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Friday 18 December 2009

Let's brew Wednesday - Fullers 1920 XX

I know. It isn't Wednesday. Not even Thursday. And there have been many weeks with no recipe at all. Blame Kristen. He had some lame excuse connected with work and family. I don't let either of those get in my way.

One thing that surprised me about the heyday of Mild was this: most breweries only made one. Even when it made up perhaps 40% of sales, there was just a single variant. (I'm talking 1880 to 1914 here.) After WW I, London brewers mostly continued producing something like Government Ale, a just alcoholic type of Mild. A few, however, brewed a stronger Mild. One over 1040.

Which brings us to today's beer, Fuller's XX. X's big brother. Best Mild, you could call it. The perfect beer for a hot summer day. If you add a little ice.


Time for Kristen to do his thing . . . . . . (Feel free to comment on the new format. This is how we're planning to present the recipes in the 1909 Beer Style Guide.) . . . . . .



Fullers - 1920 - XX


General info: Very different from most of the other mild ales of the time this beer makes your eyes lie to you as it is very dark. This beer is composed entirely of pale malts and pale adjuncts with one except, a heavy dose of caramel color. The use of 100% Hallertauer-type hops is very interesting and lends a more elegant quality. All things being equal, this is a very nice, smooth easy to drink beer. A brown liquid for the masses. This beer was gyled into the XX and the weaker X(5H).






Beer Specifics


Recipe by percentages


Gravity (OG)

1.041


45.9% English pale malt

1.8% Caramel color


Gravity (FG)

1.007


35.1% 6-row malt



ABV

4.53%


13.5% Flaked maize



Apparent attenuation

82.93%


3.6% Glucose



Real attenuation

67.93%









IBU

21.0


Mash

90min@150°F

0.96qt/lb



SRM

29.0



90min@65.6°C

2.01L/kg



EBC

76.9












Boil

90 min
















Homebrew @ 70%

Craft @ 80%


Grist

5gal

19L

10bbl

10hl


English pale malt

3.61

lb

1.644

kg

195.67

lb

75.60

kg


6-row malt

2.76

lb

1.257

kg

149.63

lb

57.81

kg


Flaked maize

1.06

lb

0.483

kg

57.55

lb

22.24

kg


Glucose

0.28

lb

0.127

kg

15.35

lb

5.93

kg


Caramel color

0.14

lb

0.064

kg

7.67

lb

2.96

kg







425.87





Hops










Hallertauer3.5% 90min

1

oz

28.4

g

63

oz

1.522

kg


Hallertauer3.5% 30min

0.5

oz

14.2

g

31

oz

0.749

kg












Fermentation

69°F /20.6°C


















Yeast

Nottingham ale







WLP002 English Ale Yeast







Wyeast 1968 London ESB
















Tasting Notes: Elegant meadow flowers floral and a touch of spice. A boat load of husky grain with a healthy does of polenta. Absolutely no roast or dark malt character argues with the deep brown color. It finishes very, very dry with a strong black tea character that screams to be paired with something sweet.








Ingredients and technique

Grist & such
The base malt for this recipe was nearly split in two between aged English pale malt and the husky American 6-row. A good portion of flaked maize would have added a touch of corn character, polenta-esque if you will. This was quite a malty beer in that there was only 6% or so of brewing sugars all of which are pale. The caramel colorant added 95% of the color to this beer making it very dark with bright crimson hues. The caramel colorant is absolutely mandatory so either use Sinemar or make your own to replace it

Hops
Another oddity is the fact that all of the hops came from the Alsace region of France which is historically known for growing very elegant Hallertauer-type hops. The hops were neither old nor young but at 21bu there was definitely enough bitterness and hops added to be able to taste them. This beer was not dry hopped.

Mash & Boil
Very straightforward single infusion mash with an underlet and stand for 90min. One could probably shorten it to 60min with all the 6-row in the recipe. A 90 min will suffice to ensure that no raw corn-like flavors carry over to the finished product.

Fermentation, Conditioning & Serving
A warm fermentation added a little spicy note to the beer which was done fermenting in about 4 days. It was then only cask condition for about a week which would have definitely left this beer with some elbows and a ‘raw’ character. Carbonation at around 1.9 vol and served within two weeks.

Gyling & Blending
There were two beers made from this mash. The stronger XX and the weaker X(5H). This mash was broken down into 3 different gyles. The third gyle (the return) was not hopped and not dosed with sugar as can be see by the gravity (1.002). Use water for this gyle. All the sugar and caramel goes equally into each of the first two gyles as does the hop charges. The hopping is equally divided based on the volume of the gyle and the total hopping rate as indicated and added at the times shown above. The volumes are gal, liters, bbls and hL’s as indicated per column.

XX

5gal

19L

10bbl

10hL

G1 - vol

4.70

17.86

9.40

9.40

G1 - grav

1.044

1.044

1.044

1.044

G1 - BU

20

20

20

20

G2 - vol

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

G2 - grav

1.033

1.033

1.033

1.033

G2 - BU

21

21

21

21

G3 - vol

0.30

1.14

0.60

0.60

G3 - grav

1.000

1.000

1.000

1.000

G3 - BU

0

0

0

0

Hopping

0.97oz/gal

7.26g/L

1.88lb/bbl

0.73kg/hL

Totals

OG 1.041

FG 1.007

BU 18.8

Abv 4.5%

5H

5gal

19L

10bbl

10hL

G1 - vol

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

G1 - grav

1.044

1.044

1.044

1.044

G1 - BU

20

20

20

20

G2 - vol

4.65

17.67

9.30

9.30

G2 - grav

1.033

1.033

1.033

1.033

G2 - BU

21

21

21

21

G3 - vol

0.35

1.33

0.70

0.70

G3 - grav

1.000

1.000

1.000

1.000

G3 - BU

0

0

0

0

Hopping

0.97oz/gal

7.26g/L

1.88lb/bbl

0.73kg/hL

Totals

OG 1.031

FG 1.005

BU 19.5

Abv 3.3%

10 comments:

  1. Before the text appears I get lots of this:

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very easy to read. What is carmel color?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Just that. caramel colorant. They have specific stuff used for breweries but the baking stuff works extremely well. In Europa its called E150. You'll see in on crappy dark lagers.

    Google it. Its very cheap.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I knew there was a reason I bought 2 pounds of Hallertau hops. I like the format, easy to read and everything needed to brew is easy to find.

    Any idea of publication date or are you going to blame Kristen again for the holdup?

    ReplyDelete
  5. FYI - this is the stuff I'm talking about. Works very well.


    http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/powdered-caramel-color-25-oz

    ReplyDelete
  6. Do you find the colorant has any influence on the flavor of the beer?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Adrian,

    It should not. Thats the idea at least. THis is the company I use:
    http://www.caramel.com

    There are a lot more in the UK than here in the states. Just whatever you do, don't use Gravy browning. :)


    First Starter,

    The hold up is 10000% my fault. Life got in the way. Blame me.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Which hops would work best for this? Hallertauer is pretty vague. You mention the Alsace region, which would really be Hallertau hops right? Strisselspalt seems to be the most common hops grown in Alsace, and I have Hersbrucker on hand which would be a good sub for this variety. Any thoughts?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Matt, if I've picked out the right iteration of this beer in my records, the orginal had these hops:

    85 lbs Alsace
    118 Sonomas
    59 Oregons

    So about 2 to 1 US to Alsace.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Matt,

    it is possible I've just picked the wrong photo of XX when I looked just now. But it would be very unusal to have only one type of hops in the beer of this period.

    ReplyDelete