First Graham Wheeler brew - Everard's, almost

Planned for this weekend, I've decided to swap out the Fuggles in GW's Everard's Original for some Williamette, purely because the only Fuggles I could get were 2011 harvest, which sounded a bit old for late/aroma hops.

I do have a couple of reservations with GW's recipes, on first sight. He says very little about yeast, at least in relation to any particular brew. It seems rather optimistic to hope for any close imitation with a generic choice of yeast. I know he says clearly that they will not be exact copies, but if you're going to do all that research on grain bills and hops, why not suggest specific yeasts? Sorry if I've missed it somewhere, GW.

I also wonder how different and 'individual' those brews will be where recipes are fairly similar, with colour adjustments made by tiny amounts of black malt - especially if I am using a generic yeast for each brew. The fact that you're having to colour it in with black malt seems to suggest something else isn't quite right somewhere (?) Anyway, I'm keen to try some out to see.

Brew day and some pics to follow...

You need to remember than when GW wrote the recipes, there wasn't that many different yeasts available to the HBer, a Nottingham a generic Youngs one and that was about it.

Cheers. I had the Dave Line book for years, so I'm ultimately happy to take it for what it is. This is the 2009 3rd edition though, so I think he could have at least commented on the level of attenuation that might be desirable from your chosen yeast for each beer, for example: it may quickly cancel out the quantities in the grain bill if the yeast finishes really dry or really short.

I'm sure I will end up with a good beer if I do the basics right and I used to like Everard's Original. It seems a good template for me.

One reason GW did not specify any yeast was because you will only create a perfect clone with the original brewery yeast. He went into a lot of detail over on Jim's a few years back. If I remember he's general advice was if you are brewing a recipe from a London brewery then a Whitelabs/Wyeast London strain would be your best bet. Another good bet is Brewlabs, phone Alison tell her the beer/brewery you want to replicate and she can normally supply a suitable yeast.

Thanks for that. V helpful. :thumb:

A few tweaks, having run GW's recipe through BrewR. The colour came out a bit weak with his quantities, so I've upped the black malt a little. Also adjusted hop quantities for exact alphas and my estimated efficiencies. I reckon FG may be just under BrewR's guess, based on last brew with s04.

Everards Original (adapted from Wheeler)

Recipe specifics:

Style: Extra Special/Strong Bitter
Batch size: 23.0 l
Boil volume: 34.5 l
OG: 1.050
FG: 1.013
Bitterness (IBU): 30.6
Color (SRM): 13.6
ABV: 4.9% before priming

Grain/Sugars:

4.15 kg Maris Otter Malt, 83.3%
0.43 kg Crystal 50-60L (British), 8.6%
0.20 kg Cane Sugar, 4.0%
0.15 kg Torrified Wheat, 3.0%
0.05 kg Black Patent (British), 1.0%

Hops:

26.00 g Challenger (AA 8.7%, whole) 90 min, 28.2 IBU
12.00 g Willamette (AA 4.7%, whole) 10 min, 2.4 IBU
20.00 g East Kent Golding (AA 5.1%, Pellet) dry hop

Yeast/Misc:

Irish Moss, 1.0 unit(s), Fining , boil 10 min S-04, 2.0 unit(s), Yeast

Recipe Notes:

White Labs Nutrient at 10 mins.

Batch Notes:

Pre boil gravity should be around 1.038 (1.028@50C), based on 34.5L boiling down to 26L.

Brewday yesterday! By far my smoothest yet out of four all-grains, not least because my newly-fitted ball valve and filter on one of the pots worked a treat: no more precarious siphoning!

I think I've also got a much better grip on efficiencies and quantities on my set up now. I ended up with around 82%* overall efficiency, with nearly 94% Mash Efficiency, according to the Brewer's Friend calc, ending up with 36L at 1.039 pre boil - two of which were unused - boiled 34 of them and ended up with 23L in the FV at 1.052, no sugar added (deviating from recipe above). The runnings were still 1.017 when I stopped sparging (corrected). Please let me know if I've misunderstood any of this. I'm pretty confident in my readings and quantities.

*That assumes I'd boiled the unused 2L and it reduced down to [email protected].

Full details of final brew below the pictures. I upped the black malt from GW's recipe, because BrewR reckoned the colour would be well short; I also swapped the bittering hops from Challenger to Northern Brewer. There has been an aftertaste to challenger in two recent brews (one dry hop) that I'm not sure I like, while the NB in my tripels gave a very clean bitterness, I think. As stated, I omitted the planned sugar after the pre-boil gravity was slightly higher than expected. So in the end, I will call this my own ESB, inspired by GW's but ultimately quite different.


The Williamette smelled great!



By the end of the boil, the wort from the third pot squeezed into the main two, ready for chilling. Chilling took 20mins to 18C: nice cold mains water today!

