On October 20th, 2018, these Brew Dudes brewed up a Brown Ale as a part of our Community Brew. If you missed our live stream, here is the video:

John’s Brewing Notes

I tried to follow the recipe as best I could. There were a few items I could not get in time for the brew session.

Grains:
11 pounds Golden Promise malt
8 ounces of Briess Special Roast malt
8 ounces of Crystal malt – 60°L (This is different from the recipe)
5 ounces of Chocolate malt – 450°L

Hops:
1.5 ounces of East Kent Goldings hops – 60 minutes to go in the boil
1 ounce of East Kent Goldings hops – 10 minutes to go in the boil

Yeast:
2 smack packs of Wyeast 1098 British Ale yeast. Smacked and allowed to swell for 4 hours before pitching.

Water:
9 US gallons of distilled water. 4 gallons used for mash. I added 2 grams of Gypsum and 4 grams of Calcium Chloride to this volume of water as I heated it for the mash. I made sure to stir it well so that it dissolved into the full volume.

An additional 2 grams of Gypsum and 4 grams of Calcium Chloride was added to the beginning of the boil.

Mash:
I mashed at 152° F for 60 minutes. I collected 2 gallons of wort and added that to my brew kettle. The remaining 5 gallons of water was used to sparge the grains and collect an additional 5 gallons of wort for a total pre-boil volume of 7 gallons. The grains were really clumpy – I had to work to get them properly hydrated.

Boil:

I boiled for 60 minutes, adding the hops when dictated above.

Wrap Up:
After the boil, I chilled the wort down to 65° F and transferred it to my cleaned with PBW and sanitized with StarSan 7 gallon glass carboy.

My final volume in the fermentor was 5 gallons as I had about a half gallon left in the kettle, which was mostly trub and hop debris.

The one oversight (and if I cared more, I would have made adjustments) is that Mike’s recipe called for collecting 6.5 gallons AT THE END OF THE BOIL. My 9 gallon kettle doesn’t really allow me to do that so I just brew it as such.

Please note this instruction if you care.

I believe not following this procedure is why my original gravity is so much higher than anticipated:

Predicted Original Gravity was 1.049. My recorded original gravity is 1.061.

My brown ale is going to be a bit stronger than the style calls for. We’ll shall see if it affects the taste.

We’ll be talking about this beer soon. If you want to be a part of the community brew, drop us a line. Find our contact page on the blog.

BREW ON!