79
kg
Mild malt
2.44
lb
1.111
kg
132.38
lb
51.15
kg
English pale malt
2.56
lb
1.167
kg
139.00
lb
53.71
kg
Flaked Rye
0.73
lb
0.333
kg
39.72
lb
15.34
kg
Pilsen
0.24
lb
0.111
kg
13.24
lb
5.11
kg
Flaked Maize
0.49
lb
0.222
kg
26.48
lb
10.23
kg
invert no2
0.65
lb
0.296
kg
35.30
lb
13.64
kg





441.49



Hops








Goldings 4.5% 90min (38bu)
1.95
oz
55.2
g
120.68
oz
2.916
kg
Goldings 4.5% 30min (13bu)
0.96
oz
27.2
g
59.44
oz
1.436
kg
Goldings 4.5% dry hop
0.79
oz
22.3
g
48.82
oz
1.180
kg









Fermentation
68°F /20°C






Yeast
Nottingham ale yeast

1028 London Ale Yeast  - WLP013 London Ale Yeast 









Tasting Notes: Hop resin and spice. Citrus and deep toasty malt. Toasted biscuits covered in caramel. A bit of figgy raisins and grain husk. Very dry with a mouth filling hop flavor and the resins continue through the finish.




Kristen’s Version:
Here we go, a few more new things. You’ll see I carried on with the ‘bu’ count in each hop addition so one doesn’t need to recalculate. I’m also adding an ‘advanced’ mashing schedule which is below. You may follow the simple single infusion above or the more advanced mashing techniques verbatim from the brewing log. Since the backlash against the ‘what color really was caramel’ thing, I’ve decided to include the number of EBC you need to add with caramel. So, its left to you to add the caramel by your own calculations or leave it out. This way will ensure that each persons beer can be specified down to the type of caramel, lot number, day of production, location, weather and feelings of the producer at the time. Use as you will. I’m also breaking things down into ingredients and processes. Feed back as usually is great. Post or email me directly. Education_director@bjcp.org.

Ingredients

Grist - I’ve made this one with and without mild malt. I prefer it with but it’s a pain to find most times and it really doesn’t add that much.  This one does very well with Maris Otter which is pretty much my non-bready UK pale malt of choice. Amber and brown malt are mandatory. www.northernbrewer.com has mild, amber and brown malt and will ship anywhere for a flat rate. You UK guys can get all of them at http://www.brewuk.co.uk. I was referred to them by a buddy so if somewhere else has them, use whatever you’d like. The crystal malt, as always, is the 75L stuff…right about there anyway. I do prefer terrified barley over flaked stuff in nearly every instance as its more elegant and less doughy. The exception would be Guinness-type stouts. At 4% its really not going to make a massive difference here. That being said, the rye is pretty important that it’s the malted type. Nearly 11% does come through and I find that I get more of a spicy ‘rye’ flavor from the malted version than the duller rye from the flaked. I’ve used rye chops also and it worked great but you need to cereal cook it which adds more than you really need to do. Either way, make sure you don’t leave the rye out. Lager malt. Drop it and just add more pale malt. Do note that every low percent ingredient you cut out and replace it can really start making large changes to the whole recipe. Invert No2 does lend a unique ‘fruity’ character but if you haven’t made this before the golden syrup does very well in its place. Use it if you can get it easy or make it. If not, do your best. That goes for pretty much everything in perpetuity throughout the universe, over and over, until the end of time, when it comes to these recipes. Plan ahead. Do your best. That’s all. Don’t lose the forest for the trees. We are trying our best to recreate each recipe to the best of our ability.

Hops - Tonnes of very fresh Goldings. Any Golding’s will do. I used a Nugget hops for the bittering, Brewer’s Gold for the finishing and some home grown Golding’s for the dry hop. The biggest difference you’ll see is if you swap out high AA% hops for the bittering as the extra ‘greenery’ of the low AA% adds a lot to the flavor profile of the beer.

Yeast – For these K-type beers I really like the White Shield strain as it gives a very nice mineral profile, a good dose of fruit and no butter. Dries out well also.

Processes

Advanced Mash – BP at this time did a simple 2-3 step mash. Dough in near the rest temp for about 30min. Another infusion by underlet (search Barclay Perkins) and then a sparge (165F/74C) that was usually quite long. I’ve done both ways, single vs advance, and the advanced just made the sparge much easier and the beer dry out a bit more. You are left up to find the hot liquor temperature needed on your system to achieve the temperatures below.

Mash
ºF
ºC
Time
Dough in
147
64
30
Underlet
152
67
90

18 comments:

Craig said...

You must really like KK!

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/search/label/Burton?updated-max=2010-02-06T00%3A05%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=20

Ed said...

Munich malt is very similar to mild ale malt if you're having trouble getting hold of the latter.

Adrian Avgerinos said...

What a fantastically interesting beer. I may have to give this a go, though I may simplify it a bit based on local ingredients and the hops I have on hand. Sure it won't be a clone, but I've wanted to brew a low gravity Burton for a while.

"Munich malt is very similar to mild ale malt if you're having trouble getting hold of the latter."

Is that so? You say that because you've tasted mild and munich malts together, right? You're not just looking at the color I presume. I have a feeling Kristen will disagree with your suggestion. Briess "Ashburne Mild" is the only type of malt I've seen easily available in the US (though I believe Kristen prefer's Paul's. Not sure how he buys it when I can't seem to locate a distributor.)

