I would like to do a test brew this Wednesday for this. I was thinking about doing a 10 gallon batch with MO and Golden Promise for the base and a little medium English crystal. Shooting for something in the 7-8% range. Will probably use challenger for the only hop. 40 IBUs in the first charge then maybe an ounce more at 5 min.
I’m going to split the batch and do one with 1318 and the other with 1187.
I am totally open to suggestions for changes, but i need to get the order in soon so i can have my starters ready for Wednesday
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I think with that much malt, at the 5 minute, would you want to bump up the hops, maybe american-ize it? Even if you age it, it will fade, but for green sampling, would help to enjoy it until cellaring… Sneezles61
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Well, I brewed up the first test batch of this yesterday…
The results were not amazing, but that was due to a comedy of errors on my part.
I was aiming for an OG of 1.077. 50/50 Maris Otter/Golden Promise with a little English Dark Crystal.
Mash was dead on 153 throughout and had a nice long sparge. Pre-boil OG was exactly where it was supposed to be at 1.060. It smelled amazing!
The problem came with the boil-off rates. I typically brew on a Blichmann Top Tier with MegaPots and have it dialed in perfectly in Beersmith. This was the equipment profile I used to build the recipe. I ended up brewing on a Center of Gravity stand instead as another employee was brewing on that system, so I had to change my equipment on the fly. I ended up having to use a 20 gal Blichman G1 pot for my boil kettle as we didn’t have any 20 gal MegaPots available. I also had to use an Edelmetal bru Burner as the CoG cannot support a 20 Gal kettle. This threw my boil-off rates off completely.
I did a 90 min boil on this and that should have dropped me down to the 1.077 but instead I only hit 1.066 with WAY more than the intended 12 gallons of wort.
I split the batch into 2 fermenters and pitched the yeast anyways. No sense in wasting wort.
I pitched 1187 and 1318 respectively and they are fermenting away as we speak. We’ll see how they turn out, but I’m gonna have to try again.
Dang! That’s too bad. Should still make for a pretty decent strong bitter, though.
I’m seriously thinking about omitting the crystal when I make this, and go for a really long boil, like 3-4 hours, to darken the wort. I’ve done it a few times and it really gives you a subtle complexity that you can’t quite get with crystal malts. That way the MO and GP can really shine!
Did you use all challenger for the hop additions? I’ve got a soft spot for Bramling Cross as a late addition, I was thinking it would go really nicely with the vinous quality of a nice old ale.
I did use Challenger, but I agree tha the Bramling would be an interesting hop for this. I may use them when I try again
I think Bramling Cross as a late addition would be nice.
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What kind of dark crystal did you use? Crisp, Thomas Fawcett, etc? I used some dark TF crystal in an ESB recently. Drinking really nicely, but a touch too burnt and caramelly. I used 8oz, might have been better at 4oz with maybe 8oz of their crystal 45.
It seems like these crystal malts have a LOT more character than the equivalent briess variants. And should be used sparingly! I’d really like to hear your experiences with the English variants.
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I’m itching to brew some now… when does the forum brewing start up? And do I get a discount at the St. Paul store for supplies 
?
I agree that the English crystal malt has a lot more character than Briess malts. Of course… Don’t get me started on Briess. 
Dude… I’ve been reading “farmhouse ales” by Markowski. Great book, but I’m really finding it hard to get beyond his contention that French malts of the time were “grainy” compared to their Belgian and German equivalents… 
I used some Simpson’s Dark Crystal in this brew. I really like the English crystals as they add the nice caramel notes and colors with a bit more bready/biscuity texture than the US or German equivalents.
I would love for some others to brew some test brews on this and let me know what you think.
I’ll probably get this going within a few weeks. Have a sack of MO on the way. Brew it now, it’ll be perfect once the cold weather comes back.
That was my thinking too. I want to save some of each of these test brews and see how they age.
The scotch/old ale is not my favorite either. I did one once and caramelized first runnings. I didn’t enjoy drinking it until I blended it with some pale ale. Wonder how to brew it without the blend
Would you post the complete recipe so there is an equal comparison? To me a “little” English crystal could be 2lbs of Simpsons extra dark! 
My recipe was:
12 gal batch size
15lb Golden Promise
15lb Maris Otter
2lb dark Crystal
3 oz Challenger 90min
1 oz Challenger 10min
Mash 153 60min
Pre-boil gravity 1.060
Post boil gravity 1.077
I have tried scotch ales, not much old ales, scotch I just must not have the palate for the very heavy malt, and maybe sweet complex taste of it. Not to divert from what is happening, as I believe this going to be a grand idea of comparing brews and technics, yet, I would like to stray a wee bit to amercan-ize it… So I will stay to a lighter side, maybe use less dark crystal, maybe even back down to 60*? I too like the challenger hops, so maybe add as first wort runnings and at 20 minutes I would drop in the remainder, and I will do a 5-er. Neo-brit yeast? something close to that order…. Sneezles61
It’s been 2 weeks since brew day on these. Thought I would share some pics…
The London III yeast will just not drop. I may have to filter or fine this one.
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You ain’t a kiddin’! That’s a lot of krausen for 2 weeks!
Made a version of this last weekend. 50% MO, 50% golden promise. OG 1.094. I did not add any crystal malt, but I boiled the wort for 4 hours instead. And it’s an absolutely incredible Amber color!
Hop schedule was the same - I added the bittering hops 3 hours into the boil and started the countdown from there. And I did not have the right yeast on hand, so I subbed wlp099. So really, I guess I hardly made the same recipe.
But the fermentation so far smells awesome. The yeast is throwing some incredible esters, and as long as I can keep the wlp099 from getting too nasty, I’m really looking forward to this one in a few months!
