British Nut Brown

We spent Memorial Day up in the mountains at my family's cabin. While we were there, we decided to check out Appalachian Homebrewing Supply in Boone. We bought her British Nut Brown Ale kit. We also collected water while were at the cabin because it is AMAZING. The water from the cabin comes from a natural spring about 100 feet from the back door, next to a small creek. The family always jokes that we could get rich selling cabin water, cabin tea, and cabin ice. L and I decided to take advantage of that for our next beer.

It's rustic, but we love it.

In the snow.

Since Father's Day was coming up, we decided to do something my Dad would like. He's not really into hoppy beers and really like Carolina Nut Brown so we decided to pick up a British Nut Brown kit for him.

The family, at Biltmore Estates, Thanksgiving 2011

Ridiculous amount of water we toted home.

 So, on to the beer. First, we steeped 1/2 lb Caramel 40 and 1/4 lb Chocolate in 6 gallons of water for an hour. After the steep, the wort was already REALLY dark! The AHB recipe really wasn't very clear (or good) so we just went with our standard procedure. It only had 6 lbs of LME so we were expecting a rather weak beer. L was busy bottling the Imperial IPA when the wort came up to a boil so I had to add the LME all by myself! It was somewhat intimidating at first but the key is to just take your time. There is no reason to get it over with as fast as possible.

Tiny grain bag at the end of the Steep.

The hops included in the kit were pretty good. 1 oz of Kent Golding for bittering (60m) and 1 oz fuggle for flavoring (20m), so it shouldn't be very hoppy. The recipe also called for 1 tablespoon of Irish Moss. Irish Moss is actually a red atlantic seaweed that helps with clarity by convincing the small yeast particles to clump together and for bigger particles that fall out of solution more easily.

Irish Moss. Misleading Name.

Nobby and Bird really enjoy when we're home on the weekend, but they aren't too fond of brew days because it requires that our attention be taken away from them for most of the day. Nobby, however, loves the towels we put on the floor to prevent slipping. She loves anything that smells funky.

Nobby <3 Towel.

After the boil, we chilled the wort with our awesome immersion cooler and pitched the re-hydrated yeast.
 

Happy Yeasties.

After a week in primary and two in secondary, we bottled the Nut Brown. We did a dozen bottles for my dad and six for us. Then, we kegged the rest. It should be ready tomorrow! Bottling is such a pain. Especially when trying to use Lone Rider Bottles. The labels are WAY to sticky. Just don't try.

Bottling Blows!

The original gravity we wrote down for this beer was 1.068. The final gravity was 1.013 giving a ABV of 7.22%. Now, this doesn't really make sense with the amount of malt in the beer. According to this calculator, our OG should have been 1.046 which would give an ABV of 4.33%. I think that makes much more sense, but L is pretty sure he read the hydrometer correctly. We'll find out tomorrow when one beer either gets me tipsy or doesn't!