Home Brew Forum

Here's another vintage ale recipe based on the Whitbread X ale from Ron Pattinsons book. I have done this brew before at the end of december laster year and turned out great. I've made a few changes to the recipe from last time though. Last time i used spalt select hops for the 30 min addition but this time i'm using Saaz. I am also doing a lot more for water treatment so replaced some of the mild malt for Acid malt to reduce alkalinity along with using some CRS. The yeast i have swapped out the S04 for the Gales yeast i've been using and finally i have some sherry oak cubes from the malt miller to finish the beer off. I may also dry hop with a combination of Saaz and Goldings.

Target Gravity is 1.060 for 25L

4600g Mild Malt 71.99%
680g Pale Malt 10.64%
200g Acid Malt 3.13%
890 gm Lyle's Golden 13.93 %
40 gm Treacle 0.31%

40.00 gm Cluster [9.80 %] (90 min) Hops 24.3 IBU
57.00 gm Fuggles [4.10 %] (60 min) Hops 19.2 IBU
31.00 gm Saaz [3.1 %] (30 min) Hops 7.6 IBU

1.5L Gales Yeast Starter

Water additions, aiming for the balanced profile 2 from the brewers friend calculator:
6.5g Gypsum
5.5g Salt
1.0g Calcium Chloride
18ml CRS

Stepped mash profile to try and replicated the multiple mashes listed in the book:
Mash in 27.5L at 38C
Step 1: 60 Mins @ 64C
Step 2: 15 Mins @ 69C
Step 3: 15 Mins @ 74C
Mash Out: 10 Mins @ 78C
Sparge 8.7L @ 78C

Gain Shot:


Mashing in:


Pumps on:


PH reading:


The classic gratuitous braumeister shot:


Hoist:


Mock No.2 invert mixed with a little wort:


Cooling:


All cooled so letting the trub settle and hop bags drain:


Run off and high tech areation solution:


Off the scale again. Overshot gravity and volume.


Brewers reward Rasberry wheat beer:


Overall brewery shot . Maxi chiller just arrived so wont be long before the big fermenter is put in action. Porter is in the fridge crash cooling and the Mild is the small fermenter on the worktop. Both temp controlled but the worktop fermenter has no cooling. Luckily its cool enough in there to get away with it:


As of this morning a nice active fermentation:


Overall a nice smooth brewday and ended up with 27L @ 1.062+. Ill let it ferment for a week and then dry hop and add the oak. With this and the porter over 1.060 its going to be a good christmas. Next brew will be down to a more session-able gravity. Plus i have 2 kegs to fill.

Nice looking recipe. The wort looks very light in colour for that amount of black malt, oh and I presume you used a bit more than 8g of fuggles hops to get 19.2 IBUs!
Can you tell me what the purpose of the 60 mins @ 34C is? Never seen a mash that low before.

Cheers,
Charliemartin

I copied and pasted a previous brewday, didn't read it through and then posted it typo's and all. As you may suspect there is no black malt in this ale that addition was pale malt, the 30 min hop addition was 57g of fuggle and the 34C was supposed to be 64C

Airlock is going like the clappers and the yeast head now looks like this:

I copied and pasted a previous brewday, didn't read it through and then posted it typo's and all. As you may suspect there is no black malt in this ale that addition was pale malt, the 30 min hop addition was 57g of fuggle and the 34C was supposed to be 64C

That explains a lot! Still sounds nice. Have you used that hop combination before?

I've not brewed that exact hop combination but i did try this recipe earlier in the year with cluster/fuggle/spalt select and turned out very nice. Similar to a modern ESB style ale i'd say. The previous brewday is here viewtopic.php?f=24&t=69608
This time round i got better efficiency, used gales yeast and have just added 250g of the malt miller sherry oak cubes and 30g each of EKG and Saaz dry hop. Gravity is so far down to 1.030.

This has also turned out very well, brewed as a christmas special along with the Whitbread Porter. This was the first time i had oaked an ale and you can definately get the whiskey/sherry coming through the beer. Again for a 6%+ beer its very drinkable. Adjustments for next year would be to go bigger on the oaking, i followed the reccomendations from the malt miller but i think this beer is robust enough to take more.



However what is even better than the Whitehead Porter and this Oaked Whitbread X ale is a blend of the 2. They both have similar bitterness and the roasted and oaked whiskey flavor blend really well together. These 2 will be kept as Christmas specials but next time i may do a double brew day but bottle 3 different beers...