Thoughts on what I have done with this Steam beer

Try some of these great recipes out, or share your favourite brew with other forumees!
Post Reply
timtoos
Piss Artist
Posts: 129
Joined: Sun Oct 28, 2012 9:49 am

Thoughts on what I have done with this Steam beer

Post by timtoos » Wed Apr 15, 2020 9:06 pm

Got a California common beer from MM.

It was a strange kit to be honest. It had Pils malt and munich that’s all, resulting in what would be a very light beer and the hops were Hallertauer Mittlefruh not northern brewer as you usually find. Sounds more of a lager.

Anyway, rightly or wrongly I changed it. I substituted the hops to northern brewer, using 60 minute, 15 minute and 1 minute hop additions and aimed for a BTU of 40.

Now here's the thing. I also added crystal 120L (EBC 200), 500g. This made up 10% of the grist, with the Munich 10% and the pils malt the remaining 80%.

I brewed it yesterday and hit my numbers. Now I am here trying to way up what I have done. Is this added crystal, especially the 120L, and at this amount far too much?

What type of beer will it be? Still a steam beer? Colour is within range at 25 EBC. I'm thinking the beer will be very chewy, not a light beer at all

What are your thoughts on what I have done?

Cheers

User avatar
orlando
So far gone I'm on the way back again!
Posts: 7197
Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2011 3:22 pm
Location: North Norfolk: Nearest breweries All Day Brewery, Salle. Panther, Reepham. Yetman's, Holt

Re: Thoughts on what I have done with this Steam beer

Post by orlando » Thu Apr 16, 2020 8:04 am

What temp did you mash at? This could make a difference to the perception of the crystal. At 40 IBU you should have enough bitterness to help balance it.
I am "The Little Red Brooster"

Fermenting:
Conditioning:
Drinking: Southwold Again,

Up Next: John Barleycorn (Barley Wine)
Planning: Winter drinking Beer

timtoos
Piss Artist
Posts: 129
Joined: Sun Oct 28, 2012 9:49 am

Re: Thoughts on what I have done with this Steam beer

Post by timtoos » Thu Apr 16, 2020 10:11 am

Mashed in at 68C. With this yeast the predicted FG (according to Beersmith) is 1.010, slightly lower than the minimum 1.011 for the style.

Do you think this was a little high?

User avatar
orlando
So far gone I'm on the way back again!
Posts: 7197
Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2011 3:22 pm
Location: North Norfolk: Nearest breweries All Day Brewery, Salle. Panther, Reepham. Yetman's, Holt

Re: Thoughts on what I have done with this Steam beer

Post by orlando » Thu Apr 16, 2020 11:36 am

Yes it might, that temperature usually makes a less fermentable wort.
I am "The Little Red Brooster"

Fermenting:
Conditioning:
Drinking: Southwold Again,

Up Next: John Barleycorn (Barley Wine)
Planning: Winter drinking Beer

timtoos
Piss Artist
Posts: 129
Joined: Sun Oct 28, 2012 9:49 am

Re: Thoughts on what I have done with this Steam beer

Post by timtoos » Thu Apr 16, 2020 4:16 pm

But the FG style for steam beer is rated at 1.011 to 1.014. If I had mashed any lower I would be making FG of 1.009 and below - or am I missing something?

Mashing at the temperature I did (68C) should give me 1.010.

User avatar
orlando
So far gone I'm on the way back again!
Posts: 7197
Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2011 3:22 pm
Location: North Norfolk: Nearest breweries All Day Brewery, Salle. Panther, Reepham. Yetman's, Holt

Re: Thoughts on what I have done with this Steam beer

Post by orlando » Thu Apr 16, 2020 5:10 pm

Agh don't know about Steam Beer. No your not missing anything you are correct. But your question was about how the Crystal was likely to affect the Beer. Hopefully 1.010 will be right. Does the style guide expect a lot of Crystal sweetness? If it doesn't then the adherence to an FG becomes largely irrelevant as well. Maybe this time you forget about style issues and learn from the choices made. You will still be making a Beer, you never know you might enjoy what it is rather than it being what you meant it to be.
I am "The Little Red Brooster"

