it is fitting i brewed the English India pale ale on July third, the day before the united states celebrates its independence from the British empire; and, also fitting, being that you cant have one without the other, this recipe is a hybrid of sorts.
i had some domestic two row and domestic crystal left from previous batches that i needed to use up. researching the make-up of true English ipa's, i realized that with this batch i would have a perfect opportunity to substitute my leftovers. the resulting recipe looks like this:
independence day English India pale ale
Grain Bill:
2.72 kg Muntons Maris Otter
3.5 lbs. Domestic Two Row
0.23 kg Muntons Dark Crystal
0.5 lbs. Domestic Crystal
0.45 kg Belgian Biscuit/Amber
Hops:
28.34 g UK Northern Brewer (Northdown), 60 min.
28.34 g UK Northern Brewer (Northdown), 30 min.
1.0 oz. Willamette, 15 min.
1.0 oz. Willamette, flame-out
(in the spirit of the hybrid recipe, i chose an American hops with a profile similar to that of its British counterpart)
Yeast:
1028 London (WYeast)
Mash:
i decided to do an initial mash at 115 for a half hour or so. when i measured the temperature right before the second infusion to bring the mash up to 152, i noticed that the mash was at 125. so i was about ten degrees too high. i am going to make an educated guess and say that whatever temp i rested at probably made more of a difference than if i hadn't done any rest at all, and so i am not going to beat myself up over missing the temp. really, i dont even know what resting at 115 would do to the mash anyway. that is a whole other lesson in chemistry i haven't begun to delve into yet. i think i just liked the idea of a "protein rest." somewhere in the back of my head i think i am getting a transmission that says, "this will help head retention and fullness of body." i could be WAAAY off, dont quote me on that.
anyway, i hit my 152 right on the nose and let it go for another half hour. i bumped it up to 170, let it hang for a couple minutes, and then mashed out. which brings me to the next hurdle, one i have been dealing with the last couple of brews: the stuck mash.
Additional Notes:
ah, stuck mash, how do i hate thee? let me count the ways. you know, at first i thought that it was the weight of the grains smashing the tube that led from the stainless steel bottom to the ball valve. the first stuck mash happened when i was just about busting the seems of my five gallon mash tun with my 12 lb. Belgian pale ale grain bill. the tubing connecting the false bottom and the valve was flimsy clear acrylic tubing. maybe with the heat of the mash, the tubing got soft and just collapsed on itself.
i changed out the tubing. i replaced it with some beefy, heat resistant tubing. there, i thought, that'll work. but it didn't. the next go-round i decided to do my first stepped mash. this time around, a blonde ale with a relatively light grain bill compared to the BPA before it, still had me pulling my hair out over the infamous stuck mash. i thought, now, with the collapsed tubing theory out of the way, maybe with the stepped mash, i had too much water. maybe the grains were settling out too quickly, preventing the mash from flowing as it should. next time i would make the adjustment. and i did.
with the brown porter i thought i had it down. i had fixed the tubing, and now i had lessened the water to grain ratio in the initial mash infusion. i was good to go. there is always a moment when a brewer starts lautering the wort, when he's looking for that first sign of a healthy run-off, where the brewer holds his breath, hoping everything is going to go fine. The brewer knows what can go wrong. it has happened to him. through trial and error he has learned how to avoid such hang-ups, but there is always that initial apprehension, that holding of breath, that whisper of prayer. c'mon, PLEEEAASE work. when and if, through skill, experience, luck, or maybe a combination of all three, the wort starts flowing as it should, the brewer sighs in relief. the hard part is over.
such an amalgamation of factors was still alluding me. i began to grow suspicious...suspicious of what? one might ask. suspicious of my equipment, that's what. i think i had been on to something with grist/water ratios and weak tubing theories. These were both perfectly good explanations of my stuck mash problem; but not if the fix i'd implemented hadn't worked. something was not adding up. i had a rat in the midst of things and the time had come to flush it out.
between the Belgian and the blonde batches, i had upgraded my mash system from my usual five gallon to a ten gallon igloo. however, i had not changed the stainless steel false bottom. I was beginning to think that this could be the cause of my problems.
