A Modern Lager Brewery - mashing

We're now at the very heart of Lager brewing: decoction mashing. A process that was very different to the mashing schemes usually practised in the UK.

"Mashing.—For the primary mash, cold water is used, and usually, after half-an-hour's stand, boiling water is added, to bring the heat up to 90° F. The most recent practice is to make this mash at such a temperature, and leave it standing for such a period as will conduce to a slight acidification taking place, whereby proteolytic activity is encouraged, with the consequence that a better digestion of the proteins into their permanently soluble form of peptone is obtained. As has already been pointed out, many other variations of the decoction system are practised, with a view to saving time and fuel, but, with the possible exception of the Kubessa modification (in which the three grist constituents, grits, flour, and husks, are dealt with separately), there is little doubt that the original three-mash method, with certain modifications, is still the most generally favoured. That system usually consists of about one-third of the total mash being transferred to the mash copper, and there gradually raised to the saccharifying temperature, then rapidly boiled for a certain period, after which it is slowly returned to the mash tun, where it raises the temperature of the mash to 127° F. This is repeated a second time, when the resulting heat of the mash will be 150° F. On the third occasion, the muddy wort is separated from the more solid portion of the mash, and this is treated in much the same way, the final temperature being about 167° F.

The manipulations in the mash copper vary according to the class of malt in use and the type of beer brewed, and constitutes one of the many points which only a thoroughly competent lager brewer can determine; where, however, a laboratory, provided with a polarimeter, exists, the adjustment of the mashing operations, to give a wort of definite specific rotatory power, should not be difficult.

After the mash has been raised to its final temperature, it is transferred from the mash tun either to the clearing tun, which in many cases is fitted with a water-jacketted bottom, or, as is more general nowadays, to the mash filter, from whence the worts are drawn off into the wort copper, and there boiled with the hops. In brewing lager, the wort is not left in contact with the hops in a hop-back, as is the case in an English brewery; the vessel, through which the wort at this stage simply passes on its way to the pump, is provided with a strainer, only slightly smaller than the vessel itself. The newer forms of this apparatus are fitted with leaching and pressing arrangements. In this connection, it should be remembered that the major portion of the insoluble matters has been precipitated while boiling the mashes, and has been left in the clearing tun or mash filter as the case may be. An open type of receiver, fitted with cooling coil and float valve, is sometimes employed."
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, vol. XVII, 1920, pages 493 - 494.

From the description, it sounds like the first two decoctions were with the thick mash, the last one with the thin mash. This wasn't just a random whim. Most of the enzymes were in the liquid part of the mash. By boiling the thick mash the maximum quantity of enzymes was retained. By the time of the third decoction, this didn't matter as the whole mash was raised to mash out temperature by the final decoction.

Decoction mashing, as practised in Bavaria, was a bit more complicated than just a triple decoction. There were many different methods of even just triple decoction. Most big Bavarian towns had their own specific method.

I'm not sure what effect not having a hop back and not leaving the hops in contact with the wort after boiling would have. The more commercially minded UK breweries pressed the hops in the hop back to squeeze every last drop of wort. Though I'm inclined to believe that this wouldn't have been exactly top-class wort.

Fermentation next time.

Let's Brew - 1956 Tennant's Lion Brown Ale

I imagine this beer must have been one of Tennant’s biggest sellers in bottle. Brown Ale was all the rage in the 1950’s.

Like Tennant’s other recipes, it has a bit of everything in the grist. A couple of types of malt, flaked maize, sugar and caramel. The colour mostly deriving from the latter. The brewing record handily records the beer’s colour. Handy, because it means I could work out what colour the caramel needed to be to get the correct colour.

Once again, there are two proprietary sugars, SBS and CWA, which I’ve interpreted as simply more No. 2 invert.

Bizarrely, this Brown Ale is more bitter than Tennant’s draught Bitters. Though the poor degree of attenuation must have left plenty of residual sweetness. It’s odd that while BB, Best Bitter and Queen’s Ale all contain lactose, this beer doesn’t. Despite Brown Ale being a style where lactose was sometimes present, unlike Bitter.

