English Strong/old Ale

[jayse]

first time to do my own all grain strong ale.
i am sure a few here have done one or two.just thought i'd put up an strong ale thread.i am after making one which is blacker than the guidelines call for.
but the english ones i have had are like that anyway.

heres my plan so far
o.g 1.070 f.g 1.018
ibu 50

23 litres

6 kg pale ale
500 g english 120 ebc crystal malt
1 kg munich malt
200 black malt


40g(43 ibu) northern brewer 60 mins (calculated for a high gravity boil).

1 oz ekg 15 mins
1 oz ekg 5 mins maybe change the last additions to northern brewer also or fuggles.


2 litres 1028 london ale starter.
maybe will ferment to cleanly with this yeast.anyway the yeast is up in the air. but that is what i have right now.i thought the nottingham dry yeast would work well to bring it right down to a low f.g.

mine will be double that size at 46L.got to make enough to at least let some become 'OLD' ale

it look so far just like a very strong porter.but accorbing to my research it looks good.
does it look like iam heading in the right direction?
of course most people will just stick to fuggles on the end.but iam working with what i have at the moment and think the northernbrewer or e.k.g will work a treat.

cheers in advance.
and please post your strong ale recipes for myself and others.
iam looking at o.g 1.070 for mine but all recipes will be good to read.

oh and yeah i want to drink it 'warm and flat'.i don't recon any of my draught drinking pals will touch it with a ten foot pole.

 

[Doc]

Jayse,

Looks good.
I'd cut back on the black malt though.
200gr in 23 litres will give you a very black beer, but also a very bitter malted roasted taste.
The most I've used was 125gr in an oatmeal stout. I think an additional 75gr might be overkill.

Just a though.

Good luck with AG number one.

Beers,
Doc

 

[jayse]

yeah iam playing around with maybe using cararoma instead of the 120ebc crystal.then i still want some nice crisp black malt on top.
its deffintly going to be to black for the guidelines.
your right that much black malt will interfere with the raisin and date flavours iam after.
but i do want to use enough to tame the red hue from the crystal malt and give me a sharper finish.i don't want the cararoma to rule the flavour either.

maybe
400g cararoma.
100g black malt.


the cararoma should give me some good dark fruit flavours and aroma.i'll have too cheat abit to get the most port like flavours etc without aging it for too long.

 

[Jazman]

Jayse ask jovial monk for strong ales he alway making high gravitys beer and he gets them down to a good fg he always making english styles in 1100 ect with no probs and they seem to need to age a bit too

 

[jayse]

doc
thats AG number 40 or so.just the first strong ale all grain.


jazman
will go give him a visit .i have only been in the store once actually.
iam not to worried about the f.g.
iam after some tips on the crystal malt,roasted malt etc for such a brew.
i have plenty of ideas but with all these cool brewers around i might aswell get other peoples input.