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Recipe Type: All Grain Yeast: Wyeast 1098 -or- Wyeast 1028 -or- Wyeast 1275 Yeast Starter: Yes-2 liter Original Gravity: 1.052 - 1.053 Final Gravity: 1.012 - 1.013 IBU: 37 Boiling Time (Minutes): 90 Color: 13-14 ABV 5% Primary Fermentation: 18 days @ 68* Secondary Fermentation: 10 Days @ 68* Aged: Kegged, chilled, and Carb'd for one week = 7 days @ 39*

Notes

This recipe came with Eric Ryan's (Hex @ Homebrewtalk.com) input. He's been brewing for 5 years and was a professional brewer up in Auburn. It was inspired by Bass Ale, an English Bitter, that was brewed in Burton upon Trent. This copper colored beer has a vast, creamy, off-white head and a splendid, esterlike hop and malt aroma. The beer is ready to drink as soon as it is carbonated while the hop taste and aroma are fresh. It will peak at 1-3 months and will keep at cellar temperatures for 6 months. Serve at 50* F Bass has a long history & was even served on the Titanic! Mash 9 lbs. of Maris Otter pale malt with the specialty grain at 156* for 90 minutes. This will give it a creamy base and a malty complexity. The Burton water salts go 1/2 oz to the mash then 1/2 oz to the boil. Add 1.0 oz. of the bittering hops (East Kent Goldings) for 90 minutes of the boil. Add the 1st flavor hops (Challenger) and the Irish Moss for the last 15 minutes of the boil. Add the 2nd flavor hops (Northdown) for the last 10 minutes of the boil and the aroma hops (Northdown) for the last minute. The Calcium makes the bittering hops pop. My water is increadibly soft, so the addition of Burton Salts is a must. Per BREW magazine: If you're brewing all-grain, you definitely want to tadjust the mash temperature to match the desired body of your beer. Mashing at a higher temperature like 156*F will result in a more malty beer and an increase in body and final gravity. Mashing at a low temperature, 148*F, results in a cleaner, drier finish to the beer with a lower final gravity. Per Hex & my discussion: Questions for you: 1) Hops. What if I combine EKG with Challenger & Northdown with the majority of hops EKG. I'm looking for complexity. 2) I've never had WL1275. What is it like? 3) Why the high temp. for the mash. 156* is high. What will it accomplish? 4) I have 7.0 oz of Crystal 60L and 7.0 oz of Victory. Good combination? Answers: 1) Hops sounds good, I wouldn't use very much. I would shoot for a 4.2% abv, 1.012 FG, malty bitters. I'd rather have malt complexity, and hops balance. 2) Fruity, low attenuation, clean, predictable, yum. 3) high mash temp to ensure low alcohol yet still sweet finish with body. 4) sounds lovely! -The only other things I can think of is you want to bring the first and second runnings to 170 deg for 10 minutes to simulate a mash out to denature the enzymes. Or just start your boil as soon as the first runnings hit the boil kettle. Otherwise, if you don't denature the enzymes, and the standing wort temperature falls to 149 deg or lower, you will loose all the sweetness and body that you achieved when mashing at 156 because the beta analyses enzymes will reactivate! -Ferment at 66 deg for 18 days and cask at 52 deg! -I brewed professionally downtown Sacramento, not Auburn. -Test the pH of the mash at the beginning and the end. 5.2 is the target, 5.6 reality. To increase the bitter hop bite you'll need to add some water agents. CaCL2 = Calcium -&- CaSO4 = Gypson, which is also combined in the Burton water salts. Acidulated malt @ 1/2 lbs will also accomplish this. Body and Mouthfeel: One thing I’ve found lacking in many homebrews is sufficient body and mouthfeel. Body refers to the thickness or viscosity of the beer and mouthfeel refers to its texture. This problem is especially prevalent in brews made from 100 percent malt extract. The fix is to add a pound of two of specialty grains, especially crystal malts. This beer has a lot of crystal 60L and so has a very good body, the Victory adds a "Biscuit" or toasted flavor to English ales.. I think the best combination is the crystal with the vicory. Lack of body can be attributed to lack of dextrin, a bodybuilding component derived from grain. If your beers suffer from lack of body, mash a pound or two of dextrin malt with your base grain. Extract brewers can steep a pound or two of Carapils malt prior to boiling, or add a few ounces of malto-dextrin powder to the wort as it boils. Mouthfeel is the term used to describe the tactile qualities of beer on your palate and in your throat. Texture is the part of this tactile quality (along with viscosity, carbonation, alcohol warmth, etc.) that is often attributed to the malt content, including specialty grains. Oats, flaked barley and roasted grains add a “chewy” quality to beer. Finally, in the interest of improving your beer’s body and mouthfeel, reduce or remove any simple sugars that may be included in the recipe. Refined sugars such as dextrose (corn sugar) and sucrose (beet or cane sugar) are about 99 percent fermentable and rob your beer of body while adding little in the way of flavor. Limiting other flavoring sugars such as brown sugar, honey or maple syrup to 20 percent or less of the total amount of fermentable material in your beer is advised. Yeast: The characteristics that define brewer’s yeast are alcohol tolerance, flocculation (ability to clump together), attenuation (ability to transform sugar into alcohol), and fermentation flavor characteristics. Yeast is responsible for most of the flavor and aroma compounds in beer. Flocculation is the special ability of brewer’s yeast to clump together following the end of fermentation and either rise to the surface or fall to the bottom of the fermenter, allowing easy removal from the beer. Yeast contribute more than 600 flavor and aroma compounds to finished beer. Most of these hover around perceivable values, so slight changes in conditions or ingredients can affect flavor profiles. In addition, what compounds yeast do not make themselves, they can affect. For example yeast change the way malt and hop compounds taste and smell. Hops are affected because different yeast strains adsorb different amounts of iso-alpha-acids, which account for 60 percent of beer’s bitterness. Malt components are affected because they are metabolized by yeast. Food Pairing: Bass is the perfect beer to drink with traditional beer-battered fish and chips with malt vinegar.