1956 Tennant's Lion Brown Ale
pale malt	4.00 lb	57.60%
crystal malt 60 L	0.25 lb	3.60%
enzymic malt	0.25 lb	3.60%
flaked maize	1.75 lb	25.20%
malt extract	0.07 lb	1.01%
No. 2 invert sugar	0.50 lb	7.20%
caramel 2000 SRM	0.125 lb	1.80%
Fuggles 95 mins	1.00 oz
Goldings 95 mins	0.25 oz
Fuggles 40 mins	0.25 oz
Goldings 20 mins	0.25 oz
OG	1031
FG	1010
ABV	2.78
Apparent attenuation	67.74%
IBU	26
SRM	20
Mash at	148º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	95 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale

The Salts of Brewing Waters (part three)

It's the final part of this series of posts on brewing water.

This time were looking at what to do if your water contains minerals detrimental to brewing. I'm tempted to say: get different water, bit obviously that isn't always practical.

"It may happen, however, that a brewer is not blessed either with a perfect water or with one which simply requires bringing up to Burton standard by increasing its salts, but has to produce good beers with a water containing salts altogether undesirable or even injurious to beer.production.

Sodium carbonate, if present to any great extent, would prove fatal to the brewing of anything but black beers, and sodium sulphate, though by no means as harmful, is nevertheless an undesirable constituent of brewing-waters.

For the decomposition of sodium carbonate the employment of free acid would be, to say the least, dangerous. One method used is to gypsum the water, but this causes the formation of sodium sulphate, which when present in any amount is most undesirable, although not so productive of harm as the car bonate. The sodium sulphate is therefore then decomposed by the addition of calcium chloride, yielding salt and calcium sulphate. By far the best method is the direct employment of calcium chloride solution, which at one operation decomposes both these sodium salts, calcium carbonate being precipitated and the much-desired calcium sulphate obtained in solution. The solution of calcium chloride must be pure and of a known strength, and the volume added to a water to be treated should contain an amount of the salt equivalent or rather more than equivalent to the sodium sulphate and carbonate. The methods employed in making an analysis of the solid matter dissolved in water are so well known that they require but little comment from me. There are, however, just a few points to which I should like to direct your attention.

Firstly, temperature at which the total solids should be dried. I believe the most usual temperature is 110° to 120°C., and when such is the case an allowance should be made in stating the salts present for the water of crystallisation of certain of them.

The following are given by a recognised authority on water analysis, for this temperature, although he admits that anomalous cases have occurred in which the salts appeared to have become anhydrous:

CaSO + 1/2 Aq. or {CASO4} + 1 Aq
                               {CASO4}
MgSO4 + 1 Aq
Mg(NO2)2 + 2 Aq.
Ca(N03)2 + I Aq.

The method of estimating the soda and potash is, as you know, to evaporate firstly with barium hydrate to remove the sulphuric and carbonate acids, and then to treat with ammonium carbonate, to remove lime and magnesia. The filtrate obtained is evaporated to dryness with ammonium chloride, and the ammonium salts decomposed by gentle ignition. The sodium and potassium are then dissolved out with water. It is the method of ignition which should be noted, as it is of great importance. At first the heat must be gentle, and gradually increased until, when ammonium fumes ceased to be evolved, dull redness should be reached. If the heat be too rapidly raised, the alkaline chlorides melt, and appear to enclose some of the ammonium salts which are not completely removed, and the results are too high. Should the residue not be sufficiently heated, all the ammonium salts are not removed, and then too high a result is obtained. If heated to too high a temperature the alkaline chloride will partially volatilise and give t00 low a result. With practice very accurate results can be obtained. The potassium should always be estimated. It is not sufficient to estimate the alkalis as chloride and call the result sodium chloride, for in some waters an appreciable quantity of potassium is present. This can of course be estimated in the alkaline chlorides. The only other point to be noticed is the determination of nitrates and nitrites. Nitrites are not often present, but a careful determination of the nitrates should be made. The method is to evaporate the water under examination with potash, to get rid of ammonium salts, and then to reduce the nitrates by means of zinc-copper couple, ammonia being distilled off, after further addition of potash, and estimated by Nessler's reagent in the ordinary way. Now, the potash employed should be carefully looked into, for when ordinary potash is used the results obtained are generally too high, this being doubtless due to nitrates contained in the potash. It is a good plan to use potash precipitated by alcohol, but even then I have found a correction necessary. Wanklyn advises that the potash should be made by dissolving metallic potassium in water, but whether this is done or not a blank determination with the materials should certainly be made.

