Sunday 15 January 2023

Whitbread Stout grist, colour and bitterness 1816 - 1860

Another chance to show my chart making prowess with some more Whitbread Stout numbers.

This set shows how Whitbread Stout developed in the first half of the 19th century. After the introduction of black malt in 1817, the percentage steadily increased year on year. With the effect of darkening the finished beer considerably.

When black malt showed up, there was initially a big drop in the amount of brown malt used.Though it increased again in the late 1840s and almost got back to pre-black malt levels.

Bitterness levels were mostly on the rise, too. Ignore the one for 1860 as that was an Export Stout, which would obviously be more heavily hopped than a Stout intended for domestic consumption.

Whitbread Single Stout 1816 - 1860
year OG IBU SRM pale malt brown malt black malt amber malt
1816 1064.3 72 23 50.56% 28.76%   20.67%
1817 1066.2 71 17 83.33% 16.25% 0.42%  
1825 1063.7 61 16 93.59% 4.85% 1.56%  
1830 1069 82 16 97.97%   2.03%  
1835 1071.7 91 22 83.33% 14.81% 1.85%  
1840 1072.3 66 24 84.75% 12.71% 2.54%  
1846 1069.3 92 29 76.53% 20.41% 3.06%  
1850 1075.1 81 31 76.53% 20.41% 3.06%  
1854 1072.6 82 32 74.92% 21.25% 3.83%  
1860 1072.9 163 32 74.92% 21.25% 3.83%  
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/09/010, LMA/4453/D/09/011, LMA/4453/D/09/019, LMA/4453/D/09/024, LMA/4453/D/09/029, LMA/4453/D/09/034.LMA/4453/D/09/034, LMA/4453/D/09/040, LMA/4453/D/09/044, LMA/4453/D/09/048 and LMA/4453/D/09/054.
IBU and SRM my calculation.

And here are those grists in chart form.


 

1 comment:

Christoph Riedel said...

Hi Ron, I had a break from following your blog and am only now catching up. Great work on the graph! The line for Brown Malt is definitely the most interesting one with the trend of "black malt substitutes it" and later the recovery of its usage.