Reluctant Brown Ale

One of my closest held beliefs about brewing is that subtle beers are the mark of a master craftsmen. For example, Brooklyn brewery's Brooklyn Lager is one of my favorite beers of all time because the flavor profile is so subtle and well-balanced. While brewing a simple beer may not be as attractive to some, the lack of a huge hop bill, high gravity, or excessive adjuncts means that the craft (or the flaws) in a brew are clear for all to see. With that in mind I wanted to make something a bit less over the top to point out where I can improve in my process. 

I decided to make a nice, balanced American brown ale. Some Northern brewer to bitter it, and some Cascade for floral characteristics. I used some Marris otter, hoping for a maltier beer than with US 2 row. There are quite a few things that I didn't really think through with the this brew, however. Even now, as it's still fermenting, I'm anticipating some issues. 

The first issue is with the color of the beer. My spreadsheet for calculating color of the beer using the standard reference model (SRM) had an error in the order of operations. For each grain, the malt color units (MCUs) can be calculated by multiplying the weight of the grain times the color (in degrees Lovibond) and dividing by the batch size.

MCU = Grain weight (lbs) * Color (deg. L) / Batch size (gal)

The SRM, can be calculated by converting the total MCU (sum of the MCU contributions from all the grains).

SRM = 1.4922 * SUM (MCU) ^ 0.6859

What you can't do, however, is calculate the MCU for each grain, then convert that to SRM, sum all the SRM contributions from all the grains. That will skew the answer and result in a lighter-colored beer than anticipated. Due to this error, this beer is closer to amber than brown -- hence reluctant brown. The one saving grace was that I knocked out on to the yeast cake from the coffee porter, which will likely darken the beer a few shades. 

Another thing I didn't really think about was the attenuation of the yeast and the recent increase in my brew house efficiency. As a result, my OG was very high and the beer attenuated well, resulting in a much higher ABV than intended. Can't complain too much, but it's something that kind of got away from me with this one. I have been reading some discussion about how knocking out onto the yeast cake isn't the best practice as it is likely over-pitching, and it certainly adds an element uncertainty to the process. I will say this: it was the easiest pitch I've had in a while. I think I may try re-using controlled, measured amounts of slurry.

Finally, one other thing I'm considering with this brew and subsequent ones is the BU:GU ratio. This ratio describes the ratio of the bitterness of the beer to the sugars in the beer. One aspect that this calculation doesn't take into account is the attenuation of the yeast -- lower attenuation will be sweeter, higher will be drier, and as a result the bitterness with be more or less balanced. I found a post over at the Mad Alchemist where he calculates the "real extract" which takes into account attenuation. Ideally, a balanced beer hits somewhere around 5 (comparable to a 0.5 BU/GU ratio beer). IPAs can go as high as 10 or 13 and sweeter, low-hopped beers can be down in the 2 and 3's. This beer will end up at about 3.5 which is considerably less balanced than I would have liked. 

Reluctant Brown Ale

Grain Bill

Marris otter: 7.5 lbs (88.3%)

Chocolate malt: 0.125 (1.4%)

White wheat malt: 0.25 lbs (2.5%)

Crystal 60L: 0.25 lbs (2.6%)

Biscuit malt: 0.25 (2.7%)

Flaked barley: 0.25 (2.5%)

Single infusion mash @ 152F for 1 hour

Hop Schedule

Northern brewer (8% AA): 0.5 oz, 60 min

Cascade (4% AA): 0.5 oz, 5 min

Yeast

Pitched onto the full yeast cake from the Coffee porter

Stats

SRM: 13.7

IBU: 21

OG: 1.067

Brew house efficiency: 75%

Batch size: 3.5 gallons

Notes

Brewed on 2/9/2014. Mashed for one hour at 152 and lost 3 degrees. May need to re-wrap the foam in another layer of tin foil. Collected 1.7 gallons of first runnings and sparged with 2.75 gallons. Collected 4.25 gallons of pre-boil wort. Measured the last bit of the first runnings gravity -- corresponded to 81% conversion efficiency. Doesn't make sense considering that the brewhouse efficiency was 75%, and the lautering efficiency was 77%. Must have been some problem with the collection of some sort. Bubbling airlock within 3 hours of pitching.

Measured gravity on 2/15/2014 at 1.014 corresponding to 79% attenuation. 

Bottled on 3/8/2014 and noticed that the yeast complete failed to flocculate! I attempted a 24 hour cold crash, but had a very difficult time holding temps with my ice bath. Furthermore, because I was fermenting in a bucket rather than a carboy it was difficult to see the yeast in suspension. When I first opened the fermenter, I was struck by the yeasty smell and sharpness in the samples I tried. After parsing through some online resources, I concluded that there was no infection (as I initially thought) and instead, the massive overpitch simply led to an abundance of negative yeast-associated flavors. Autolysis is generally ignored at the homebrewing level, however, when pitching onto full yeast cakes it is possible.