In conclusion, I am afraid my remarks have been for the greater part but old news. Still, in spite of that, they serve as an illustration of the direct application of chemistry to the improvement of a manufactured article, and on this ground may not be entirely devoid of interest."
The Brewers' Guardian 1893, pages 109 - 110.

The answer is chemistry. I would ask Andrew to explain to to me, but he's had his brain plugged into his gaming computer all day. Removing unwanted stuff is clearly more complicated than adding useful stuff.

Any ideas why Sodium carbonate and sodium sulphate are so bad for brewing? My guess is that it's something to do with the sodium.

Let's Brew - 1930 Barclay Perkins Dark Lager

Another week, another Lager recipe from Kristen. I’m personally getting all excited about Lager, what with the Historic Lager Festival in St. Louis just over a week away.

Right from the word go, Barclay Perkins brewed both a Pale and a Dark Lager in their shiny new Lager brewhouse. With its gravity of 1057º, their Dark Lager looks very similar to a Munich Dunkles of the period. Which I’m sure isn’t a coincidence.

It’s odd that British-brewed Dark Lagers seem to have died out after WW II, just when Lager was starting to take off. I’m sure that most people in the UK now associate Lager with a very pale colour, but that wasn’t always the case. It’s a shame dark versions died out. I’m very partial to a Dunkles, myself. Or Lager Dark Mild as I like to call it.

I’m not sure how authentic the grist is for the Munich style, as there’s no Munich malt. And I’m not so sure Bavarians would use crystal malt in this type of beer, either. Obviously roast barley would have been illegal in Germany. As Barclay Perkins Lager brewer was a Dane, I doubt he was hung up with the whole Reinheitsgebot thing.

The hops – Saaz and Hallertau – are pretty authentic. Though UK brewers didn’t just use them in continental-style beers. They were two of the foreign hop types that they rated and quite often used them in classy beers. Especially just after the end of WW I when it looks like there was a glut of hops in Central Europe. Not surprising, given that brewing came to almost a total halt there in the last two years of the war.



That’s me done, I’ll now pass you over to Kristen’s tender care . . . . .

Kristen’s Version:
Notes: More Blahger lovers action this week kiddos! Seems like a simple recipe from the get go but its gets wonky pretty quick so above is the barebones recipe, thar be some weird deets here.

Malt: Starts off pretty normal. A pale lagery malt, a crystal and a dark roasty thing. This really starts off smelling like a Czech Tmavé with all the dark crystal and the like kiss of roast. Choose whatever you’d like. Since this is an English lager, I’d stick right with the standard English crystal malt, mid-range or so (55-75). I’d also stick with roasted barley but choose your favorite brand, or whatever you’ve got laying about your cupboards…its just a touch anyway.

Mashing: Now she starts getting a bit weird (vol/temp depend on your system).
Dough-in: Only the base malt is use.
Rest 1: 120F (49C) x 40min
Rest 2: Boiling liquor is added, as well as steam, to bring it up to 147F (64C). The crystal malt and roast malt is then added.
Rest 3: As soon as Rest 2 is mixed in, hot liquor is added to bring up to about 157F (69C). Rest 10 min.
Rest 4: Boiling liquor is added to bring to 168F (78C). Rest for 30 min.