Fermenting:
Conditioning:
Drinking: Southwold Again,

Up Next: John Barleycorn (Barley Wine)
Planning: Winter drinking Beer

User avatar
Northern Brewer
Piss Artist
Posts: 204
Joined: Tue Nov 20, 2018 5:57 pm

Re: Thoughts on what I have done with this Steam beer

Post by Northern Brewer » Tue Apr 21, 2020 4:09 pm

timtoos wrote:
Wed Apr 15, 2020 9:06 pm
I substituted the hops to northern brewer, using 60 minute, 15 minute and 1 minute hop additions and aimed for a BTU of 40.

Now here's the thing. I also added crystal 120L (EBC 200), 500g. This made up 10% of the grist, with the Munich 10% and the pils malt the remaining 80%.

I brewed it yesterday and hit my numbers. Now I am here trying to way up what I have done. Is this added crystal, especially the 120L, and at this amount far too much?

What type of beer will it be? Still a steam beer?
I wouldn't get too hung up on names, what matters is whether it works as beer. And at least you have the excuse for flexibility with something like steam beer which comes out of a "farmhouse" tradition where people were brewing with whatever they could get their hands on to drink after a hard day's work in the 1849 gold rush, because the only supplies from "outside" relied on a precarious stagecoach journey through injun country. Still more reliable than Hermes or Parcelforce though! So you can imagine that originally they would have been using home-malted Chevallier-type barley with variable amounts of toasting depending on where it was in the kiln, a bit like the diastatic brown malt used in 18th-century porter, generously hopped using home-grown hops (probably Cluster family) to make up for the fact that they didn't have refrigeration or pasteurisation. Attenuation was pretty low given the low quality of the malt, maybe in the 50s%. As with British beers, you imagine that technology would have helped it become less rustic with time, but also allowed it to become a bit paler and a lot less hoppy over the years.

So you have this home-grown tradition, that is lost during Prohibition and then recreated as just one beer (Anchor Steam) which is now considered the prototype - and is actually quite similar to some of the southern strong bitters like Abbot or Gale's HSB, with a less characterful yeast. That's where you get the idea from that you "have" to use Northern Brewer hops (introduced nearly a century after the gold rush in California), or use crystal, or have IBUs in the low 30s, it's the same sort of distortion you see when people anchor on Fuller's as the prototypical ESB, Guinness as the prototypical stout or Zum Uerig as the prototypical Alt, when they're all a bit atypical in the context of the style.

Having said all that, 10% of 120L English crystal plus the Munich is stretching it a bit (10% of 60L US caramel malt would be more typical of modern recipes) so you are starting to get away from a "true" steam beer, you're almost nudging into winter ale territory or something like that.

But a rose by any other name would smell as sweet - what matters is how it tastes, not what arbitrary name you give it.

timtoos
Piss Artist
Posts: 129
Joined: Sun Oct 28, 2012 9:49 am

Re: Thoughts on what I have done with this Steam beer

Post by timtoos » Wed Apr 29, 2020 7:56 pm

Hi all,
Thanks for all your feedback.
Well, the beer is still in the fermenter (15 days today - works getting in the way of racking). What I was surprised about was the FG. According to Beersmith, I should have ended up with an FG of 1.011, instead, I am at 1.015. I know the mash temperature was on the high side but it did calculate where I wanted it - but it was completely wrong!
Anyway, from FV It's still yeasty, its currently sitting at 12C as I don't have the ability to cold crash it. It's not bad, the hop is very different from what I have had before. It's very assertive as well. Not knowing a typical steam type beer, I am flying blind. It's not a bad drop, definitely not the worst brew I have done but - would I do again. let's see once complete.
I intend to keg this one at the weekend and force carb. May end up bottling from the keg but not sure yet.

Post Reply