There are quite a few differences between this version of IP and the one from the end of 1940. For a start, the gravity has been slashed by 5º. Though an increased degree of attenuation has left the ABV little changed.
The flaked rice has been dropped again and replaced by . . . nothing. I’m not sure if there’s any adjunct in the grist or not. Because the brewing record is a bit vague about the wheat. It could be flaked wheat or wheat malt. I really don’t know.
That aside, the grist remains pretty simple. English pale malt, malt extract and touch of enzymic malt and two types of sugar FL and B. No idea what they were, so I’ve substituted No. 2 invert.
The hopping rate has fallen a little, from 7.25 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt to 7lbs. There were two types of copper hops, both English, from the 1940 harvest and kept in a cold store.
Another change is the yeast, which is described as “Tadcaster”. As they hadn’t brewed for several months, it’s no surprise that they didn’t have any yeast to hand. It is odd that they got yeast from Yorkshire rather than closer by. I’m guessing that it was either from the Tower Brewery (later owned by Bass Charrington) or John Smith.
| 1941 Boddington IP | ||
| pale malt | 7.50 lb | 86.61% |
| flaked wheat | 0.33 lb | 3.81% |
| malt extract | 0.33 lb | 3.81% |
| No. 2 invert sugar | 0.50 lb | 5.77% |
| Fuggles 120 mins | 0.75 oz | |
| Fuggles 90 mins | 0.75 oz | |
| Goldings 30 mins | 0.75 oz | |
| Goldings dry hops | 0.50 oz | |
| OG | 1040 | |
| FG | 1008 | |
| ABV | 4.23 | |
| Apparent attenuation | 80.00% | |
| IBU | 30 | |
| SRM | 5 | |
| Mash at | 146º F | |
| Sparge at | 162º F | |
| Boil time | 120 minutes | |
| pitching temp | 61º F | |
| Yeast | Wyeast 1318 London ale III (Boddingtons) | |
Thank you Ron, this clears up something I've wondered for a while. The previous Boddies records you've published showed a big leap in attenuation at some point during WWII which implied they'd changed yeast, this explains when and how that happened.
ReplyDeleteCertainly the John Smith yeast had a great reputation - hence Harvey's choosing it when their yeast supplier closed down after the war. A Harvey's isolate has been sequenced and is one of the many northern English yeast strains that are part of the saison family, so they have higher attenuation (but the aeration of Yorkshire squares suppresses the worst of the phenols. You can still get a hint of phenol in Harveys though.) One suspects that White Labs WLP038 Manchester is quite close, but that's a very rare Vault strain and is quoted at only 70-74% attenuation. I also don't quite buy 1318 as a classic Boddies strain, again on attenuation grounds.
Nottingham would probably work better. Or Omega's newish Gulo looks interesting - a hybrid of Irish ale and French saison that has 85-90% attenuation but "clean".
So were Boddies fermenting in squares at this time? When did they move to conicals?