Sandbox Brewing

I find it both gratifying and dangerous that as a homebrewer, any beer style that I am able to find some information on and find appropriate ingredients for is something I can brew for myself, including styles I may not be able to find commercial examples of.

Burton ale is one of those historic styles that I find very interesting, and isn’t one that lines store shelves anymore. Like many historic styles, there is a lot of differing opinions of what a classic Burton ale should be, thus I have taken some liberties to define what I want my own version of Burton ale to be: Made with 100% British pale malt, boiled for an extended period and heavily bittered with English hops.

Brewed: January 7th, 2018
Bottled: Feb 12th, 2018

OG: 1.091
FG: 1.027
ABV: 8.5%
IBU: 80

Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Mash: 90 min @ 156F, 10 min @ 170F
Boil: 150 minutes

Water Additions:

20 g Gypsum
10 g CaCl
5g chalk

Grist:

100% No.19 Floor malted Maris Otter (17.5 lbs)

Hopping:

55 AAU Extract at start of boil (0.35 oz)
0.75 oz Nugget at 30 min

Fermentation:

Imperial A01 House – 2mo. old package
Created 1.75L starter w. 8 oz light DME
Pure O2 for 20 seconds

Fermented at 66F for 5 days, then ramped up to 72F

Brew Day Notes:

Brew started at 10:00am. Mashed 1.5 hrs to try to help efficiency, knowing it’ll be low with so much grain in the Grainfather. Pitched yeast at 62F and put in the cellar with 60F air temp. Fermentation underway within about 12h, sat around 67F at peak activity. Removed from cellar on day 4 as the airlock activity had slowed considerably.

[Jan 21 Primary pull] – Down to 1.027, bitterness is assertive but not overly powerful.  Further attenuation may bump it up. Nice English yeast character thus far.

[Feb 12 2018]  Bottling / transfer day. Primed the whole batch with 0.5 oz / gal dextrose.  Moved about 0.4 gals into Woodstock to top it up to the neck.  Transferred about 3 gals into glass & pitched Brett C (WLP).  The rest was bottled – 12 x 375mL.  FG was 1.026, taste is pretty sweet, not as bitter as expected, and quite nice.

Brew Date: July 3, 2017
Bottled:  July 19, 2017
ABV: 5.2%
IBU: 35

I’ve brewed two iterations of this recipe previously (the first being simply called “Citra”) and both have worked out extremely well. It is a simple and light hoppy beer where Citra plays a central role. No darker malts are used, instead relying on the rich character of Maris Otter, and a little wheat is used to accentuate the hop flavour. I consider this a “blonde ale” based on the low bitterness though it is more in-line with an IPA in most regards.

The last batch’s dry hop was split between Citra and Galaxy, while the boil was 100% Citra. This iteration employs Motueka instead with a 75/25 split on whirlpool and dry hop additions. Future batches will see some further experimentation on the secondary hop but this beer is built around Citra.

Batch size:        5.75 gallons
OG:    1.048
FG:    1.008

Boil Length: 60 minutes
Mash Profile: 155F for 60 minutes, mash out at 170F for 10 minutes
Brewed on Grainfather system

Grist:

90% Maris Otter (9.0 lbs)
8% Wheat malt (0.8 lbs)
2% Acidulated malt (0.2 lbs)

Hopping:

25 AAU of Citra at 60 minutes (0.5 oz)
10 AAU of Citra at 10 minutes (0.75 oz)
3 oz Citra – whirlpool
1 oz Motueka – whirlpool
1 oz Citra – dry hop at high krausen
3 oz Citra – dry hop final 5 days
1 oz Motueka – dry hop final 5 days

Additional:

2.5 g  Calcium chloride added to mash water

Fermentation:  

Safale US-05 dry yeast, re-hydrated

Brew Day Notes:

Pretty trouble-free brew day. Top screen dropped during mash which let a bit more grain material into the boil than usual (not husks, though). Added 2/3’s of minerals to mash water, remainder in sparge water. Mashed with 4.2 gal, sparged with 3.6 gal of 170F water. Used remainder of 2015 Citra on boil additions and used inherited 2016 Citra and Motueka on whirlpool. Recirc’d to 195F then whirlpooled with the chill water off for a few mins.  Then began chilling while continuing whirlpool. Started transfer after 15 min of whirlpool. Transfer took about 15 min, collected 5.25 gal of 1.048 wort. Aerated with 15-20 sec of pure O2. Pitched US-05 direct onto wort, no re-hydrating. Pitch temp 68F, put into wine cooler set at 61F ambient.

Tasting Notes:

[July 19, 2017]  Bottling day sample. Nice orange-juice like hop flavour with pretty minimal bitterness. Seems on-track.