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Appearance: Pitch black - as dark as the night sky, with an opaque brown head.
Nose: A clean burnt sugar dominates, immediately giving way to rich dark fruits - plums, raisin, and fresh cranberries. Eventually, a roasted smokiness emerges, like a distant bonfire on the horizon.
Malts: Pilsner Zero, Munich, Carafa II Special, Special B, Chocolate malt, Crystal 300, Demerara sugar
Hops: Magnum, Northern brewer
Translation: Night
OG 24.2° ; FG 6.2° ; IBU 60
Serve 10–14 ˚C
Recipe:
Grist. We scale this grist bill in this proportion to hit a starting gravity of 25° Plato after boil, and boil aggressively to ensure rich caramelisation.
58.9% Pilsner zero (Viking)
17% Munich (light) (Viking)
8.5% Carafa type 2 special (Weyermann)
4.2% Special B (Dingemans)
4.2% Chocolate malt dark (Viking)
4.2% Cara 300 (Viking)
2.8% Cara pale (Viking)
A further 15% of the fermentables will come from a dark sugar added at the start of the boil.
We mash for approximately 60 minutes at 62°C, then rise to 72°C for 15 minutes, before finally mashing out at 78°C and starting the latter.
We would look to start the boil at approximately 24°, with a pH of 5.1
Over the 60 minute boil we bitter to approximately 60—70 IBU with Magnum, and add 0.64g/L of Northern Brewer at the end of the boil
We ferment Öö at cool temps of around 18°C with WLP090, San Diego Super yeast, which we use as our house strain. We expect this to finish at approximately 7° Plato
Following the main fermentation, we’ll crash this to –1°c and hold it there until it’s tasty, removing the yeast. It’s not uncommon for this to sit for several weeks at cold temperatures lagering!
Additional notes:
We use Viking malt from Finland for the majority of our base malts and they have a very British style.
US-05 is an adequate substitute for WLP090, and may be preferable if you cannot create a healthy yeast starter
We’re using protafloc and yeast nutrients, these can be added as appropriate during the boil
