Brew Day: Suwannee!!! Pale Ale

Back to basics. I love pale ales. Its hard to find an IPA with any perceivable malt character. Those "Session IPA" things are to thin and watery to withstand all the bitterness. I love a nice toasty, crackery malt profile with some resinous, citrus, and fruitiness layered on top. Pale ale fits the bill.

Suwannee!!! Pale Ale

Batch Size: 6 Gallons (post boil in the kettle)
Pre-Boil:  11 Brix or 1.043 (7.25 gallons)
Post Boil: 13 Brix or 1.052
Final Grav: 1.009
App. Atten: 83%
Alc. By Vol: 5.6%
IBU's (rager): 40
SRM: 5.4 L


10 lbs Great Western 2-Row
  1 lbs Wheat Malt
  1 lbs Briess Bonlander Munich
 .5 lbs Breiss Victory Malt

2 tsp gyspsum
2 tsp CaCl

Mashed-in with 5 gal of 162 F RO water. Mixed well and rested at 148.5 for 1 hour. Added 2 gal of 212F water to reach 155F.  Sparged with 3 gallons.

Collected 7.25 gallons of 1.044 wort.  Added 1 tsp gypsum. Good hot-break and foaming.

14 g of Cascade for 60 mins
14 g of Cascade for 30 mins
28 g of Amarillo for 10 mins
56 g of Centennial for 10 mins
56 g of Chinook in the whirlpool
Whirlfloc at 10 Mins

Chilled using ice water through the immersion chiller down to 69F. Whirlpooled and settled for 20 mins. When racking to carboy, the cone collapsed and ended up with more trub and hop matter in the fermenter than usual.

Placed in chest freezer and cooled to 64F.

Measured 13 brix on the refractometer and confirmed 1.052 with the hydrometer.

White Labs WLP001 pure pitch in a 1.6 L starter to reach 182B cells (.75M / mL / deg. P). Chilled after 24 hours. Removed from refrigerator at pitching time. Decanted spent wort and pitched into 64 F wort.

Filled headspace with O2 and shook for 20 seconds. Two times.

Probe taped under paper towel and bubble wrap.

Temp dropped to 59 F overnight thanks to a cold front. Heated with a blow dryer to 63.

Chilled on day 9 (airlock still had some activity) slowly down to 32 over the course of 2 days.

Kegged, sent to NHC, and drank.

Brew Day: Yarmouth Special Dark Bitter

After a visit to The Blue Anchor in Delray Beach, FL, and a few pints of London Pride, I decided I must have an English pale ale/bitter style beer at home.  This recipe is essentially the Pride formula with the addition of a touch of Thomas Fawcett pale chocolate malt (200L), and a simpler hop bill (excluded Challenger, bumped up EKG's). After much success with Wyeast 1469 - West Yorkshire Ale yeast it is always at the top of my list. The result is a browner, stronger (unintentionally, the wind boosted the evaporation rate),beer that hopefully captures the same spirit as a pint of Pride.

Yarmouth Special Dark Bitter

6 gallons 

70% efficiency (planned)

SG: Pre-boil 1.048 - 7 gallons (1.044 planned)

SG: Post-boil 1.062 (1.054 planned)

IBU: 33 Rager Formula

SRM: 11

Grist

12 lbs Marris Otter Pale Malt

0.5 lbs Simpson's Dark Crystal 70L

  3 oz  Fawcett Pale Chocolate  200L

Mashed with 4.5 gallons of 165F strike water @ 155F. Stepped up to 162F with 1.5 gallons of boiling water.

1.5 tsp of Gypsum to mash

1.5 tsp of CaCl to mash

0.5 tsp of Gypsum to boil

Sparged with 3 gallons of water at 175F.

Hops 

75 mins - 1.0 oz East Kent Goldings - 5.1 % alpha acid 

15 mins - 0.5 oz East Kent Goldings - 5.1 % alpha acid

15 mins - 1.0 oz UK Northdown - 6% alpha acid

Added 0.5 oz of East Kent Goldings  to the whirlpool after wort chilled below 100F to simulate using a hop back. 

Yeast

Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale - 1 smack pack at 50% viability ~50B cells. Pitched at 64

Fermentis US-05 American Ale Yeast - 10 g - or ~150B cells. Pitched at 64 2 hours after liquid yeast.

(rehydrated according to Zainascheff and White's procedures)

Oxygenation - filled headspace with O2 and shook for 1 minute. Two doses.

Notes: Must have ended up with around 5.5 or less gallons post boil. The wind was ripping and increased to evaporation rate. Slightly increased efficiency. Collected 7 gallons of wort at 1.048 pre-boil. 

Manchild 3.0

I last brewed for a birthday party over a year ago. Unbelievable. Time to correct that.  This time, I'm brewing for an independence day fiesta.  We're going all out.  Lechon. Whole Hog. You know what that calls for.  Manchild.  If we're roasting a pig all day, we're going to need an easy drinkin beer. This recipe is not all that similar to the last version of the Manchild II. But, I just call any ~5% pale ale type beer brewed for special occasions the same name. 

Grist:
I recently had some Monday Night Brewing Big Nose IPA.  They use marris otter as a base malt, and it is fantastic. So I've been craving some MO based beer. The rest of the grist is straight forward, a little wheat, and a little C-60.  I cut the base malt 50/50 with standard 2-row. Why not?

