Bishop's Finger Kentish Ale recipe

[Trough Lolly]

G'day all,
I've been off the forum recently - working on another recipe and I think I've got a reasonable kentish ale copy going....

Bishop's Finger Kentish Ale



All calcs from Promash
Batch Size = 20L
OG 1.052 (70% efficiency)
EBC 21.9
IBU 46

60 minute 66C / 10 Litre mash with:
3kg BB Pale Malt
1kg Bairds Maris Otter
350g Crystal 55L
340g Torrified Wheat
120g Bairds Amber malt
60g Glucose syrup
2tspns of Gypsum in mashtun

90 minute boil:
12g Wye Challenger pellets (7.9% A/A) for 90 mins
10g Target pellets (9.75% A/A) 90 mins
22g Wye Challenger pellets (7.9% A/A) 15 mins
14g Goldings (7.0% A/A) 1 minute
14g Styrian Goldings (5.5% A/A) 1 minute

Wyeast 1968 or 1028 yeast - keep the wort under 19C to avoid excessive esters.
You should try for a sub 1.015 FG. Best served after at least 4 weeks bulk conditioning.

Cheers TL

[Chris]

Great timing TL. I've been wondering what my next brew would be, and I was thinking Brit.

How close is it to the original?

[Trough Lolly]

I kegged my first batch last weekend - sample taken during kegging suggests the colour was true, malt profile was good and the hops are close but it's too green to be sure. The challenger hops are very nice - and fresh! You need to do a 90 minute boil to get the orange/copper pale amber wort colour that Bishop's Finger has...

It's a strong ale so keep the OG above 1.050 and be generous with the hops. It's a "generous" beer and has a strong malt profile that's got a slightly stronger hop profile - grab a bottle of the real thing and you'll know what I mean.

I'm happy with it. The torrified wheat is important - as is the glucose addition to add a bit of dryness to the flavour profile. Next time I'll use target for the 15 min addition and all styrian goldings for the aroma addition.

Will tap the keg in a few weeks.

[tazman67]

Awesome Tl.
Great recipe and good work.
One of my favourite Brits..
Will pencil this one into the brew book

[Bizier]

I picked up a bottle today, and after tasting... I may have to try a hand at a sacrilegious extract version TL.

How does this go toward that "seville" dry tang? I gather that this is from the combo of Challenger and Styrian Goldings?

[Trough Lolly]

I picked up a bottle today, and after tasting... I may have to try a hand at a sacrilegious extract version TL.

How does this go toward that "seville" dry tang? I gather that this is from the combo of Challenger and Styrian Goldings?

G'day Bizier - use Target hops if you like that "seville" flavour profile - you can even substitute the Challenger flavour addition with Target hops if you like. Nothing wrong with an extract brew mate - it's beer and that's the important thing

I'd cut back on the crystal malt if you use extract in lieu of the base malt and perhaps some amber or dark LME / DME will take care of the amber malt addition. I'd also recommend not boiling all of the malt at once - do a low gravity boil, say, with 1/2 to 2/3rds of the extract in the boiler and then add the rest with about 5 to go. You want to get a strong hop profile out of the boil and you won't do that if you are doing a small boil with all the malt extract in the boiler unless you've got a shitload of hops to boil! I'm obviously assuming that you don't have a kettle to do a full sized boil.

Cheers,
TL

[Bizier]

Thanks TL.

Of UK hops, I think I've only used EKG, Fuggles and Bramling X. I will have to acquaint myself with Challenger and Target.

I am trying to reign in my brewing practice, and refine a method. I thought I was going to BIAB, but now I'm moving to an apartment sans balcony/garden/compost etc. So I think I will be trying to fine tune an 8L partial mash stovetop method and really try to get that to work for me.

How long are you fermenting this for TL?

[Trough Lolly]

Target is an excellent bittering hop for UK ales - and stouts for that matter...

As for fermentation, I recommend at least one week in primary - the yeast is lazy and will attack the glucose simple sugars first and only get stuck into the maltose based / more complex sugars later. Keep an eye on your gravity. Rack to secondary or a keg to bulk condition for at least 2 weeks before you consume. I tend to drink these pretty soon - the strong hop profile will be lost if you leave it for a couple of months so it's a nice beer to drink whilst you let the lagers etc develop.

Cheers,
TL