AG#75 - Mr Brown Hawk

[WishboneBrewery]

Mr Brown Hawk - A Columbus Hopped American Brown Ale (Brown IPA!) My first American brown, all Columbus hopping with a substantial Dry Hop in the FV.
I started and realised I didn't have enough Pale malt so some of it is sub'd with Vienna & Lager malts, I'll give it at least a 90min mash to try compensate for a: crap Bairds Pale & Lager, b: the less convertibility of Vienna malt.

Fermentables:
Pale Malt - 36.2%
Vienna Malt - 17.2%
Wheat Malt - 17%
Lager Malt - 16.6%
Carapils (Weyermann) - 5%
Caramalt - 3%
Chocolate Malt, Pale - 3%
Crystal Malt, Extra Dark - 1%
Chocolate Malt - 1%

Hops:
Columbus (Tomahawk) - 16.5 % @ 60 mins - 25g (FWH)
Columbus (Tomahawk) - 16.5 % @ 10 mins - 29g
Columbus (Tomahawk) - 16.5 % @ 0 mins - 41g
Columbus (Tomahawk) - Dry Hop 84g

Final Volume: 20 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.065
Final Gravity: 1.017
Alcohol Content: 6.3% ABV
Total Liquor: 30.8 Litres
Mash Liquor: 14 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 66 EBU
Colour: 76 EBC
Mash: 90mins @66c
Boil: 60mins
Yeast: Safale US-05 (2 packs)

The usual malts shot:

Checking for starch to see if fully converted:

First Wort Hops:

Flameout hops:

1057-ish, should have been 1065:

AG#75 - Mr Brown Hawk by pdtnc, on Flickr

All done

[leedsbrew]

Looks a cracker mate!

[WishboneBrewery]

Hope so, being my first brown with a bit of vague reference from the 'Brewing Classic Styles' book, the recipes in there use a heck of a lot of Crystal so I've sort of gone for the middle-ground as i don't think a 6.3% beer needs all that.
I'm using liquor treatment for 'Sweet Pale Ale' which will hopefully bring out the maltiness, whether thats right or wrong I'm not sure?!

[Lugsy]

Nice one! Another style for my still-growing to-brew list, I'm not having great results with my pales at the moment but my darker brews are coming out fine - I don't think my water is well suited for light beers

Good plan with the long mash, my Vienna took ages to convert fully, over 2 hours IIRC. Enjoy the brew

[WishboneBrewery]

I've yet to check my OG, just letting trub settle then will check gravity when i run off, though I think i might be a bit low, I did the iodine test at about 2 hours (was busy having breakfast so it went on a bit longer) and it checked out OK. Mash efficiency was only just over the predicted 75%.

[barney]

That looks like an interesting beer, I have never even heard of a brown IPA before. I have had the feeling a couple of times with hopped pales that the hops would be suited to a darker beer.

[WishboneBrewery]

Well an American Brown is a well hopped Brown ale, rather like an IPA with more colour, but lighter than a Black IPA

Well that was a pain, running off to the FV clogged up really quickly and i had to resort to a jug and a sieve, these Columbus hops have some fine particles! Pitched 2 packs of us-05 even though I didn't hit my gravity 1058 vs 1065! It looks as though i got about the right volume in the fermenter even if some of it looks rather murky from break material and some hop debris. Another reminder that I should make a big mesh hop-stopper!

[WishboneBrewery]

This is at 1027 and is tasting very fruity, bags of flavour

[WishboneBrewery]

After reaching FG 1012 and being chilled in 2 stages (17c for 24hours then 11c for 24 hours) I had a 50mm thick layer of hop debris, trub and yeast at the bottom of the FV, I've racked the clear beer off the top into a 15L bucket and dry hopped with 84g Columbus, I gave the bucket a blast of co2 prior to racking onto the hops. This has been put back in the FV Fridge and I'm cooling to 5c, I'll give the hops a stir in later on.

This might not be ready for the NCB meet, I'd forgotten about dry hopping.

[WishboneBrewery]

Bottled today with 30g sugar to 15 Litres of beer, this should be around 2 volumes of co2 @ 5°c tastes very Dry-Hopped, quite possibly too much flavour but a Lovely colour.

[WishboneBrewery]

Early tester bottle...
A bit under carbonated, its a Juicy fruit bomb maybe too too fruity as I'd actually like to taste some of the Choc malts underneath the hop flavour

[Shrunken Reaper]

I think the bottle swap you gave me was this'n (slight giveaway was the top says 75 Brown on it), I was going to crack it open tonight but I reckon I'll leave it a week or two now...

[coatesg]

Early tester bottle...
A bit under carbonated, its a Juicy fruit bomb maybe too too fruity as I'd actually like to taste some of the Choc malts underneath the hop flavour

I'd let it mature for a bit and settle down - the chocolate will develop a bit as the volatiles settle. The McDole recipe in BCS is fairly heavy on carapils and light crystal, but I think this serves to give it a bit of sweet malt backbone to balance out the hopping and prevent it drying out too much - 1015 or so perhaps a better aim?

My brown from last year had a fairly monumental late cascade addition though not as much dry hopping (using centennial) - it all came through as a big tropical fruit thing, but it did have the malt profile with choc underneath. You still don't want it to be like a porter though - 3% looks about right. In fact the whole malt bill looks OK - perhaps bump the mash temp up a couple of degrees, and play with the hop schedule - columbus is lovely, but pretty intense at times!

[WishboneBrewery]

Cheers Graeme, yeah it needs time I believe it was meant to be 1017 predicted but with not hitting my OG I wasn't going to get that.
I dare say I'll do another brown, though there is still my other one waiting in the fridge to be bottled.

[coatesg]

Cheers Graeme, yeah it needs time I believe it was meant to be 1017 predicted but with not hitting my OG I wasn't going to get that.

I don't know how much those extra few points would make a difference-I do trend to mash on the warm side with US05 as I know out can be a bit of a monster at times...