Summary: Rest 1 (40min), Rest 2 (2 min), Rest 3 (10 min), Rest 4 (30min).
As you can see this is a really weird way to go about things. A normalish protein rest using only the base malt, then adding hot liquor to bring you up close to sack rest and loosen the mash to mix in your crystal/roast and then enough hot liquor to bring you up to a higher sacc rest. That rest is pretty short seeing that the mash was infused to sacc rest rather than steam heated and a pretty extended very high sacc rest. Then sparge away at 170.

Jiggery-Pokery:
Then she goes directly sideways.
From the log:

“16 bbls bright runnings boiled for 3 hours in No2 copper to caramelize, added to No1 copper to 1.123°”
Right so…this is damn weird. Lets call it about 20% of the runnings are pulled and cooked right down until they hit their gravity and added back to the boil copper. That right there would have taken the color up quite a few notches, not to mention the flavor that came along with the party!

Hops: Saaz and Tettnanger. Nothing fancy or neat and not many of them. This beer is a place for all the weird business to shine above so don’t step on yourself trying to be neat. Just get your BU’s in all at once or split like I have.

Yeast: Carlsberg Lager yeast, as listed. 

Lager: No real info in the logs. She was done fermenting in about a week, conditioned another week and then dropped to lager. For a beer this size, 3 to 4 weeks would be good. You can go longer if you find it needing it but with this yeast, you should.

Why no London brewing museum?

Not an original thought. Boak & Bailey asked the question 11 years ago.

It's a good question and bears repeating. London was the most important brewing centre in the world for more than a century. And a major one for another hundred years after that. Why isn't that celebrated?

Preferably one with an active brewery and pub.

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1956 Tennant's BB

As we’ve already learned, BB stands for Bitter Beer. Or Tennant’s Ordinary Bitter.

It’s a good bit weaker, understandably, than their Best Bitter. There used to be a lot of draught Bitters that were around the same strength as Mild. In the West Country, this type of beer was called Boy’s Bitter. Sadly, it’s all but died out.

I find Tennant’s grists pretty odd. There are a lot of ingredients, many only in tiny amounts. I really can’t see the point is some. For example, the lactose. It could hardly have had any impact on the flavour of the finished beer.

The recipe is very similar to the Best Bitter, unsurprisingly. Though Tennant don’t seem to have ever gone in for parti-gyling. All the beers in this brewing book were produced single-gyle. To be honest, the level of hopping in this beer makes it more like a Light mild than a Bitter.

1956 Tennant's BB
pale malt	5.00 lb	70.52%
enzymic malt	0.125 lb	1.76%
crystal malt 60 L	0.25 lb	3.53%
flaked maize	0.50 lb	7.05%
No. 2 invert sugar	1.00 lb	14.10%
lactose	0.09 lb	1.27%
malt extract	0.125 lb	1.76%
Fuggles 90 mins	0.50 oz
Goldings 90 mins	0.125 oz
Fuggles 40 mins	0.33 oz
Goldings 20 mins	0.33 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.125 oz
OG	1033
FG	1006.5
ABV	3.51
Apparent attenuation	80.30%
IBU	17
SRM	7
Mash at	147º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale

My upcoming US trip

I'm off to the US in just over a week. Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Cincinnati and Chicago again. It's not as crazy as some past trips.

I'll be giving a couple of talks:

Sunday 22nd April    St. Louis Historic Lager festival
British Lager History
Urban Chestnut Grove Brewery and Bierhall
4465 Manchester,
St. Louis

Wed. 25th April, 17:30 

18th Century English Brewing

McKenny Hall Ballroom, 

Eastern Michigan University

Sunday 29^th April
Our new collaboration
Goose Island Taproom
1800 W Fulton St, 
Chicago


I've also got a couple of free days if anyone wants to come and help me fill them with beer.

Chicago: Thursday 19th April, Saturday 28th April
Cincinnati: Friday 27th April