My 2012 Winter Warmer

[KingBrianI]

Instead of doing a spiced ale for the cold months this year, I'm going to do something along the lines of the British Winter Warmers. Something caramelly and malty with a bit of an alcohol warmth. In brainstorming the flavors I'd like to achieve, things like buttered toast, toffee, and toasted nuts come to mind for the base notes, while orange marmalade and stone fruits would make nice top notes. It needs a touch of alcohol warmth and should be a nice dark chestnut color with a creamy off white head. Malty, but not overly sweet. Here's how I plan on making it happen.

5.5 gallon batch

OG 1.070
IBU 40
SRM 18

-Combo of Warminster maris otter, crisp maris otter, and fawcett golden promise base (I don't have enough of either of the maris otters left to make the beer so have to use the GP to hit gravity)
-1 lbs Simpsons Heritage Crystal 55
-0.77 lbs turbinado sugar (I'm going to look for the Woodstock Farms brand, since I've read on this forum that it gives a nice buttery toffee flavor)
-0.19 lbs chocolate malt

1.25 oz First Gold @ 90 min
1 oz First Gold @ 5 min

Wyeast 1469

So there you go. The base malt combo should give a nice toasty, bready base with a little help from the chocolate malt. The heritage crystal should add some complexity to the toasted flavors while adding some toffee and caramel. More buttery toffee from the turbinado sugar. A candied orange peel and orange marmalade from the first golds and a nutty malt character and stone fruit esters from the 1469. I usually ferment the 1469 pretty cool, but in order to really crank some esters out, and to get a full attenuation, I'm going to go quite a bit warmer with this beer -- pitch at 64 and let rise to 70 (I usually pitch at 60 and let rise to 64).

It may get brewed this coming saturday if I get the hops in time. If not, it'll have to wait a week. Either way, should be drinking good when the weather gets cold!

 

[Brulosopher]

Personally, I'd back off a bit on the bittering addition... just a tad

 

[KingBrianI]

Personally, I'd back off a bit on the bittering addition... just a tad

It's funny, that was something I've been thinking about. My original plan was to bitter to somewhere around 30-35 IBUs, but I upped it to 40 in order to balance the bitterness with the malt. I would like the beer to be on the malty side, so maybe I should tip the scales in its favor and aim for 35 IBU. As long as I can get it to attenuate to below 1.020 (hopefully it ends up somewhere around 1.018) I think 35 IBUs would achieve a nice balance thats tipped towards malty.

 

[Brulosopher]

It's funny, that was something I've been thinking about. My original plan was to bitter to somewhere around 30-35 IBUs, but I upped it to 40 in order to balance the bitterness with the malt. I would like the beer to be on the malty side, so maybe I should tip the scales in its favor and aim for 35 IBU. As long as I can get it to attenuate to below 1.020 (hopefully it ends up somewhere around 1.018) I think 35 IBUs would achieve a nice balance thats tipped towards malty.

You put 1.25 lbs of hops at 90, I presume you meant oz

 

[KingBrianI]

You put 1.25 lbs of hops at 90, I presume you meant oz

Oh yeah, that would be a little too much. Thanks for the heads up, it's corrected now.

 

[jfr1111]

When I was reading the hop flavours you were going for in the OP, I was thinking "that sounds like a job for First Gold". Great minds think alike.

 

[KingBrianI]

When I was reading the hop flavours you were going for in the OP, I was thinking "that sounds like a job for First Gold". Great minds think alike.

I've actually never used them, only read about them. Do you think 1 oz at 5 minutes will be enough to get an orange marmalade character in the beer or should I up it some?

 

[bierhaus15]

First gold is a great hop, I've been using frequently, but in my experience you need to use it in quantity and drink it relatively fresh to get the orange/citrus/marmalade character. Also, I think it really shines as a dry-hop, for the flavor is much more "orange-y" than when used in the boil. It is pretty similar tasting to EKG or a Stryian Golding in small amounts.

If you plan to age this beer for 3-4 months before serving, you could certainly load up on the hops at the end - say 1.0oz at 15 and 2-3oz at flameout (with a nice long whirlpool) - and you'll still have plenty of hop character down the road, maybe with some of those marmalade flavors.

Lastly, you probably know this, but WY9097-PC Old Ale is out again this year. Had one of my last few bottles of the 11-11-11 brew and boy did that turn into something beautiful. Got to get a pack and brew something with it.

 

[KingBrianI]

First gold is a great hop, I've been using frequently, but in my experience you need to use it in quantity and drink it relatively fresh to get the orange/citrus/marmalade character. Also, I think it really shines as a dry-hop, for the flavor is much more "orange-y" than when used in the boil. It is pretty similar tasting to EKG or a Stryian Golding in small amounts.

If you plan to age this beer for 3-4 months before serving, you could certainly load up on the hops at the end - say 1.0oz at 15 and 2-3oz at flameout (with a nice long whirlpool) - and you'll still have plenty of hop character down the road, maybe with some of those marmalade flavors.

Lastly, you probably know this, but WY9097-PC Old Ale is out again this year. Had one of my last few bottles of the 11-11-11 brew and boy did that turn into something beautiful. Got to get a pack and brew something with it.

