Bob’s Your Uncle

Bob’s Your Uncle

(Southern English Brown Ale)
(5 gallons/19L, all-grain)
OG = 1.044 FG = 1.013
IBU = 14 SRM = 23 ABV = 4.1%

Ingredients
8.0 lbs. (3.6 kg) Maris Otter pale ale malt
0.75 lbs. (0.34 kg) crystal malt (120 °L)
0.4 lbs. (0.18 kg) Carafa® II
3.75 AAU Kent Goldings hops (0.75 oz./21 g of 5.0% alpha acids) (60 min.)
1 tsp Irish moss or 1 Whirfloc tablet (15 min)
White Labs WLP 013 (London Ale Yeast) or Wyeast 1028 (London Ale) yeast
0.75 cup (150 g) priming sugar (if bottling)

Step by Step
Mill the grains. Dough in using 2.5 gallons (9.5 L) of water with a target mash holding temperature of 155 °F (68 °C). Hold the mash temperature for approximately 60 minutes or until the conversion is complete. Raise the temperature of the mash to 168 °F (76 °C) and begin sparging with 170 °F (77 °C) water until you collect 6.0 (22.7 L) gallons of wort in the kettle.

Total boiling time for this recipe is 60 minutes. Add the Kent Goldings hops at the start of the boil. Add the Irish moss or Whirfloc tablets when 15 minutes remain in the boil. After the boil is finished, chill the wort to 70 °F (21 °C), transfer to your fermentation vessel and aerate the
wort adequately.

Add yeast to the chilled wort. Ferment around 70 °F (21 °C) until the final gravity is reached, which should be in five to seven days. Rack to a secondary vessel and allow the beer to mature for another five to seven days around the same temperature (70 °F/21 °C). Your beer is now ready to rack into a keg, or bottles along with the priming sugar.

Bob’s Your Uncle

(5 gallons/19 L, extract with grains)
OG = 1.044 FG = 1.013
IBU = 14 SRM = 23 ABV = 4.1%

Ingredients
5.4 lbs. (2.4 kg) Muntons Maris Otter light unhopped liquid malt extract
0.75 lbs. (0.34 kg) American crystal malt (120 °L)
0.4 lbs. (0.18 kg) Carafa® II
1 tsp. Irish moss or 1 Whirfloc tablet (15 min.)
3.75 AAU Kent Goldings Hops (0.75 oz./21.2g of 5.0% alpha acids) (60 min.)
White Labs WLP 013 (London Ale Yeast) or Wyeast 1028 (London Ale) yeast
0.75 cup (150g) priming sugar (if bottling)

Step by Step
Mill the specialty grains. Place the milled grains in a grain bag. Steep them in 2 gallons (7.6 L) of 156 °F (69 °C) water for 30 minutes. Rinse the grain bag with about 2 quarts (1.9 L) of water and allow it to drip into the kettle for about 15 minutes, but be sure not to squeeze the bag to prevent extracting harsh tannins from the grain husks. Add enough water for a pre-boil volume of 6.0 gallons (22.7 L). Stir in the malt extract with heat off to avoid scorching, then begin the boil.

Total boiling time for this recipe is 60 minutes. Add the Kent Goldings hops at the start of the boil. Add the Irish moss or Whirfloc tablets when 15 minutes remain in the boil. After the boil is finished, chill the wort to 70 °F (21 °C), transfer to your fermentation vessel and aerate the
wort adequately.

Add yeast to the chilled wort. Ferment around 70 °F (21 °C) until the final gravity is reached, which should be in five to seven days. Rack to a secondary vessel and allow the beer to mature for another five to seven days around the same temperature (70 °F/21 °C). Your beer is now ready to rack into a keg, or bottles along with the priming sugar.

Tips for Success:
One of the keys to brewing both of the malty beer recipes here (the recipe on this page, as well as Great Scot on the facing page) is making sure you pitch enough healthy yeast. Pitching a single packet of yeast into a 5-gallon (19-L) batch does not always give your beer enough yeast cells to efficiently ferment the wort. Beers made from underpitched worts start slower, and this slow start can leave the wort open to the growth of microorganisms such as bacteria or wild yeast. Consider making a yeast starter a day ahead of your brew day to generate a healthy population of yeast before pitching. A general rule of thumb for pitching ale yeast is that you need one million (1.0 x 106) cells per milliliter of wort per degree Plato. Visit https://byo.com/yeaststarter for more information about making a yeast starter, as well as a table for recommended starter sizes for a variety of worts. Visit www.mrmalty.com for a useful pitching rate calculator (as well as more malty brewing tips).