Life is so much easier with a tap! I whirlpooled, settled 10 mins and drained, removed most of the hops, then poured the second pot into the first, whirlpooled, setteld and drained. It cut loads of time and faff of my day.


ESB

Recipe specifics:

Style: Extra Special/Strong Bitter (English Pale Ale)
Batch size: 23.0 l
Boil volume: 34.0 l
OG: 1.052
FG: 1.013
Bitterness (IBU): 32.5
Color (SRM): 13.3
ABV: 5.1% before priming

Grain/Sugars:

4.15 kg Maris Otter Malt, 86.8%
0.43 kg Crystal 50-60L (British), 9.0%
0.15 kg Torrified Wheat, 3.1%
0.05 kg Black Patent (British), 1.0%

Hops:

25.00 g Northern Brewer (AA 9.7%, whole) 90 min, 29.7 IBU
14.00 g Willamette (AA 4.7%, whole) 10 min, 2.7 IBU
20.00 g East Kent Golding (AA 5.1%, Pellet) dry hop

Yeast/Misc:

Irish Moss, 1.0 unit(s), Fining , boil 10 min
S-04, 2.0 unit(s), Yeast

Recipe Notes:

White Labs Nutrient at 10 mins.

Batch Notes:

12L went in the mash, topped up with 6.5L boiling water (to get mashout) after 90 mins and 5L at 78C. Left 15 mins, and drained 17L wort.

Second batch sparge was 17L at 78C, left around 10 mins, and drained. Ended up collecting 36L total:

Pre boil gravity was 1.039, so no sugar was added.

Mash efficiency was nearly 94%, producing 36L at 1.039 (two litres were unused).

How did this one end up? Good, I hope, as I intend for this one to be my next brew. Was it close to the original? I like Everard's Original Ale, at least the version we get here in Denmark. Whether that's identical to the Leicester original, I cannot say.

Oh, and did your black patent malt colour tweaks pay off? I'd love to see a pic of the end result.

It turned out very well and you've given me a good excuse to go and get one from the garage. Will post a pic later and elaborate.

:thumb:

'ere you go... :



It's really nice. I gave it a good 10-14 days (forgotten exactly) in crates on the posh heated floor in our bathroom, as I always do now, to make sure the priming is all eaten up. Imagine SWMBO's delight. But for a couple of weeks it retained some sweetness that, in samples that were clearly purely for research, proved to dry out further in the coming days - not particularly for the better in my view. Don't get me wrong, it's REALLY good and if you enjoyed the Everards then you'll probably like this too, but I'd have been even happier without the dry-roasty taste that it's come to have. I've used crystal before in extracts and the explanation does tie in with my experience there, which was with dry Nottingham yeast.

This is something I discussed elsewhere and the reasons could be various, though it is likely that the fervent yeast has managed to break down some of the longer chain sugars from the plentiful crystal with time in the bottle. There are many possible tweaks, but when I do it again (and I will), in short, I am thinking I will lower the crystal quite a bit, maybe add in some Munich or similar, and probably use a liquid yeast... all to try and reduce the eventual 'dry-roastyness' a little.

When I've got it just about perfect, I have some oak chips at hand...

All the basic things were fine, by the way: head retention, body, carbonation, bittering etc.

Let us know how you get on!

morethanworts said:

This is something I discussed elsewhere and the reasons could be various, though it is likely that the fervent yeast has managed to break down some of the longer chain sugars from the plentiful crystal with time in the bottle. There are many possible tweaks, but when I do it again (and I will), in short, I am thinking I will lower the crystal quite a bit, maybe add in some Munich or similar, and probably use a liquid yeast... all to try and reduce the eventual 'dry-roastyness' a little.

Click to expand...

I'd think about losing the Black Malt as well. GW puts this in his recipes where the original brew is coloured with caramel or where he otherwise can't get the colour match. The problem is Black Malt will add a roasty character. If you want to replace that colour contribution without the roastyness you could use brewer's caramel or Sinamar. Failing that you could try cold steeping the black malt.

Dr Mike said:

morethanworts said:

This is something I discussed elsewhere and the reasons could be various, though it is likely that the fervent yeast has managed to break down some of the longer chain sugars from the plentiful crystal with time in the bottle. There are many possible tweaks, but when I do it again (and I will), in short, I am thinking I will lower the crystal quite a bit, maybe add in some Munich or similar, and probably use a liquid yeast... all to try and reduce the eventual 'dry-roastyness' a little.

Click to expand...

I'd think about losing the Black Malt as well. GW puts this in his recipes where the original brew is coloured with caramel or where he otherwise can't get the colour match. The problem is Black Malt will add a roasty character. If you want to replace that colour contribution without the roastyness you could use brewer's caramel or Sinamar. Failing that you could try cold steeping the black malt.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I queried the black malt before the brew somewhere and was reassured that 50g in 23L wouldn't affect the flavour at all. I was a little sceptical, and it at least introduces an unnecessary variable.

