Home Brew Craft

The wine-like malt flavor of the barely wine style is perfectly balanced by the sweet, round flavor of peach.  Peak peach season is upon us, however if you can’t find fresh or frozen peaches 2 or 3 oz of peach extract can be added at bottling.

Mash grains for 60-90 min. Collect 6 gallons of wort.  Add Chinhook hops and boil for 1 hour, adding the Saaz hops for the last 10 min.  Cool wort and pitch yeast.  Ferment for 10- 14 days.  Transfer to secondary fermenter.  for 20 min, steep peaches in enough 150 degree water to cover.  Add peaches and water to fermenter.  Ferment an addtional 14-21 days. Rack to teriary fermenter, straining out fruit, and let sit 2-3 days. Bottle using corn sugar.  Age in bottle 3-4 weeks.  Beer will improve with age.

If you were hanging in a pub in London, this is probably what you would be enjoying.  This is a classic style of ale usually served at cellar temperature.  Don’t worry about the lack of head, its how its supposed to be served.  There is an absence of specialty grains, and a low quantity of malt.  So there is a strong hop flavor and full bouquet.  Pour yourself a pint and raise a glass. “Oy Oy Oy!’

Ingredients:

3 1/2 Lbs Light Malt Extract                                2  Teaspoons Gypsum

2 Lbs  Light Dry Malt Extract                               1 Teaspoon Irish Moss

1/2 oz Kent Golding hops (boiling)                    1 package London Ale Yeast

1 oz Cascade hops (finishing)

Directions:

Combine malt extracts, gypsum and Kent Goldings hops in water.  Boil for 1 hour.  Add Cascade hops and Irish Moss for the last five minutes of the boil.  Cool wort ans pitch yeast.  Fermentation should be completed within 10 days.  Bottle using corn sugar.  Age in bottle 5-7 days.

Beer Style: pale ale, bitter, E.S.B., Fuller’s

Recipe Type: all-grain

Description:

Fuller’s ESB is by far and away my favorite (commercial) beer, and it has always been a high priority with me to find a way to clone it. Several attempts have brought forth some very pleasing beers, but they never quite matched up to the taste of the commercial variety.

Until the most recent attempt, that is! I think I have a very close clone on tap right now. I keg rather than bottle, and I am comparing this brew to the draught Fuller’s that is available in the Houston area; I would suspect (hope, anyway) that the same recipe, if bottled, would be comparable to the bottled Fuller’s ESB species.

Incidentally, I am just about 125% sure that Fuller’s does *NOT* use centennials in their ESB. This recipe is not an attempt to duplicate their processing or ingredients, just the flavor of the finished product. So no flames about how this could not possibly be an authentic recipe, please! A reasonable substitute (and probably closer to reality) would be to use all fuggles (about 2.75 oz for equivalent bittering).

Ingredients:

• 12# British pale ale malt
• 1.5# British light carapils
• 1# British medium crystal
• 1oz Centennial hops (11.2% AA)
• 1oz British fuggles (4.0% AA)
• 0.25oz Kent Goldings (5.2% AA)
• 1/3 oz Burton water salts (treatment for very soft water)
• Wyeast #1968 (London ESB)

OG: 1.060 FG: 1.016

Procedure:

Mash at 154F (high temp to promote dextrins) for 60 mins or until starch test negative. Sparge to collect 6 gallons. Boil for 20 minutes before hop addition. Boil centennials for 60 mins; add fuggles when 15 mins remain; goldings for dry hopping in secondary. I calculate the hop rate at 12.2 HBU.

Kegged and force carbonated at 8psi/40F, tapping after 18 days. At first, I was concerned that the dry hops had given it too much of a hop character, certainly more than present on the target. But after a few more days, the hops had blended and softened quite a bit and seems to . be about right. If anything is wrong with the recipe, I think it gives a bit more body than Fuller’s, so I will probably cut back slightly (maybe reduce the carapils from 1.5# to only 1#) next time.

Submitted by: Larry Bristol   To: BeerRecipes.Org

Ingredients:

• 24 lb. windfall apples, mixed varieties*
• 3-6 lb. granulated sugar
• 1 gallon water
• 1 tsp. pectic enzyme
• Sauterne wine yeast and nutrient

Instructions:

1. Chop the apples into small pieces, put into primary fermentation vessel, add the pectic enzyme and water and cover the mixture. The water will not cover the apples, so stir several times a day to bring bottom apples to the top.
2. After 24 hours, add the yeast and nutrient. Keep covered (a bath towel held fast with a large rubber band works well if the primary fermentation vessel doesn’t have a lid) and in a warm place for 7-10 days.
3. When the vigorous fermentation of the pulp subsides, strain the juice from the pulp and set aside, then press the juice from the pulp and add to the set-aside liquor. Measure and add 3 lb. sugar per gallon of liquor. Put into carboy or gallon secondary fermentation vessel and fit with airlock.
4. Rack when clear, allow another 60 days, then rack again and bottle.
5. Allow six months before tasting, one year for best results.

[Adapted from C.J.J. Berry's First Steps in Winemaking]

*For this and all apple wine recipes, unless varieties are specified, the more acid and sour varieties are preferred and the sweeter eating varieties are to be avoided. Winesap, McIntosh, Jonathans, and crab apples are best. Delicious apples should be avoided.