British Brown Ale 2025

Today I'm brewing another beer designed around using up some specialty malts that I've collected. Like my recent Irish Extra Stout, this recipe is based on an NHC medal winner. This one is based on Jarrett Long and John Bates entry named Cheerio British Brown Ale, gold medal winner in 2024 NHC. For this beer I'm using the Brown Balanced (18-30 SRM) water profile in Beersmith. This should help support the malt character without being overly sweet/malty. The 2021 BJCP guidelines describe the style as follows:

A malty, caramelly, brown British ale without the roasted flavors of a Porter. Balanced and flavorful, but usually a little stronger than most average UK beers. 

I don’t believe I’ve ever used Crisp Brown Malt before. This is one of the malts I got in a judge grab bag and have been wanting to try it out in a recipe. On the Crisp website it includes the following descriptors:

Lightly roasted flavor notes, milky coffee undertones, hits of sweet pastries. The color is produced in the same manner as Amber, but is roasted for a slightly more extended period to achieve a nutty, roasted dryness with a light brown hue, perfect for brown ales and mild beers. 

I tasted a few grains and I’d say it’s definitely roasty, surprisingly so considering it’s a light brown color. That said, it’s not a harsh roast like you might get with darker roast malt. I think it’s going to go really well with the malt contribution from Maris Otter and Crystal malts. 

I went with 11 gallons distilled water for this recipe. That’s more water than I really need but I want to make sure my volume into the fermenter is as close to 5 gallons as possible. I'm also going to keep a close eye on boiling vigor so that I don’t end up with overly 

Target OG 1.052

Target FG: 1.013

IBU: 24

ABV: 5.1

7 lb 1oz Crisp Maris Otter

11 oz Crisp Brown

11 oz Crisp Crystal 60

3 oz. Simpsons Pale Chocolate

1g BrewTan B (Mash)

2 oz. East Kent Goldings (60 min)

4.66g BCAA (10 min)

Yeast Nutrient

Whirlfloc

Zinc Buddy

Lalbrew Verdant IPA

Mash for 60 minutes at 152°F. Ferment at 65°F for 10 days.

Water Profile

Target Water Profile
Ca	Mg	Na	SO4	Cl	HCO3
50	10	27	70	55	90

To 11 gallons RO/distilled water, add the following:

• 1.87g Gypsum
• 4.73g Epsom salt
• 4.73g Calcium chloride
• 4.4g Baking soda
• 0.99g Chalk

Brewing Notes

A couple minor issues today. One of my temp probes, the one I was using on the BK developed a short, so it was reading sporadic temps. I was able to position the wire in a way that it started reading consistent albeit a little lower than actual temps (196 vs 207). The other issue, I had this blog post open on my tablet and my phone and I didn’t realize it wasn’t saving my gravity and pH readings for the middle measurements, so those were from memory and may not be entirely accurate. 

Other than that, things went well. Chilling also worked well again. The post-boil gravity read ~ 13.8/1.054 on the refractometer whereas the Tilt put it spot on at 1.052.

Session Readings
Beginning mash pH	5.18
Ending mash pH	5.20
1st running gravity	16 (1.064)*
Pre-Boil gravity	9 (1.035)*
Pre-Boil pH	5.2*
Post-Boil gravity	13.8 (1.054); Tilt=1.052
Post-Boil pH	5.13

Wort has been oxygenated, yeast pitched, Zinc Buddy pitched, and it’s in the ferm chamber sitting at 64F.

Update 12/8/2025

Gravity is reading 1.042 this morning on the Tilt. It started showing signs of gravity change about 5-6 hours after pitching, so it seems the yeast pitch was quite healthy and things are moving right along.

I forgot to mention one thing. I bought this app called Multi Timer that's kind of cool. I got it more for coffee roasting, but it essentially lets you set multiple timers, group them, and start them all at once. I've screwed up a couple coffee roasting sessions because I stepped away and forgot what I was doing, or I miss-timed one of the steps. I think it could well for brewing, especially if you have multiple hop additions you're trying to keep track of. This British Brown Ale was super straightforward, but here's an example of how I used it. 

