Fuller's London Pride

[Barley Water]

Yesterday I took a day off and of course brewed. I did the Fuller's London Pride recipie in the "Brew British Real Ales at Home" book. I actually followed directions (which is rare for me) and used the WLP002 yeast which I understand is supposed to be the one Fuller's actually uses. The only thing I didn't do was dump a bunch of yeast into the boil (mostly because I don't keep the stuff lying around). Anyway, everything went extremely well, got the gravity I was looking for (plus a couple of points) and the desired volume. I must say, after doing alot of German stuff, making British ales is easy, I guess the main trick is in creating the formulation.

[ColinKeb]

The only thing I didn't do was dump a bunch of yeast into the boil (mostly because I don't keep the stuff lying around). .

eh?

[Seveneer]

The only thing I didn't do was dump a bunch of yeast into the boil (mostly because I don't keep the stuff lying around). .

eh?

I read somewhere that it adds nutrients for the main yeast to use later on during fermentation. Not tried it myself.

[mysterio]

I think in that book Wheeler mentioned that Fullers dump a bucket of yeast during the boil for nutrients.

[toplad]

intresting not heard of this

[oblivious]

Its just a form of nitrogen, some home brewers add a pack of old dry yeast to the boil

Fullers probably do it because they have a load of it around or don’t want to make marmight out of it

[dan_olo]

Fullers probably do it because they have a load of it around or don’t want to make marmight out of it

Is it possible to make homemade Marmite with all that yeasty gunk left at the bottom of the FV after racking?

[Barley Water]

You are taking me a little out of context there Daab. What I was trying to say was that compared to, say German lagers, British beer is relatively easy to produce (single infusion, no lagering etc). To make the beer really good however requires alot of formulation experience and testing. I don't want to get flamed by every British brewer on the forum who thinks I am trying to disrespect their national beverage.

I agree that British ale is one of mankind's great blessings. I really don't think of one category of beer being necessarily better than another though, just different. I guess that is why I am into so many different styles. To me, many ales (British and American primarily) are all about formulation where German beer is all about technique. I guess I would have to say that alot of the Belgium ales are all about witchcraft best I can tell (but that doesn't keep me from trying). My curse is that I pretty much like them all.

[dan_olo]

My curse is that I pretty much like them all.

I think we all suffer from that one!

[J_P]

I think in that book Wheeler mentioned that Fullers dump a bucket of yeast during the boil for nutrients.

I used to do this when making up a kit, I'd put the muntons yeast into one of the empty tins and then swill it out with boiling water. I swear that the heads in the fermenter were bigger and more vigorous than when I didn't use boiled yeast.

To make the beer really good however requires a lot of formulation experience and testing.

And that's half the fun do you have any tips for a relatively new brewer? Personally I have found the combination of first gold and challenger hops to be a winner.

[Barley Water]

L_P, that is a hard question to answer. I wish I could get good enough at this hobby to just sit down and say "ok, I want the beer to taste like this" and then just come up with a formulation. I guess I am not that creative though so what I end up doing is starting with a tried recipie. If I generally like it, I then start screwing around with it to try and push the flavor in the general direction I want it to go. Sometimes it works out really well and sometimes I muck it up really bad. Sometimes it takes several itterations to finally get the beer where I want it. I also enter my beer in contests primarily so that I can get constructive feedback. I can tell you from personal experience that to some extent you tend to taste what you want to taste, regardless of what is really going on with the beer.

I have gotten to the point where I am not so interested in cloning commercial brews but clone recipies are a great place to start when searching for something to create. With the London Pride recipie, I am looking to come up with a great formulation for a relatively low alcohol bitter with a great taste. I have never had the commerical version but I do think that Fuller's ESB and their London Porter are two of the classics so I am pretty confident that it will come out well. I suspect that when I get this brew in the keg, I will want to play around with it at least to some extent but I just need to wait and see what happens.

Anyway, you need to keep pretty good notes once you start mucking with published recipies. I have a big three ring binder where I file all my attempts both good and bad along with score sheets from competitions. I want to be able to reproduce the winners and hopefully avoid doing again what ended up being dogs. By the way, avoid adding both vanilla extract and cinnamon to beer, you end up with something that tastes alot like an apple pie (not exactly my favorite).

[monk]

I, too, wish I could sit down and bang out a recipe for a certain brew I have in mind. This is a very difficult thing to do. I feel like I've experimented a lot and only scratched the surface, honestly.

Also, on the subject of clones, I've changed my practice as well. Several times I've used a clone recipe and gotten a very different kind of beer. Sometimes I enjoy that beer more than the commercial version--not because it's a better beer, but because it exemplifies characteristics I enjoy more than the commercial one does. Also, I've realized sometimes I have to use different ingredients than the brewery if I want to come out with the same type of beer they produce. For instance, I made a Fuller's ESB clone that used the info from the Real Ale almanac (flaked maize, halcyon malt, crystal, and the same hops) and the brew came out really weird. When I made it again, I used a different recipe, with different yeast, no maize, and more crystal, and the resulting brew was much closer. Obviously it has something to do with technique and equipment (and we all know my level of expertise and my "brewery" equipment are much different than you'll find at the Fuller's brewhouse ).
It's fun for me to keep experimenting, and focus on making beer I love above any other motive.

monk

[spearmint-wino]

Hey Barley-Water, don't be afraid of a little diacetyl in your LP clone - the original has a very mellow butteryness and it makes it sooooo smooth (had a sneaky pint this lunchtime )

[Barley Water]

Spearmint, I am counting on it. I have not had London Pride but have had both ESB and London Porter and both of them have a little of the butterscotch action going on there. I would expect the Fuller's yeast to give me a malty taste with a little dyacetyl. I am guessing that with a lower gravity brew, a little of that will actually make the beer drink bigger than it really is, I guess we will see what happens.

Compared to the old days, we now can get a very large selection of both ale and lager yeasts on this side of the pond. I bet at least half of the offerings are British ale yeasts. I used to think that they all produced more or less the same flavors in the beer but I am not so sure of that anymore. I think one of the things we can do to both bitters and pale ales is to play around with yeast selection and fermentation conditions to make our beers unique. I also used to ferment all my ales at 65F but in the last few years have started fermenting a little hotter (say around 68F depending on the effect I am trying to get). My current thinking is that ales in general should display more "yeasty flavors" and I am just cheating myself if I try to inhibit what the yeast will add to the beer if I just let it do it's thing. I guess I have spent so much time tinkering with the yeast in heffeweizen (where it makes a gigantic difference in the final product) that I now pay much more attention to what is going on in all my beers.

[Alton_Bee]

Going back to this idea of dumping old yeast into the boil - Is this really of any advantage ?

I ask as I would have thought any "goodness" from the old yeast would have been filtered out by the hopbed. Therefore would it be more advantageous to add the old yeast to the cooled wort prior to adding the fresh yeast ?