As far as grain substitution goes, I believe I can get MFB's Special Aromatic. If I recall correctly, Kristen thinks this is a reasonable substitution for Amber malt and it's not the same thing as Dingeman's Aromatic malt.

I like how additional mash information was given. I have to wonder whether or not a mash like that would work properly using today's malts. I brewed a Porter that wasn't too dissimilar from this recipe (higher percentage of brown malt and no crystal) and mashed at 158 degrees to end up with 74% attenuation. Sub 150 would surely push the attenuation into the 80's which would change the whole character of the beer.

Water: Usually I add a little gypsum to the already hard San Diego water when I make pale ales. For Porters I add a touch of table salt instead. What to do with a Burton? Should this have the mineral character of a Burton Pale Ale?

Bill in Oregon said...

Interesting recipe when compared to the KK's from the 1930's that you did previuosly. Any chance of posting a KK reicpe or two from the 1950's? Burton is a style that needs to be revived and I'd love to see some recipes from the period right before it disappeared. In any case, thanks for this one.

unholymess said...

Munich is not a similar malt to mild malt, certainly not a valid substitute. Mild ale malt is more nutty while the Munich is going to give you the sweet bready flavors.

Ron Pattinson said...

Adrian, I've details of Barclay Perkins water treatment. For KK it was:

3 oz. salt
3 oz. gypsum per barrel

in the hot liquor tank. Boiled overnight. Half an hour before mashing 1/8 pint bisulphate of lime.

1 oz. per barrel of salt in the copper.

Ron Pattinson said...

Craig, I do.

Kristen England said...

Unholymess is correct. Munich is not close to a replacement. If you can't find Mild malt, its better to use a nice English pale malt like Maris Otter or the like.

Adrian,
Paul's is brought in by the Cargill group. Find the local distributor and have then chat with your shop.

Re salts, I a very big proponent of not messing with your water. The reason I never include salt additions for any of the beers is b/c they were directly brewery specific. Just chucking salts into your tap water will not address the concerns breweries were trying to. That being said, if you do understand your water and have experimented with it yourself, play around with the gypsum levels a bit and find the level, for each beer, you like it best at.

For this beer I do add gypsum to my liquors as I know the levels I'm going for and how K-type ales work with the added salt additions.

Ron Pattinson said...

It should be fairly easy to work out the exact makeup of Barclay Perkins water for their different beers. I've published details of the composition of London well water, which is what BP used.

So if you know wjhat's in your brewing water, you should be able to treat it to match BP's.

Kristen England said...

Ron,

Thats my exact point. People need to know their water and we can publish the BP brewing waters for each beer.

A lot of regional water carriers put up analysis. St Paul does it monthly. http://mn-stpaul.civicplus.com/DocumentView.asp?DID=1492

Ward Labs in Iowa also will do the complete workup for US brewers for about $16.

Craig said...

Okay, back to the caramel. Are we talking caramalized sugar, with all it's sweet, toffee goodnes or a "caramel colorant," i.e., a flavorless caramel colored chemical additive?

Kristen England said...

caramel = caramel colorant.

Adrian Avgerinos said...

"Okay, back to the caramel. Are we talking caramalized sugar, with all it's sweet, toffee goodnes or a "caramel colorant," i.e., a flavorless caramel colored chemical additive?"

Yes. ;) I'm pretty sure this is E150a, Class I caramel. Burnt sugar. The stuff used for food coloring that's made without the aid of sulphites or ammonia. I have yet to shop for it, but I believe this is the same stuff that baker's use for bread coloring. I have an ethnic market (Eastern European and Middle East) down the road that I've been meaning to scour in search of such a coloring agent.

What I don't know his how much to add. I realize there is a variance, but without fancy brewing software I don't know how much to calculate for a given color rating. Perhaps a ballpark estimate would be good (e.g. "1 ounce caramel colorant assuming 20,000 SRM").

Incidentally, what is the estimated color (SRM) for this brew prior to the addition of the caramel?

As far as malt sustitutions go, If I like the results I may mail order some proper mild and amber malts. In the mean time I'm going use Weyermann Vienna in place of Mild malt since that's the closest option I've got to getting some color and extra flavor besides using all TF or Crisp Maris Otter.

Kristen England said...

Adrian,

I'm not opening the caramel argument again. I tried to make it easy before and people decided to take the piss and stand on ceremony about how all caramel is different. It is. So, its up to you to find out the exact color of the lot that you get. Or, you can just added it until you like the color. Or you can not add it. Whatever you want.

As for the beer color, I have the recipe written the SRM/EBC for the beer is the final correct one. If caramel is involved the amount of SRM/EBC that needs to be added is listed above the grist. The color you will get from the grist only is the final srm - added caramel srm. I want people to make these with the caramel so if you don't want to you can just do the subtraction to make your own changes.

Re malts. its your beer. I do suggest you try the suggested malts (amber, brown, mild, etc) at some point in any beer.

Craig said...

@ Kristen - So something like Sinamar?

Craig said...

I'm on a WWII/beer photo kick. I thought you all would appreciate this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/3493116715/

Kristen England said...

Sinamar is fine but do note that it does give a flavor. Its not much of one and is very specific to Sinamar but its much better than not adding anything.

Daniel Boisvert said...

Brewed it last December, tasted quite young a month later, but three months in bottle lead to really complex tasted, quite interesting. Patience is virtue, I guess...