Update 12/9/2025

Gravity is currently reading 1.020. Fermentation has been super active causing the Tilt to wobble and record measurements ranging from 1.020 to 1.035 in a matter of hours. It seems to be settling down today showing more consistent measurements. 

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Irish Extra Stout 2025

Thanksgiving weekend brew day! I mostly keep base malts on hand but I've acquired a bunch of specialty grains in judge swag bags, as competition prizes, etc. I decided I better brew some recipes to use up some of these grains rather than perpetually storing them.

For today's beer, I'm brewing an Irish Extra Stout. This recipe is based on one of the medal winning recipes from NHC, specifically Paul’s Irish Extra Stout by Paul Sorice Jr., gold medal winner from 2022. I haven't had a chance to meet Paul yet, but he's in the Pinellas Urban Brewers Guild, the same club I just joined a couple weeks ago. I'm modifying the recipe slightly, including the brewing water (I'm using the Black Balanced (Over 31 SRM) water profile in Beersmith). I don't believe I've ever brewed anything specifically intended to be an Irish Extra Stout, so I'm looking forward to giving this one a try. It's my first time using Coffee Malt in a recipe. The 2021 BJCP style guidelines describe this style as follows:

A fuller-bodied black beer with a pronounced roasted flavor, often similar to coffee and dark chocolate with some malty complexity. The balance can range from moderately bittersweet to bitter, with the more balanced versions having up to moderate malty richness and the bitter versions being quite dry. 

I'm not shooting for an overly dry and bitter version. I'm hoping the selected grain bill and water profile will result in a nicely balanced beer. Here's the recipe as I'm brewing it today: 

Target OG 1.058

Target FG: 1.014

IBU: 36

ABV: 6

7 lb. 14oz Maris Otter pale malt 

6 oz. Carafa III malt (Cold steeped and added to BK during sparge)

6 oz. Simpson's Pale Chocolate malt

6 oz. Briess Victory malt

6 oz Simpson's Coffee malt

3 oz. Simpson's Double Roasted Crystal malt

1.25 oz. (35 g) Cluster, 6.5% AA @ 60 min

0.5 oz. (14 g) Cluster, 6.5% AA @ 15 min

4.66g BCAA (10 min)

Yeast Nutrient (Flameout)

Whirlfloc (Flameout)

Zinc Buddy (Added at pitch)

Fermentis Safale S-04

Mash at 153F. Ferment at 64°F for 12 days. Raise to 68°F on day 13 and hold for 3 days.

Water Profile

Target Water Profile
Ca	Mg	Na	SO4	Cl	HCO3
50	10	33	57	44	142

As mentioned above, I'm deviating from the water profile listed on the AHA's website. To 10 gallons of distilled/RO water, add the following:

• 5.4g Epsom salt
• 3.3g Calcium chloride
• 5.2g Baking soda
• 2.7g Chalk

Brewing Notes

No issues other than my gravity is a few points high. I believe this is due to more boil off than I was anticipating rather than higher than normal efficiency. So, I still need to dial that in a bit. I’m happy to say I think I’ve figured out my chilling process. Essentially I’m chilling down to about 99F with groundwater temps. Then I turn the pump on for the pre-chiller setup which is a Blichmann plate chiller connected to an ice water reservoir. With this setup, I was able to chill down to about 57F. I still had quite a bit of ice left too, so I think I could have easily gotten it down to 50F.

Session Readings
Beginning mash pH	5.18
Ending mash pH	5.18
1st running gravity	16.8 (1.067)
Pre-Boil gravity	10.5 (1.041)
Pre-Boil pH	5.18
Post-Boil gravity	15.5 (1.061)
Post-Boil pH	5.09

One thing worth mentioning, my Tilt Hydrometers' batteries both died on me before I moved to Florida. I figured I'd address that once I got settled in Florida. I'm happy to say I replaced the batteries, recalibrated both Tilts, and will be using one on this brew. I find Tilts most useful for lager fermentations as it helps me decide when to perform a diacetyl rest, but I use them in my ale fermentations as well. The only time I don't use them is in wild/mixed fermentations, but I may try that at some point if I can find someone looking to offload one for cheap. In Utah I used an old cell phone for logging, but I decided to buy a Tilt Pico to use in place of the phone. The Tilt Pico is a Raspberry Pi-based device that functions as a Bluetooth to WiFi bridge and eliminates the need for a cell phone. The cell phone solution worked ok, but my phone would periodically crash or reboot after an update and I'd lose logging data until I managed restart the Tilt app. I'm hoping the Tilt Pico is more stable.

