Beer Forum

Hey Brewer's,

I am trying to learn low gravity beer styles from "Brewing Classic Styles" ie Scottish Ale, Mild and Ordinary Bitter.
Am using BeerSmith to make two 19ltr kegs each brew on my 40 litre setup. Have basically just doubled Jamil's numbers. I am batch sparging and though drinkable haven't made the beers to the flavour I think I should get as suggested in the book or listening online. Has been suggested I need to Mash Out and can do this by raising the temp of my first runnings in the kettle to 77C. Also am raising my strike water temps to try and get to Jamil's numbers. Everything I listen to or read suggest's the Mash Out has to be done in the mash tun. Am also now trying to carbonate as per the books numbers and as per the Carbonation shows. Have a Mild carbonating at 8c at 8PSI at the moment. Any advice would be welcome.

Providing you hit your mash temps appropriately, you could always start to heat your wort runoff in the kettle while waiting for your next batch sparge to drain. When I fly sparge, I pretty much turn on my burner on low heat to denature the enzymes in the mash tun runoff as it enters the kettle as I collect the wort. As I fill more and more into my kettle, I slowly turn up the heat and reach a boil shortly after all the runoff has been collected. Not only does this act as my "mash-out" per say, but it also saves some time.

The one thing that I have found that greatly improved my low gravity brewing was to decrease my efficiency from 80% (fly sparge) to around 65% (no -sparge). If you notice in BCS, that Jamil's efficiency for his recipes is set at 70%. This allows for a richer malt profile which really plays well into those smaller gravity beer styles. Maybe you could try monkeying around with getting closer to the efficiency's that he suggests in his book as a start.

Wow brewinhard hit all the major points (great post!).

I'd definitely recommend "mashing out in the kettle" the first runnings on the Scottish ale (and a Bock, Marzen/Oktoberfest or Dunkel) as you'll get extra Scottish-style melanoidins forming this way (I'd even let the first runnings come up to a boil while you're sparging to get some more significant melanoidin formation with any of the Scottish ales.) It will darken the beer a bit and you'll also boil off a little bit more than normal this way but the flavors are great. As brewinhard mentioned it'll also take less time to bring the kettle to a boil once you add the runnings from sparging and you'll have less hot break as you've already completed the hot break for the first runnings.

(Just don't go crazy overboard with melanoidins or it can start to create a slightly meaty flavor -I decocted a bock that already had melanoidin malt in it and then boiled the first runnings for 30 minutes on their own and then did a 90 minute boil and it was certainly too much. -Personally I don't consider it a "meaty" flavor but I know that's what the official term for the flavor is so I'm sticking to the party line...)

Melanoidins just enhance malty beers and make them maltier, in my book.


Adam

Thanks for the advice guy's. One more query do I just reduce my efficiency to 65% in Beersmith or do I have to change my Grain Bill.

Latham

You will first have to reduce your efficiency % to 65 or 70% (whatever you want to try to hit). Then you will have to adjust your grain percentages (pounds) until you hit the expected OG for that specific recipe. I think the hardest thing for you to do will be to actually hit a lower efficiency especially if you are used to getting in the 75-80% range. It may take a few brews until you figure out to actually make your system work less efficient. As stated above, I have opted for doing a modified no-sparge to get my efficiency to decrease from 80% to 65%.

Thanks brewinhard,

I brewed a Mild today and set my Beersmith profile to 70% efficiency Missed my OG by 1 point. Had to add approx 4.5ltr to top up my boil to the recommended Beersmith number.
I must admit to be not real intellectual and guess I will just add small percentages to the Grain Bill up or down depending which way I am missing the numbers.
I did a Mashout for 20min and held between 77C to 82C as you suggested. I also extended my boil by 20 min to try and hit my OG which I missed by 4 points. I also measure my PH which came in at a solid 5 (i have very soft water and add 8G of gypsum and 7g of table salt to each 60ltr brew) I must admit at this stage I dont know what the PH numbers mean but am measuring them for consistency like my other numbers.

One other point you may advise on is I am trying to carbonate as per Jamils book and only get a small head. I have read I need to cold store the Scottish Ales and Milds for a period of time and at this stage I am Just drinking them (Thirsty!!). They still taste pretty good but is cold storage the answer for Head retention and flavour. If so I will probabley just keep on the same track as I really want low gravity beer on tap all the time to drink (is there another style that fits my impatient drinking habit better). I am going to try Ordinary Bitter's next.

One final point is that I used Mr Malty for repitching my harvested yeast. I had my 4th generation harvest and this is my 1st effort at actually measuring my pitch. I had a nice clean fairly milky yeast slurry and look forward to the experiment. He's probabley been thanked before but "Thanks Jamil"(and thanks to you brewinhard!!)

Latham

Cold storage will not necessarily improve your head retention, but it will improve your clarity and potential shelf life by dropping out proteins and yeast that lead to haze. Are you bottle conditioning your beers? If so, the nomograph chart for priming sugar amounts in the back of Jamil's BCS works well for that. Just be sure you are using the actual temperature of the beer at packaging time for proper configuration. Jamil calls for very low carbonation levels for both his mild and scottish ales. If you are not getting the head you seek (heh, heh..., then again who really is? ) then you could always try increasing the level of priming sugar a tad just to get a bit more carbonation into the finished product.

Glad to hear you are honing in on hitting your lower efficiency's. It always sounds easier than it really is, but after a few times of nailing it, you will get a better idea how to approach this sort of brewing.

One other question. If you have your brewing efficiency set at 70% in Beersmith it estimates your efficiency at approx 74%. If I reduce my brewing efficiency to approx 65% it estimates at 70%. Is this how I get my correct efficiency? By the way I keg my beer and using the numbers as suggested in BCS of 5psi @ 5C to carbonate at 1.8 volumes after 5 days it was going no where so I upped it to about 12psi and got a better result quicker then shut of the gas. I am also currently drinking a Scottish Ale carbonated as low as possible as advised and even though "tasty" it has no head unless you pour vigorously into you glass and then the head is made up of quite large bubbles and not thick and creamy as it should be. My preference will be to up it as per the other brew and have a little more carbonation and head (hopefully). I no my fridge temp is to low for this style but am using an old second hand fridge at this stage and struggle for exact temp control as controller is broken. Also living in the Western Australian wheatbelt where we have long hot summers colder beer is preferred.

Cheers!