The false bottom i had purchased was made specifically for a five gallon igloo with a diameter of 9". It fit neatly in the bottom with about a 1/4 " of play all around the bottom of the cooler. With the up grade to the ten gallon cooler, this 1/4" of tolerance around the walls was increased to about an inch and a half. Where before, the five gallon cooler, and the false bottom didn't have much room to move, now it was free to vacillate up to almost three inches.
i had debated in my mind whether or not this change was a good idea. i had consulted beer advocate on the issue, which was not much help. my thinking was that even though the surface area of the false bottom of the old tun compared to the actual surface area of the new, bigger mash tun would be substantially increased (going from the 5 gallon to the 10 gallon mash tun), the design and function of the 9" false bottom would remain intact. a brewer buddy of mine had taken the step ahead of me and told me it worked fine. he was wrong.
When mashing grain, it is necessary to stir the mixture, not often, but intermittently. It distributes the heat of the hot water added. when adding water during infusions, it is necessary to stir the grain to redistribute the heat of the water, bringing up the temperature without hot spots. with the freedom of movement provided the 9" false bottom, designed for a five gallon igloo mash tun, by the increased area of the bottom of the 10 gallon mash tun, it is my hypothesis that this allowed the false bottom too much freedom of movement. although an increase in water to grain ratio and a structurally unsound pathway for liquid to travel through between the false bottom and the ball valve of my system may have been factors that led to a stuck mash, i have surmised that the root cause of the problem lies in the extra area of movement the ten gallon mash tun affords the nine inch false bottom (being designed for a five gallon tun) to move.
this hypothesis was backed by the next batch i brewed, a standard/ordinary bitter (english pale ale). ordinary bitters are a relatively malt balanced beer (as are all english pale ales) with a sessionable ABV of 3.3-3.8% . This differs from the american style in that the hop bitterness and aroma are more subdued in the british version than is celebrated and exagerated by its american counterpart. american pale ales also tend to overshadow the British style in their ABV of 4.5-6.2%.
that being said, the standard/ordinary bitters recipe i brewed had a significantly reduced grain bill. as such, the grist in lbs./water in qts. ratio was subdued, as was the pressure upon the tube connecting the underneath of the false bottom and the ball valve (although this problem was already alleviated by my addition of a stronger tube) by a heavy grain bill. the only remaining factor was the lessened movement of the mash, because of a reduced need to stir the mash, as a direct result of infusions that weren't needed, as a single infusion mash was utilized. because of this decreased movement, there was less chance for the 9" false bottom to move about in the enlarged area of the new ten gallon mash tun.
i have concluded, by not experiencing a stuck mash with the standard/ordinary bitter recipe, that i need to procure a 12" stainless steel false bottom if i am to continue using my ten gallon igloo mash tun. the 12" stainless steel bottom, designed specifically for a ten gallon igloo thermos, will alleviate the movement i have experienced that causes a stuck mash. a 12" diameter false bottom will restore any movement back to within a 1/4" deviation from center; this will return my system to the balance i enjoyed previous to upgrading my system from a five to ten gallon tun.
this is done easily enough for the fee of $60-70. Which brings me to the conclusion that i need to only deal with single infusions for the time being. this past brew i enacted is proof positive. until i am able to enjoy the benefits of the 12" false bottom, i think i will give up the multiple benefits of a multiple infusion. when that book by Zainasheff and Palmer calls for a 60 minute mash at 150, i will adhere by it. no more are the multiple infusion mashes. i dont understand them anyway. i dont know what temperature makes what scientific fraggle rock magical occurrence, so i will just stop.
Standard/Ordinary Bitter (1st in a series of three)
Grain Bill:
8 lbs. Muntons Pale
.5 lbs Muntons Dark Crystal
.25 lbs. Domestic Special Roast
Single Infusion @ 152 for 60 min.
Mash Out @ 168 for 10 min.
Hops:
Kent Golding
1.5 oz., 60 min.
0.5 oz., 30 min.
0.5 oz., 1 min.
Yeast:
1968 London ESB (WYeast), ferment @ 66