Fallen Apple Brown Ale

Source: Bob Taylor
Recipe added: 09/25/01
Email: twit21@gci.net

If I didn't make this beer every September, none of my thirsty friends (including my wife!) would ever forgive me! This is a dark-brown malty ale in the Southern English style. Looking at the hop addition, one might think that this brew would be on the sweet side - but the tartness from the apples and the apple cider also works to balance the beer. In writing this recipe, I was aiming for a beer that would have a faint apple aroma and a noticable apple-cider taste, balanced with the hops and the toasted malts. The Cara-Pils and wheat malts give this beer a KILLER head!

Specifics

Recipe type: All Grain
Batch Size: 5 gallons
Starting Gravity: 1.060
Finishing Gravity: 1.012
Time in Boil: 60 min
Primary Fermentation: 7 days
Secondary Fermentation: 7 days
Additional Fermentation: 14 days bottle conditioning

Ingredients:

Malts
<> 5.50 lbs Belgian Pale Malt (Dewolf-Cosyns)
<> 0.50 lb 60L Crystal Malt
<> 0.25 lb Chocolate Malt
<> 0.50 lb Munich Malt
<> 0.50 oz Roasted Barley
<> 0.50 lb Cara-Pils Dextrine Malt
<> 0.50 lb Malted White Wheat
<> 1.00 lb Dark Brown Sugar
Hops
<> 1.00 oz East Kent Goldings whole hops (60 min)
Fruit/Other
<> 4.00 lbs Apples - peeled, cored, chopped, and frozen the day before brewing. Use a combination of your favorite apples.
<> 1.00 gal Preservative-free pasteurized apple cider
<> 12.0 ea Allspice berries - roughly cracked
<> 6.00 ea Star Anise seed pods
<> 2.00 ea Cinnamon Sticks - broken into several pieces
<> 1.00 tsp Irish Moss
<> 1.00 ea White Labs Irish Ale yeast

Procedure:

A day or two before you brew, peel, core, and dice the apples and put them in a large freezer bag and freeze them _at least_ overnight (this makes it easier for the apples to give up their juices while steeping at the end of the boil). Thaw the apples in their bag on the counter while mashing. Mash crushed grains at 154*F for 90 min or until conversion is complete. Mash-out at 168*F for 15 min. Sparge with enough water to collect 5.5 gallons of wort (important!). Add your hops to the wort while you're collecting it. Boil for 60 minutes, adding the allspice/cinnamon/anise spice blend for the last 30 min, and the irish moss for the last 15 min. Add the apples to the wort after turning off the heat. Steep while you chill the wort ~ 30 min or so. Then remove the apples and discard or (better) make malted applesauce with them (e-mail the me for the recipe if you want it =). During the boil, you'll have boiled off about a gallon of wort, leaving you with 4.5 gallons - 4 gal of which you're going to collect. Don't worry! This is normal! You're now going to add that gallon of apple cider to your sanitized fermenter. Transfer your cooled wort into your fermenter and pitch the yeast. Ferment for 7 days or until the kraeusen drops, then rack to secondary and ferment until done (about another 7 days). Fine with gelatin if you wish (if you do, let it sit for a few more days), then bottle with the usual 3/4 c of corn sugar. Age in bottle for 2 weeks before enjoying.

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