Let's Brew Wednesday - 1937 Barclay Perkins IBS Export

I felt I owed you this one after last week's watery version. Here’s the full-strength Russian Stout. Brewed to the same gravity as in the 19th century.

You might have expected it to be just a scaled-up version of the weak one. But it isn’t. In reality, the recipe is very different. The percentage of roasted malts is higher and black malt than roast barley. The grist is, in fact, adjunct-free. And there’s only one sugar, rather than four. Rather surprisingly, it’s No. 2 invert and not the No.  3 or No. 4 you would expect.

I wouldn’t pay much attention to the FG. That’s the gravity when the beer was transferred from the primary fermenter to the maturation vessel. Not sure exactly what that was at this point it may have been a vat or it could have been a tank. Whatever the vessel was, there would be a long, secondary fermentation with Brettanomyces. That would knock down the FG considerably.

There were a shitload of hops. At over 15 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt it was hopped at about double the rate of the weaker version. The hops themselves were Mid-Kent Fuggles from the 1936 harvest, East Kent Goldings from 1935 and Mid-Kent Goldings also from 1935. All had been cold stored. The type and age of the dry hops weren’t listed on the brewing log.

1937 Barclay Perkins IBS Export
mild malt	12.00 lb	52.75%
brown malt	3.00 lb	13.19%
amber malt	3.50 lb	15.38%
black malt	1.50 lb	6.59%
No. 2 invert sugar	2.50 lb	10.99%
malt extract	0.25 lb	1.10%
Fuggles 210 mins	4.00 oz
Goldings 90 mins	4.00 oz
Goldings 30 mins	4.00 oz
Goldings dry hops	1.50 oz
OG	1104.5
FG	1041.5
ABV	8.33
Apparent attenuation	60.29%
IBU	121
SRM	50
Mash at	146º F
After underlet	154º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	210 minutes
pitching temp	59.5º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale