Tag Archives: Bonedigger Brown Ale

A Whole Mess of Kegging

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Eagle Face Oatmeal Stout, ready for kegging

It’s only five weeks until AHA (American Homebrewers’ Association) in San Diego, and in preparation I’ve been brewing up a storm the past few weekends. In order to give everything sufficient time for conditioning, carbonation, and such, tonight was the night to keg it all.

Gondwana Pale Ale 1.2

  • This beer had been in the primary fermenter for 3.5 weeks, for the first 10 days at 66°, and the rest of the time at ambient temperature.
  • I racked the beer onto 2 ounces of Citra hops (13.2% alpha, 3.7% beta), weighted down in a bag at the bottom of the keg.
  • Final gravity was 1.010; down from 1.048, this works out to 5.0% abv. The beer was wonderfully clear, with a medium yellow color and clean flavor.
  • I’ll let this dry hop at room temperature for a week or two before carbonating.


Eagle Face Oatmeal Stout 1.1

  • This beer had been in the primary fermenter for 2.5 weeks; I cold-crashed it for the final 24 hours down to 38°.
  • Final gravity was down to 1.021 from 1.061, which works out to 4.1% abv. The beer has really nice body to it, and should be delightful once carbonated.
  • I began carbonating this beer immediately.


Bonedigger Brown Ale 1.1

  • This beer had been in the primary fermenter for 11 days (cold crashed during the final 24 hours).
  • Final gravity was 1.013, down from 1.052. This works out to 5.1% abv. Both flavor and appearance are on the mark.
  • I began carbonating this beer immediately.
To move things along, I’m going to try a “quick carbonation” technique. For the oatmeal stout and brown ale, I began carbonation under 40 psi at 38°. In 24 hours, I’ll lower pressure to 20 psi, and after another 24 hours I’ll check out the carbonation.

Bonedigger Brown Ale 1.1

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Another one for the homebrewer conference…this is my second go at the brown ale. Basically unchanged recipe from last time.

Bonedigger Brown Ale 1.1

  • 9 lbs. 2-row malt
  • 1 lb. Maris Otter pale malt
  • 0.75 lb. 80°L crystal malt
  • 0.5 lb. carapils malt
  • 0.5 lb. chocolate malt
  • 1 oz. Cascade whole hops, bittering (60 minute boil)
  • 1 oz. Cascade whole hops, bittering (20 minute boil)
  • 0.5 oz. Willamette hops pellets, aroma (5.2% alpha; 3.7% beta; 5 minute boil)
  • 1 tsp. Irish moss (10 minute boil)
  • 1 pkg. US-05 Safale American Yeast, rehydrated in 150 mL of water.
Procedure
  • I mashed in with 3.75 gallons of water at 164.5°, hitting my target mash temperature of 153°.
  • The mash was down to 151° after 35 minutes, and down to 149° after 50 minutes.
  • I added 0.75 gallons of water at 190°, stirred, and let sit for 10 minutes. I vorlaufed and collected 3.1 gallons of wort.
  • I added 3.25 gallons of water at 185°, which raised the temperature of the mash bed to around 168°. After 10 minutes, I vorlaufed and collected the remainder of the wort.
  • In total, I collected 6.4 gallons of wort at 1.052 specific gravity. This works out to 79% efficiency.
  • I boiled for 60 minutes, adding hops and Irish moss at the appropriate intervals.
  • After chilling with the wort chiller, 5 gallons of wort went into the fermenter. The starting gravity is 1.059.
  • After pitching the yeast, I set my temperature controller to 68°. On the second day, once fermentation had started, I dropped the temperature down to 65°.
  • This beer was brewed on April 26, 2015, and fermented for 10 days, before cold crashing for 24 hours and then kegging.

 

Beer Tasting: Bonedigger Brown Ale

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My Bonedigger Brown Ale has turned into an absolutely delicious beer. Brown ales have a reputation as being fairly easy to brew, and I would agree overall. I am quite pleased that this has matured into one of my best all-grain beers yet (in my opinion).

