Let’s start with the recipe. At least most of the grist is lager malt. But there’s also some pale malt. Half of which was enzymic malt. Which, despite the name, was really used to adjust the pH of the mash. At least, that’s what Derek Prentice told me. And he should know. The flaked maize I guess is there just because they threw it into all their beers.
The mash was the same as for their other beers: an infusion, followed by an underlet and then a sparge. Not even the vaguest of nods to decoction.
The hops are, at least, all continental. A single type of Hallertau. With quite a lot of them added to the hop back.
Nothing very lagery about the fermentation temperature, which peaked at 63º F. They used their normal top-fermenting yeast. In this case, coming from an earlier batch of Special Bitter.
What made it a Lager, then. The, er. Lagering. Which the brewery claimed lasted ten weeks. Was that enough, though? I’ll let you decide.
| 1970 Youngs Saxon Lager | ||
| lager malt | 5.50 lb | 80.41% |
| pale malt | 0.67 lb | 9.80% |
| flaked maize | 0.67 lb | 9.80% |
| Hallertau 120 min | 1.50 oz | |
| Hallertau 0 min | 0.50 oz | |
| OG | 1031 | |
| FG | 1006.5 | |
| ABV | 3.24 | |
| Apparent attenuation | 79.03% | |
| IBU | 24 | |
| SRM | 2.5 | |
| Mash at | 150º F | |
| Sparge at | 170º F | |
| Boil time | 120 minutes | |
| pitching temp | 57.5º F | |
| Yeast | WLP002 English Ale | |
How does enzymic malt reduce the pH?
ReplyDeleteThe pH adjustment is interesting, and if you know anymore about how they figured out how much to add it would be interesting. Was it all going by formula? Did they do testing along the way? What were their target numbers?
ReplyDeleteFor that matter, if you ever find out about what other brewers did it would be interesting to know too, although I realize that may not have made it into the basic logs.
Interesting to note that these pseudo lagers seem to be the forerunners to British type golden ales.
ReplyDeleteOscar
Pale or golden beers have been brewed since God was a boy. Think of Boddington's. They were simply listed as Pale Ales which simply means brewed using Pale Malt.
DeleteThey’re not really – these pseudo-lagers with Germanic names were dying out by the time Summer Lightning came along in the late 1980s. The “golden ale”/pale ’n’ hoppy would typically be significantly stronger (4.5–5.0%) and much hoppier, and would use either spicy English hops such as Challenger or New World varieties.
ReplyDeleteGolden Ales was just a name conjured up , Pale Ales have always varied in colour from very pale ( think Boddingtons) through red to relatively dark. They are called Pale Ales because they are brewed using Pale Malt.
ReplyDelete