Wednesday 11 December 2019

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1940 Truman Stock 1

Standing at the top of the Truman strength tree was Stock 1. The base beer for their Barley Wine.

It wasn’t something that Truman brewed that often. After some time maturing in Burton – I assume at this point in wood – Stock 1 was shipped down to London where it was blended with a Running version. The blend then being bottled as No. 1 Burton Barley Wine.

There seems to be much in common with Bass No. 1. I’m sure this isn’t a coincidence. They were both at the top end of Burton Ales and were both sold as Barley Wine. The gravities are very similar, in any case.

While the grist contains most of the elements found in Truman’s other beers, there are some differences. The most obvious being that Stock 1 was an all-malt beer. At least a non-adjunct beer. The flaked rice in all their other beers is absent here.

The invert sugar in Truman beers is a bit problematic. Because there’s no indication of which type they were using. Or even if they were using more than one type. You’d expect a Pale Ale to contain either No.1 or No. 2. While No. 3 was the preferred option for Mild Ales.

Based on an analysis from 1953 which gives the colour as around 16 SRM, I’ve assumed No.3 invert was used in the original. That’s the only way to get the colour to the correct shade.

The hopping is insanely heavy. It looks like a beer from 50 or 60 years earlier. There were just short of 6 lbs of hops per 36-gallon barrel. I’ve reduced the quantity a little. But, as the hops were all pretty fresh, not by very much.

Of course, the running version, would have been far less heavily hopped. Sadly, I don’t have a log for that. I do have s Runner and a Stock brewing record from the 1960s. There the hopping of the Runner is about 60% of that of the Stock version. Also after 12 months at least maturing, the bitterness levels in the Stock beer would have fallen a fair bit.

1940 Truman Stock 1
pale malt 17.50 lb 72.92%
high dried malt 5.50 lb 22.92%
No. 3 invert sugar 1.00 lb 4.17%
Fuggles 150 mins 4.00 oz
Fuggles 60 mins 4.00 oz
Goldings 30 mins 4.00 oz
Goldings dry hops 1.00 oz
OG 1105.5
FG 1035
ABV 9.33
Apparent attenuation 66.82%
IBU 106
SRM 14
Mash at 155º F
Sparge at 160º F
Boil time 150 minutes
pitching temp 56º F
Yeast Wyeast 1028 London Ale (Worthington White Shield)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is there any clarity on what High Dried Malt would be? This post suggests that sometimes brewers used it for something like Amber or Brown malt, other times it was a paler malt. There also seems to be a mention of carmelization:

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2013/09/bottling-in-1901-fermentability-of-wort.html

Plugging Amber for this recipe into my software suggests that the darkness of the beer comes out pretty much on target, meaning that a light syrup would be better. But obviously the flavor of the recipe with a darker malt + lighter syrup would be pretty different from a recipe with a lighter malt + darker syrup. Also, the caramelization reference makes me wonder if there should be a touch of Crystal malt in there.

Don't know if you have any thoughts about what the original might have been like to give any guidance on substitutions of modern malts for the High Dried.

Ron Pattinson said...

Anonymous,

I've been told that Simpson's Impewrial malt is the closest modern equivalent to high-dried malt.

Kevin said...

Thank you for this. As for the Anonymous question about caramelization... I don't see any such reference.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the information. The Simpson's website says their Imperial Malt is something like Munich, so that gives a good clue.

The reference in the linked article says "there are certain caramelisation products which have a marked effect on the palate fulness of ales brewed with high-dried malts not nearly so evident in pale-dried malts"

I found this bit from Briess which may hint at what is going on:

http://blog.brewingwithbriess.com/is-it-crystal-or-caramel-malt/

The section that begins "On the other hand, the term “caramel malt” can also refer to malts dried in a kiln, rather than being roasted" talks about "high dried malt" with high seeming to refer to the position in the grain bed in the kiln, rather than high temperature.

Kilned malt seems to be non-homogeneous, so some of the kernels seems to get crystal characteristics.

I'm a novice as far as this stuff goes, of course, so I could easily be misunderstanding something here.