This past Saturday I brewed my first all grain recipe and I decided to brew an ESB (Extra Special Bitter). An ESB seemed like a good choice as the ingredients to make this style are not too complex for a first time all grain brewer. Since this beer style originates from England, I've decided to name it 'Tis But A Scratch ESB to pay homage to one of my favourite movies growing up, Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
When I create recipes I like use the website Brewtoad (see Recommended Websites) to get an idea of the end result. I also keep a spreadsheet of the recipe with a summary of how each ingredient will be used and the target outcome. On brew day I use the spreadsheet as a reference and to jot down what actually happens. I'm going to skip the most important step in the process in this post as it's not very interesting, but make sure you sanitize your equipment thoroughly prior to starting. Before I begin, excuse my use of the imperial system, it's how I learned to brew.
The grain bill for this recipe is rather simple, just 10 lbs of ESB Pale Malt and 1 lbs of Crystal 45 L Malt. The ESB Pale Malt is the base of the beer, providing a rich malty character, while the Crystal 45L Malt will give the beer an amber colour and caramel flavour.
I use a Victoria Grain Mill to turn the malt into grist for mashing. It's not the best mill on the market, but it does the trick for new all grain home brewer.
30 minutes later all 11 lbs of the grain have been run through the mill and I'm ready to mash.
With the larger brew pot on the left, I heat up 3.3 gallons of water for the mash. I came to 3.3 gallons (1.2 qrts per lb of grain) to leave room in the 5 gallon mash tun in case I need to add cold or hot water once the mash temperature settled to reach my target temperature of 152 F. I use the smaller pot on the right to prepare my sparge water.
After the 3.3 gallons reach a strike temperature of 165 F, I add the water to the grains in the mash tun. After stirring briefly I took the temperature and it had only dropped to 155 F. This is where I potentially made my first mistake, I jumped the gun and added 1 qrt of cold water to decrease the temperature. After stirring once more, I took the temperature again and it had dropped down to below 150 F. I toyed with the mash a couple more times, but was unable to maintain the temperature above 150 F for the duration of the 60 minute mash. I don't think this will cause too much of an issue with the end result. Perhaps some unconverted starches, which may make for a dry finishing beer.
After the 60 minute mash is complete, the lautering process begins. Lautering is the process where the the mash is separated into clear liquid wort and spent grain. First the wort is recirculated through the bottom of the mash tun and added to the top. The first couple times the wort will be hazy and have grain particles, but eventually it will clear up. Once it clears up, I slowly drain the wort into the brew pot and am careful not to splash too much, as this can cause oxidation and damage the flavour of the beer. I prepared 3.5 gallons of sparge water at a temperature of 168 F. The water is added after the initial wort has been drained into the brew pot. I recirculate the wort again to create a grain bed at the bottom of the mash tun, then drain the rest of the wort into the brew pot.
Next up is the boil, the stove is cranked on high and it takes approximately 30 minutes to get the 6 gallons of wort boiling. As soon as the wort starts boiling I add 1 ounce of Challenger UK hops and 0.5 ounces of Styrian Golding hops and start the timer at 60 minutes. Since I'm adding these hops at the start of the boil, they are considered my bittering hops. They are called bittering hops because most of the aromatic oils are boiled off, leaving behind the bitterness provided by the alpha acids in the hops. With 15 minutes left in the boil, 1 ounce of Fuggles UK hops are added. At this point in the boil, the hop additions are considered the aromatic hops as the oils from the hops remain, imparting flavour in the beer. I chose Fuggles UK hops as they provide earthy and grassy notes.
Once the 60 minute boil is complete, the heat is turned off and the wort is cooled as quickly as possible. I don't have a copper wort chiller, so the best I've come up with is to draw a cold bath. This can take quite a while as the wort needs to be chilled down to 70 F. The longer it takes to cool the wort, the more chance there is that the beer could be infected by bacteria.
Once the wort is chilled, I pour it through a strainer to remove any trub remaining in the brew pot, which could include hops or cold/hot break materials. Take the gravity of wort using a hydrometer, which for this recipe ended up being 1.065, a couple points higher than what I had targeted. Depending on the final gravity post fermentation, this likely means the ABV of the beer will be slightly higher than I was targeting. Finally, the English Ale yeast is added to the wort, then the wort is sealed up and topped off with an airlock. The airlock allows carbon dioxide to be release from the fermenter, while not allowing oxygen in, avoiding oxidation.
Here is a video taken today of the airlock, two days after I finished brewing the beer. As you can see, the yeast must be doing their job as carbon dioxide is leaving the fermenter quite vigorously. I'm sure other home brewers can agree, there is something beautiful about watching the airlock jump around.
In a little less than two weeks I'll check the beer's gravity and likely start the bottling process.
Thanks for reading!