Update 11/30/2025 7:15AM

Things are moving along today. The current gravity reading is 1.053 and temps are holding at 64F, although temps got as high as 66F for a short period. I may need to recalibrate the probe on my temp controller. I forgot to mention, I added White Labs Zinc Buddy to this batch. I didn't realize WL was selling this product and it was a little hard to find, but a friend of mine uses it and recommended it (more on his beer in an upcoming post). It's basically a sterile zinc solution that you can add directly to your fermenter and it supports yeast health. Here's a link to more info on WL.

Update 12/1/2025 8:00AM

Fermentation is still chugging along. I ended up dropping the temp controller one degree, just in case the probe was slightly off. Current readings from the Tilt are 1.025 and 64F with an average temp of 63.9F. The Tilts do wobble during active fermentation, so it likely isn’t exactly 1.025, but very close to it; for example, there are a couple readings where it recently read 1.027, then 1.024, then back to 1.027 then the most recent at 1.025.

Update 12/2/2025 9:45AM

Fermentation seems to be winding down. I went ahead and raised the temp setting on my controller to 67F and I'm letting it free rise. Current readings are 1.020. I'm hoping to get closer to the stated FG for the recipe, 1.014.  

Update 12/3/2025

Fermentation has definitely slowed, but gravity is still dropping a little bit. Today the tilt is reading a hair below 1.020 at about 1.019551. Yesterday's 1.020 was actually measuring at 1.020580, so about a 1 point drop.

Update 12/7/2025

Today we're at 1.018522 on the Tilt, so still dropping albeit very slowly.

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Barrel Washing Rack

***This is a previously unpublished draft that I wrote up back in 2018. I was doing some work to support a new craft brewery in Utah, specifically on their barrel program. This rack was built to make it easier to rinse barrels after emptying.

Today's post isn't exactly for homebrewing, or at least not for most homebrewers (there's probably one person out there with a forklift, doing 60 gallon Solera projects), but I thought homebrewers might find it interesting. This is an equipment build I'm doing for my gig managing the sour beer program, and to an extent, the barrel-aged clean beers at a local brewery. This is a cleaning rack to assist with rinsing barrels between fills.

The way it works is after the barrels are emptied, a standard double barrel stacking rack is lowered onto the cleaning rack. As the stacking rack is lowered, the casters engage the barrels and the stacking rack drops out of the way and rests on the cleaning rack. With the barrels suspended on the casters, you can easily rotate the bungholes to the 6 o'clock position for dumping sediment and rinsing the barrels. Long story short, it makes the barrel cleaning process much quicker and easier.

We have two types of barrel racks. The overall dimensions are basically the same but the construction varies slightly in that some have two crossbars, but most have four. This isn't a huge issue, it just means some of the stacking racks rest lower on the cleaning rack than others. Stacking rack dimensions tend to be 44.5" wide x 30.75" deep x 14.125" tall.

To build the cleaning rack, I used 1.5 x 2.5 - 14 gauge rectangular steel tubing. Materials and cuts are as follows:

• (4) Outer posts at x" long (I forgot to measure these and I no longer have access to the rack)
• (2) Long horizontal beams at 48" long
• (4) Inner posts at 12" long
• (2) Short horizontal beams at 19" long
• (8) Casters

The pieces were assembled as shown in the pictures below. There's enough clearance to slide a bucket under the barrels during rinsing. This is important because while clean barrels will most likely be rinsed in the brewery, sour barrels will likely be rinsed outside to minimize contamination risk in the brewery. We'll need to be able to capture the wastewater and properly dispose of it, so clearance for a bucket is key.

The sizing noted above will give you a couple inches of clearance side to side and front to back. That said, it does require some precision to use, so you need some decent forklift skills to load barrels onto the rack. I also added some rubber pads where the stacking rack rests on the horizontal beams. Hopefully these will avoid damaging the paint and keep it rust-free longer.  I added the same rubber on the bottom of the legs so they don't damage the floors in the brewery.

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