  • I brewed this on 27 September 2014, bottled/kegged it on 11 October 2014, and sampled it on 3 December 2014. The sample described here was from a keg.
  • Basics
    • Starting gravity: 1.057; final gravity: 1.014; 5.7% abv
  • Aroma
    • Lightly malty; no hops detectable
  • Appearance
    • Head has good retention, fine to moderate tannish color. The beer itself is dark brown, with good clarity
  • Flavor
    • Flavor is pleasantly malty, with a slight chocolate/cocoa hint and finish; smooth and drinkable; hops are well-balanced with malt, not overly bitter.
  • Mouthfeel
    • Mouthfeel is smooth and almost creamy; body is nice–not overly thin but not overly thick, best described as medium; pretty balanced body overall; moderately carbonated as appropriate for style.
  • Would I brew this again?
    • As brown ales go, I would drink this again and brew it again in an instant! A really nice brew. I’ll take this to my homebrew club meeting for their feedback, but at the moment I can’t foresee changing much.
  • Overall rating
    • 9.5/10

Bonedigger Brown Ale Bottled

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Two weeks after brewing, tonight (11 October 2014) I bottled my Bonedigger Brown Ale. Although my usual practice is to transfer to a secondary, I decided to bottle directly from the primary fermenter. Although perhaps a little extra yeast might have made it into the bottles, I figured this wouldn’t make the beer “out of style”.

Upon transfer to the kegs and bottling bucket, I noted that the flavor is nice and smooth, with a definite hint of the Maris Otter malt that I used as a supporting character in the grist. This is going to be pretty delicious once carbonated, I think! At bottling time, the beer had a final gravity of 1.014, down from 1.057. This works out to 5.7% abv.
I primed two 5-L kegs with 1.5 tbs. corn sugar each, and filled them with beer. This left 2.2 gallons, which I primed with 1.8 oz. of corn sugar boiled in 1 cup water, to achieve carbonation of 2.4 volumes. The result was 6 22-oz. bottles, 2 18-oz. bottles, and 9 12-oz. bottles.

Bonedigger Brown Ale

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Things finally seem to be clicking along with my all-grain setup; I’ve got my mash tun properties dialed in, my grain mill configured, and everything else coming up aces. The all-grain learning curve is perhaps a bit frustrating, after feeling like I was so proficient at extract brewing, but it feels like the pay-off is finally here. I’m now getting consistent extract efficiency (thanks in large part to owning my own grain mill), and the beers are turning out quite tasty.

For today’s brew session, I wanted to play with a style I haven’t brewed previously: American brown ale. Looking back at the blog, I brewed a British-style nut brown from a kit a few years back, but that’s it! I got some advice from Ray Daniels’ Designing Great Beers, and set up a recipe in BeerSmith. I was also inspired by a recent visit to Rök House Brewing Company, which had an incredibly tasty SMaSH ESB; on asking, I learned that the wonderfully malty flavor was courtesy of Maris Otter malt. So, I knew I had to incorporate that into my next recipe!

Bonedigger Brown Ale

  • 9 lbs. 2-row malt
  • 1 lb. Maris Otter pale malt
  • 0.75 lb. 80°L crystal malt
  • 0.5 lb. carapils malt
  • 0.5 lb. chocolate malt
  • 1 oz. Cascade whole hops, bittering (60 minute boil)
  • 1 oz. Cascade whole hops, bittering (20 minute boil)
  • 0.5 oz. Willamette hops pellets, aroma (5.3% alpha; 3.7% beta; 5 minute boil)
  • 1 tsp. Irish moss (10 minute boil)
  • 1 pkg. US-05 Safale American Yeast
Procedure
  • I mashed in with 3.75 gallons of water at 165°. This hit my target mash temperature of 153°. The mash ended at around 151-152°, an hour later.
  • After 60 minutes, I stirred in 0.82 gallons of water just below boiling temperature, and let this sit for 10 minutes. I collected ~3.1 gallons of first runnings.
  • Then, I added 3.14 gallons of water at 185°; the mash temperature stabilized at 168°. I let it sit for 10 minutes.
  • After the second runnings, I had collected 6.5 gallons of wort with a gravity of 1.049. This works out to 75.7% efficiency.
  • I brought the wort to a boil, and added the hops as indicated. The wort boiled for a total of 60 minutes.
  • After flame-out, I cooled the wort to ~78° using my wort chiller, whirlpooled, rehydrated the yeast, and pitched the yeast. I will be fermenting this beer for 2 weeks at 65°.
  • Starting gravity is 1.057, with a total of 5.1 gallons of wort. I brewed this up on 27 September 2014.