Looks awfully tasty. Didn't think 50 grams of black patent would affect the taste, but I don't have enough experience to say. I would also have thought that replacing some crystal by some munich malt would make for a drier rather than a sweeter brew. If your mash temps were slightly low, that may explain the dryness. What was the apparent attenuation?

Glad to hear it turned out well. I can hardly wait until it's my turn. I have the ingredients, I just need to find the time....

Thanks for the pic! Made me all thirsty :drink:

I've since found my thermometer to be reading high, possibly as much as 1 to 2C over at 66C, though that is determined by taking readings at 0C and boiling point, 'tracing a line' between the two and guesstimating how much it may be out at 66C. So yes, I may well have mashed slightly lower than I thought, though this would apparently account more for any lack of body than for dryness as such, according to the 'Yeast' book (White/Zainasheff - see p.70). The body is fine. However, I would definitely make sure I was mashing a little higher next time, just to rule that out.

You may well be right about the Munich, on second thoughts. Maybe some Caravienna? I'm no longer too concerned about the closeness to Everards, I just want a slightly rounder tasting style of what I've got. By the time I were leaving out the black malt as well, I guess I may be starting to just look at other recipes, nice though this one is and potentially even nicer with a higher mash and different yeast.

Just to say, I'm sat here drinking one of these again (my first of the evening, I'd like to point out!) and I think I may have done it a disservice. It's a very nice pint indeed as it is: I'd accept it in any pub without a second thought and go back for another. It's got a lovely homely, warm taste that is pretty rounded (despite what I said above), plenty of body, terrific head retention, pleasing bitterness, plenty of aroma... That S-04 sticks like absolute 5h*t to the bottom of the bottles too! I can pour out every last drop and it's clear - Never seen that before.

I'm getting pretty picky nowadays and I've sampled some fantastic beers recently. If you like the style, I'd happily recommend this (at least with the minor changes I made) as it is, before tweaking further.

PS Considering the changes I made to the original recipe, I've decided to call this brew...

NEVERARDS!

Even without Irish moss, I find S-04 packs pretty well, given enough time.

How did you dry hop? In primary/secondary? How many days before bottling/kegging?

What were your fermentation temps? I've done a few brews with S-04 that ended up with a taste I can only describe as "yeasty". Hoppier brews seem to suppress this off-flavour. I suspect that this yeasty taste (which is not exactly unpleasant, just not as neutral as I had hoped for) was caused by high fermentation temps (20-21 degrees C ambient). Maybe I just wasn't ready for the "Englishness" of this strain. Nevertheless, I'll be fermenting S-04 at 17 degrees C from now on.

Currently finishing an Everard's Regimental IPA (today's first, promised!). Very pleasant, sessionable ale, although true hopheads, breastfed on C-hops, would probably point and laugh at an IPA with such a low number of IBUs

Now onto my horribly failed stout experiment from dark extracts... *sigh* 12 bottles left..

loobie said:

Even without Irish moss, I find S-04 packs pretty well, given enough time.

How did you dry hop? In primary/secondary? How many days before bottling/kegging?

What were your fermentation temps? I've done a few brews with S-04 that ended up with a taste I can only describe as "yeasty". Hoppier brews seem to suppress this off-flavour. I suspect that this yeasty taste (which is not exactly unpleasant, just not as neutral as I had hoped for) was caused by high fermentation temps (20-21 degrees C ambient). Maybe I just wasn't ready for the "Englishness" of this strain. Nevertheless, I'll be fermenting S-04 at 17 degrees C from now on.

Currently finishing an Everard's Regimental IPA (today's first, promised!). Very pleasant, sessionable ale, although true hopheads, breastfed on C-hops, would probably point and laugh at an IPA with such a low number of IBUs

Now onto my horribly failed stout experiment from dark extracts... *sigh* 12 bottles left..

Click to expand...

I'm getting really sloppy in record keeping at the moment, but dry hopping (with 20g EKG pellets straight on the top) was in primary, once the worst of the activity had calmed down. I think this was around day 3 or 4 with this one. The S-04 raced through and then dropped out like a stone. The pellets were perhaps in for another 5 days before I racked into the bottling bucket.

I've been keeping all mine well down in temperature while the yeast is growing, which I'm fast learning is when you get all the esters forming. I can't remember exactly, but this was controlled at around 18 to 18.5C for at least 24 hrs and increased by around 0.5C per day after that until (I think) day 4, at which point the gravity was already very low, so I oiked it up to 22C to finish off any diacetyl and to ensure full attenuation. I chilled it down for a day or two after that before bottling. I've taken an abbey yeast up to 24C to fully attenuate on two occasions now and I know of people taking those further than that. As long as it's low for 2 or 3 days, I think you're safe.

Perhaps as significantly, I pitched two packets, as Mr Malty said I'd need slightly more than the 11.5g single packet for an ideal pitch rate. More yeast=less 'yeasty', because of fewer divisions, I understand.