Good to know. For this beer, I'd like something marmalade-y, but not hoppy. Do you think if I hopped at the levels you suggest it would come off as hoppy? I'd rather skip on the marmalade character if I can't get it without the beer being overly hoppy.

I never was truly happy with my 11-11-11 and think I would have liked it much better if I had gone with a straight saccharomyces yeast instead of a blend with brettanomyces. If we trade our current bitters like we mentioned, I'll throw in a bottle of my 11-11-11 to see what you think. I feel like the brett dried mine out too much and the brett character overshadowed the malt.

 

[bierhaus15]

Good to know. For this beer, I'd like something marmalade-y, but not hoppy. Do you think if I hopped at the levels you suggest it would come off as hoppy? I'd rather skip on the marmalade character if I can't get it without the beer being overly hoppy.

Unfortunately, I don't think you're going to get that marmalade flavor without using a lot of hops in the beer, at least with First Gold or EKG. However, using 1 or 1.5 oz at the end of the boil isn't anything to worry about in terms of 'hoppiness.' First Gold is not what I would consider strongly flavored.

On that same note, you could look into using Challenger (potent orange character) and instead of going for an aroma addition, go with a 20 min flavor one. That way, you'll get more of your malty, caramel aromas while still getting some hop flavor. Sorta like how they do it with old school bitters... 60, 30, 15 additions. You get good hop character without the grassy/herbal aromas that cover up your biscuity malt and esters. Just a thought.

As for the 11-11-11, mine didn't turn out particularly "English," it is certainly more belgian tasting... but the flavors are really nice.

 

[jfr1111]

I've actually never used them, only read about them. Do you think 1 oz at 5 minutes will be enough to get an orange marmalade character in the beer or should I up it some?

If you were brewing a bitter, I'd say yes, but as was mentioned by Bierhaus, it's a delicate hop that needs to be used in quantity and in a big beer, I don't know how it'd stack up. I always use it with a 30 minutes + whirlpool/hopstand addition in my bitters, but I like them hoppy. Maybe stick with a 30 minute addition only ?

I have never used Challenger as anything else than a bittering addition, so I can't comment on bierhaus suggestion, except to second what he is saying: with english hops, I get a lot of flavour from 20-30 minute additions, moreso than with american varieties. I guess it's because of the lower alpha acids: I can get away with using more hops, hence higher flavour perception.

 

[KingBrianI]

Cool, thanks for the help guys. So I'll do a 1 oz addition or so around 20 min then another whirlpool addition after flameout of about 2 oz. Hopefully, that lets the orange come through without covering up the malt.

 

[jfr1111]

Cool, thanks for the help guys. So I'll do a 1 oz addition or so around 20 min then another whirlpool addition after flameout of about 2 oz. Hopefully, that lets the orange come through without covering up the malt.

How long do you plan on whirpooling ? I usually do a 30-45 minute hopstand on bitters and that "calculates", as far as bittering goes, as a 10-15 minute addition.

First Gold is like EKG: it's delicate and won't completly overtake a beer like say, Summit or Chinook, especially since you are probably going to age this for a while. I brewed a kitchen sink IPA last year that had something ridiculous like 4 oz each of First Gold and Goldings at flameout and there was still a good amount of malt character. Smelled like Seville orange rind and apricot.

 

[KingBrianI]

How long do you plan on whirpooling ? I usually do a 30-45 minute hopstand on bitters and that "calculates", as far as bittering goes, as a 10-15 minute addition.

First Gold is like EKG: it's delicate and won't completly overtake a beer like say, Summit or Chinook, especially since you are probably going to age this for a while. I brewed a kitchen sink IPA last year that had something ridiculous like 4 oz each of First Gold and Goldings at flameout and there was still a good amount of malt character. Smelled like Seville orange rind and apricot.

What I've done for whirlpool additions in the past is quickly cool the beer to 180 F after flameout (takes like 30 seconds with the immersion chiller), then add the hops, stir them in good, and let it sit for about 30 minutes before chilling the rest of the way. I hadn't thought about accounting for the bitterness addition from that so I'll have to back off on my bittering addition to still hit my intended IBU. Does my whirlpool method sound like it should work? It's something I messed around with for a while a couple years ago but haven't tried since.

 

[jfr1111]

What I've done for whirlpool additions in the past is quickly cool the beer to 180 F after flameout (takes like 30 seconds with the immersion chiller), then add the hops, stir them in good, and let it sit for about 30 minutes before chilling the rest of the way. I hadn't thought about accounting for the bitterness addition from that so I'll have to back off on my bittering addition to still hit my intended IBU. Does my whirlpool method sound like it should work? It's something I messed around with for a while a couple years ago but haven't tried since.

I do exactly the same thing except I don't chill to 180F (more like 200F). I don't buy into the whole Jamil "chill as soon as possible omg!" school of thought, especially when many commercial breweries take 60-90 minutes plus to chill all of their wort to pitching temperatures after whirpooling.

Since you intend to age this for a bit, accounting for the bittering from the whirpool might be optional... I do it because most of my bitters are small 60+30 minutes additions (or even just a 60 minutes one...) plus an ounce or two of hopstand addition.