Christmas Brew – Robinsons Old Tom Clone

Christmas seems to be rapidly approaching and it was time to do a nice strong, malty brew giving it a couple of months to condition and be just about perfect ready for Yuletide sampling. The recipe I used was from Graham Wheeler’s Brew your own British Real Ale, just adapted slightly for my equipment and efficiencies.

I  scaled this down to a 15L brew rather than the normal 23L, mainly because the grain bill would have been over 7KG dry, and lifting that out of the pot by hand and holding to drain would no doubt end up with hot wort all over the place and me.

Recipe Specs
—————-
Batch Size (L):           15.0
Total Grain (kg):         5.133
Total Hops (g):           59.30
Original Gravity (OG):    1.078  (°P): 18.9
Final Gravity (FG):       1.020  (°P): 5.1
Alcohol by Volume (ABV):  7.66 %
Colour (SRM):             24.6   (EBC): 48.4
Bitterness (IBU):         43.0   (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 73
Boil Time (Minutes):      90

Grain Bill
—————-
Maris Otter Malt
Crystal 120
Chocolate

Hop Bill
—————-
East Kent Golding Leaf (4.7% Alpha) @ 90 Minutes (Boil)
Progress Leaf (7.1% Alpha) @ 90 Minutes (Boil)
East Kent Golding Leaf (4.7% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil)

Malt Weighed out and ready

Mashing about to be wrapped up

Hops about to go in

Brew day went pretty well but I was a few points short of target at 1.070, though that will have a small benefit of the beer not being quite so strong and wont knock me out as quickly on Christmas day!

This being a Christmas brew it needed a suitably festive name so It’s going to be called Tangled Tinsel and I’ll be making a proper label up.