Blackout Brown Ale

Classification: brown ale, all-grain

Source: Nick Cuccia (cuccia@eris.berkeley.edu) Issue #867, 4/20/92

One word: Mmmm! I was aiming for an English mild, and missed---too dark and too hoppy a nose for style. Nice body, with a good balance between the malt and the hops; the first thing that hits you, however, is the Willamette nose.

Looking back at the process, I'm surprised at how easy it was (even with thunderstorms and blackouts while it was going on---thank your choice of supreme being for gas stoves).

Ingredients:

7 pounds, Klages malt
1/4 pound, chocolate malt
1/4 pound, black patent malt
1/2 pound, 80 L. crystal malt
1 ounce, Willamette hops (3.8% alpha) (boil 60 minutes)
4/5 ounce, Perle hops (8.5% alpha) (boil 30 minutes)
1/2 teaspoon, Irish moss (boil 15 minutes)
1/2 ounce, Willamette hops (3.8% alpha) (dry hop)
Wyeast English ale yeast
3/4 cup, corn sugar (priming)

Procedure:

I use Papazian's temperature-controlled mash (30 minutes at 122, 90 minutes at 155--145, sparge at 170). Total boil time was 1 hour. Cool and pitch yeast. After 6 days, rack to secondary and dry hop. One week later, prime and bottle.

Specifics:

O.G.: 1.042
F.G.: 1.008