Brewday - R.I.P. 24/10/2012

October is a time of year when the sunshine begins to ebb away. I lost a bigger chunk than most when my dad passed away a few years back. On the first anniversary I concocted a new recipe, dubbed 'R.I.P.' and I try to brew this beer each year, at some stage during the month.

The plan for this year was to bring the gravity down. Originally I brewed it at 1.065, reduced over the last couple of years to a more quaffable 1.056, but what i really want to learn is whether the same recipe will work scaled down to a starting gravity of 1.048, or thereabouts.

The grist consists predominately of pale and crystal malts, plus a handful of chocolate and roast barley.  Hops are an infusion of Challenger and Goldings, with Cascade added late in the day to give the flavour a lift.

I wasn't at my sharpest on this brew day and miscalculated the boil time. This meant the bittering hops were in for longer than planned. I also added the chocolate and roast barley to the mash tun after the mash was complete, so the sugars extracted from these malts came only from the sparge, with much less colour being added to the wort.

Whether it turns out to be any good remains to be seen. It was a beer I liked in it's last incarnation, but it's much less dark this time around so doesn't have the 'winter' feel I was hoping for. We'll find out about the flavour, further down the line...

New RIP

Special/Best/Premium Bitter

Type: All Grain	Date: 24/10/2012
Batch Size (fermenter): 50.00 l	Brewer: Mark
Boil Size: 62.65 l	Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 90 min	Equipment: Elite Brewery
End of Boil Volume 55.12 l	Brewhouse Efficiency: 73.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 50.00 l	Est Mash Efficiency 77.4 %
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage	Taste Rating(out of 50):
Taste Notes:
Ingredients
Ingredients Amt Name Type # %/IBU 9400.00 g Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 1 92.5 % 450.00 g Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (236.4 EBC) Grain 2 4.4 % 200.00 g Wheat Malt, Bel (3.9 EBC) Grain 3 2.0 % 70.00 g Chocolate Malt (886.5 EBC) Grain 4 0.7 % 44.00 g Roasted Barley (591.0 EBC) Grain 5 0.4 % 15.00 g Challenger [7.10 %] - First Wort 75.0 min Hop 6 6.4 IBUs 15.00 g Goldings, East Kent [5.50 %] - First Wort 75.0 min Hop 7 5.0 IBUs 24.00 g Challenger [7.10 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 8.9 IBUs 24.00 g Goldings, East Kent [5.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 9 6.9 IBUs 1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 10 - 30.00 g Cascade [7.00 %] - Boil 7.0 min Hop 11 3.0 IBUs 30.00 g Cascade [7.00 %] - Boil 1.0 min Hop 12 0.5 IBUs 2.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) [50.28 ml] Yeast 13 -
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.047 SG	Measured Original Gravity:
Est Final Gravity: 1.010 SG	Measured Final Gravity:
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.8 %	Actual Alcohol by Vol:
Bitterness: 30.7 IBUs
Est Color: 23.0 EBC