American Brown Ale

Notes on the following pages.










The American Brown Ale.

The history of this style dates to U.S. homebrewers inspired by English-style brown ales and porters. Traditionally, it sits in flavour between those British styles and is more bitter than both.

The classic Northern English varieties offer the classic toasted malt, caramel, and chocolate characters; in this case, captured through American malts. The classic English Challenger and East Kent Goldings hops combination has been used in conjunction with a higher attenuating yeast to achieve a slightly more bitter and aromatic beer more akin to an American style. However, the BU:GU ratio remains balanced, and it sits between the English and American version.

The bitterness, aroma, maltiness, and gravity profiles are on the lower end for an American style and higher for the classic English styles. This beer sits between the classic Northern English and the newer, more modern American brown ales with a very dark Porter-like colour.


APPEARANCE
Clear and Very Dark Brown. SRM colour is on the high side of an American ale, similar to a Porter.


CARBONATION
Medium to Fast Rising Bubbles.


ALCOHOL
5.3%, Mild


MALT
The malt profile offers a sweet malty flavour with tones of caramel, contrasted by small amounts of black and Carafa 2 malt for some bitterness, acidity, and dark roasted complexities. The black malt and Carafe separate this recipe from a traditional Enligh-style porter, delivering the mild but noticeable roasted flavours to contrast and ‘round-out’ the malty profile.

This recipe is a partial marsh at 33% grain to 67% extract.

The crushed pale 2-row malt, the medium crystal and carafa special type 2 speciality grains will be mashed. The pale 2-row malt adds the diastatic power needed for the Carafa speciality malt. A good rule of thumb, when partially mashing, is to have twice as much base malt as the number of specialty grains in the mash and to mash in 4 L of water for every 1 kg of grain; for this, 6 L of water is required. Begin mashing when the temperature gets 71 °C; after that, keep the water at 66 °C for 1 hour. Add water if the temperature gets too high or the grains are not sufficiently covered; this is best done in a smaller pot. Simultaneously, bring another pot of water with 6 L to 66 °C; this will be the sparge water.

Undesirable tannins are extracted if the mashing temperature is too high. A beer with too many tannins will be astringent, meaning it will have a drying sensation on your palate, not a desirable beer trait.

During mashing, stir the water a few times, and stir the water one final time before removing the grain bag. Stirring will cause water to flow through the bag and release colours and flavours from the grain. Allow all the liquid to drip from the bag, but do not squeeze it as this will release tannins. Use the sparge water to rinse the grains over five minutes to release all the flavours and colours trapped within the grain bag.

Once the grains have finished dripping, combine the partial mash to the kettle to make 25 L. Bring this to a boil, then add the malt extract. Now it is time for the hops.

The malt profile broken down is as follows:
66% base malt - 22% Grains within the partial mash (gives an overall 42 DP value) and 44% within the extract
18% Munich Malt 10L - within the extract
5% medium crystal 60L - Grains within the partial mash
5% Carafa Special Type 2 - Grains within the partial mash
4.5 Caramel Malt 60L - within the extract
1% black malt - within the extract
0.3% carapils - within extract















HOPS
The hop aroma, bitterness and flavour are mild and well balanced between the English and American brown ale styles. The IBU is on the high side for an English and the low side for an American ale, resulting in a well-balanced BU:GU ratio of 0.56, resulting in a malty but not a sweet beer.

East Kent Goldings is used for aromas of lavender, spice, honey, thyme, and earthy flavours. While the Challenger is used mostly for bittering, it will add hints of floral characteristics, some citrus and enhance the East Kent Goldings spice aroma.

The Challenger hops will be used during the boil for 40-minutes. During the boil, the hops do not need to be placed in a bag, as the kettle has dead space. The hop debris will settle to the bottom of the kettle during cooling. The clear wort can then be siphoned off the hop material and hot break, the proteins, lipids, and other compounds coagulated in the boil.

The East Kent Goldings will be dry-hopped on day 11 after the initial fermentation stages. Before dry hopping, any trub is dumped. The dry-hopped pallets will remain in the beer for the last ten days of fermentation. This hopping schedule will allow the hops to infuse essential oils and aromas at lower temperatures and settle out before racking without the essential aromas being ‘blown-out’ during the vigorous fermentation stages.


OTHER INGREDIENTS
Yeast nutrient and Irish Moss is added with 15 minutes remaining in the boil as per their instructions


AERATING THE WORT
Performing a full-wort boil necessitates wort aeration. Without an oxygen flow meter, the best way to inject pure oxygen into your wort is to set a timer to 60 seconds for a 20 -23 L batch. Turn up the dial on the O2 regulator until there is some audible flow or bubbles while spraying ethanol spray on the stone. Once you see bubbles start to form, it is safe to insert it into your wort as far down into the fermenter as possible. Once it is in your fermenter, start the timer. Adjust the regulator’s flow until some bubbles form on the top of the wort, then back off slightly. Too many bubbles result in inefficient O2 saturation.


YEAST
The yeast for this recipe is the Dry English Ale Yeast (WLP007), with an attenuation of up to 80%. Although the yeasts profile produces a well-attenuated, clean, dry and crisp beer, the unfermentable sugars present in this recipe will still produce a high final gravity beer, for this style, generating the famous malty flavours within a brown ale. Simultaneously, reducing some of the residual sweetness that would otherwise come from a less attenuating yeast.

WLP007 is a medium to high flocculation yeast. The initial vigorous fermentation stage should be complete around seven days, with another 14 days for the yeast to clean up off flavours during secondary fermentation. The fermentation temperature is 19°C to reduce any diacetyl flavours. Mild fruity esters are common.


FERMENTATION AND COLD CRASH
The primary fermentation will be 11 days, followed by dumping the trub and dry hopping. Secondary fermentation will take ten days, a total of 21 days fermentation time. The beer will be cold crashed under pressure (10 PSI) for seven days, after which it will be transferred to a keg remaining under pressure (5 PSI) for an additional 14 days. During the keg transfer, ensure any remaining trub is not syphoned into the keg

The total time is 42 days. This fermentation schedule will ensure a clear and matured beer.