The second brew I made, and the first with extract rather than a kit, was a witbier to which I added a big dollop of homemade marmalade. This was christened “Beermalade”. This weekend we brewed a winter warmer, and decided at the last minute to spice it up with some marmalade. I still have several jars of a very dark marmalade I made a couple of years ago, which also had a little rum in it. In the end we just added a whole jar, so we had to call it Winter Beermalade, to distinguish it from the wheat beer which I’ve renamed Summer Beermalade (and will try to recreate next year).
We’re gradually trying to get our brewing setup just right, and our previous bottleneck was chilling. Frozen Coke bottles may be simple, but aren’t quick. We gaffed around for a few weeks working out the cheapest way to get the bits for making an immersion chiller until we realised it’d only cost about a tenner more to buy a ready-made one, which is bound to be better. So Sam ordered one, and it fantastic. We got from boiling to about 15C in ten minutes, which was an amazing improvement. Overall our brew day took five hours: around 90 mins quicker than our previous one. The next upgrade will be hop filtering. A sheet of muslin really doesn’t cut it.
The brew itself is going really well. A winter warmer is a great traditional British style. A relatively (but not massively) strong ale, with good sweetness and loads of body to warm you up on a cold winter’s night. Unlike some other winter beers, it’s not normally spiced, so our marmalade addition is not traditional, but is delicious. For our grain bill, we used lots of crystal malt for sweetness and body, with Munich and amber malts for more body and a biscuity flavour. We added oat malt and terrified wheat to give it good head retention and hopefully even more rich body. We don’t want the beer to be too hoppy, so it’s a simple combination of Challenger for bittering and East Kent Goldings for aroma.
New immersion chiller
Straining the last of the wort from the hops. Not the best system.
OG: 1.056. Predicted FG 1.010. Predicted ABV 6.2. IBU: 32.7. Colour: 26 EBC (but that doesn’t include the dark marmalade).
| Fermentables |
| Ingredient | Amount | % | MCU | When |
| UK Pale Ale Malt | 4.500 kg | 78.0 % | 4.6 | In Mash/Steeped |
| UK Medium Crystal | 0.500 kg | 8.7 % | 10.2 | In Mash/Steeped |
| UK Oat Malt | 0.200 kg | 3.5 % | 0.1 | In Mash/Steeped |
| UK Torrified Wheat | 0.200 kg | 3.5 % | 0.1 | In Mash/Steeped |
| UK Amber Malt | 0.110 kg | 1.9 % | 0.7 | In Mash/Steeped |
| German Munich Malt | 0.110 kg | 1.9 % | 0.2 | In Mash/Steeped |
| UK Chocolate Malt | 0.050 kg | 0.9 % | 7.7 | In Mash/Steeped |
| Marmalade | 0.300 kg | - | - | End Of Boil |
| Hops |
| Variety | Alpha | Amount | IBU | Form | When |
| UK Challenger | 9.5 % | 30 g | 27.4 | Loose Whole Hops | 90 Min From End |
| UK Golding | 5.5 % | 30 g | 5.4 | Loose Whole Hops | 10 Min From End |
| Yeast |
Bristol Beer Factory