Hops:
I'm kind of burned out on the tropical fruit thing (amarillo, citra, mosaic, galaxy). So I wanted to go a little old school.  Cascade, Columbus, and Centennial. Grapefruity, piney dankness, with a hint of lime zest.  At least that is the goal. The homebrew shop had some simcoe that I couldn't turn down. I'll save that for dry-hopping.

Yeast: No time for a starter. US-05 to the rescue.

Manchild 3.0

Volume:  6 Gallons
Original Gravity:  1.047
Finishing Gravity: 1.010ish
IBU:  39 using rager formula
SRM: 7.2

Grist


5 lbs American 2 Row
5 lbs Marris Otter
  1 lbs Wheat
 .5 lbs Crystal 60 (US)
.25 lbs evaporated cane syrup

R.O. Water
1.5 tsp Calcium Chloride
1.5 tsp Gypsum

Mashed at 155 F. Minimal Worlauf. 

Hops

   7g Magnum   - 15.2 % AA  -  60 minutes
28 g Cascade     -  8.1% AA -    10 minutes
28 g Centennial      - 10% AA -    10 minutes
28 g Columbus (CTZ)   - 12% AA -     10 minutes

14 g Centennial - Dry Hop 7 days
14 g CTZ - Dry Hop 7 days
14 g Simcoe - Dry Hop 7 days

60 minute boil.

Yeast

US-05 rehydrated with 115 grams of water (by weight) at 90 degrees.  Fermentis recommends 80, but I'll take Jamil and Whitey's advice over fermentis. Cooled using an ice bath and stirring until it hit 68. Pitched at 68.

Cooled to 64 for fermentation. Increasing temperature controller by 1 degree every other day. 

Brew Day: Manchild II

"Can you bring a keg on my birthday?"

Fermenting in chest freezer with Johnson Controller.
Its important to use a bud light koozie to insulate your probe.

Damn right I can.  Since its the end of May in Florida, I initially leaned towards a light 4% pale ale.  But I've had many of these recently that are just too damn bitter.  Its really hard to get enough body and residual sugars into a 4% beer with tons of high alpha hops.   I decided to beef up the old Manchild recipe, and switch up the hops.

I really like simple grain bills these days.  This recipe uses the Firestone Walker approach to pale ale malt bills.  American 2-row + Munich + light-medium crystal = good.  Its a little more interesting and less "flabby" than going with 100% Marris Otter or other UK pale malts.  For hops,  whatever you can get that is from the US and starts with C is good.  Throw in some amarillo, simcoe, or mosaic and I'm happy.









Manchild II

Volume:  6 Gallons
Original Gravity:  1.052
Finishing Gravity: 1.012ish
IBU:  37 using rager formula
SRM: 6.4

Grist


12 lbs American 2 Row
  1 lbs Light Munich
 .5 lbs Carastan

R.O. Water
1 tsp Calcium Chloride
1 tsp Gypsum

Mashed at 151 F

Hops

14 g Willamette   - 5.2 % AA  -  60 minutes
28 g Cascade     -  8.1% AA -    30 minutes
28 g Amarillo      - 8.0% AA -    10 minutes
28 g Centennial   - 10% AA -     10 minutes

28 g Amarillo - Dry Hop 7 days

Yeast

Wyeast 1056 in a 1.5L starter for 24 hours - Fermented at 64 F for 2 days.  66 F for maturation and dry hopping.

NOTES: I forgot the whirlfloc.  Will use isinglass to try to drop the yeast and haze.

Brew Day: Anniversary Ale

I started homebrewing a couple years ago. My first batch was a Big Ben Pale Ale kit from midwestsupplies.com. But for my second batch I came up with my own Pale Ale recipe. I managed to squeeze in 6 different grains into a mini-mash. The crazy thing is that the beer came out pretty darn good. It had the body and malt character of a Sierra Nevada Pale ale with a floral, piney, resinous hop character. Maybe its an inflated memory, or I was just so happy about creating my own beer. Either way, I saw my hand scribbled recipe acting as a bookmark in my copy of Charlie P's, The Hombrewer's Companion, I just had to make this again. This time All-Grain with a long hop stand after the boil.

Anniversary Pale Ale

Batch size: 6.0 gallons
Boil size: 7.0 gallons
Boil time: 60 minutes
Grain weight: 10.5 pounds
Efficiency: 75%

Original gravity: 1.049
Bitterness (IBU): 36
Color (SRM): 5.2°L

Yeast: White Labs WLP001 California Ale

Malt Bill
10.5 pounds

4 lbs Maris Otter 4°L - 38.1%
4 lbs American 2 Row 1.5°L - 38.1%
1 lb Munich (Light) 8°L - 9.5%
1 lbs Wheat Malt 2°L - 9.5%
.5 lbs Carahell 11°L - 4.8%

Mash
Strike Target 155°F
5.0 gallons165°F 90 minutes (+0)


Boil
60 minutes, 7.0 gallons

0.35 ounces Chinook hops 11.8%, Pellet 60 minutes
0.50 ounces Goldings (Kent) hops 5%, Pellet 30 minutes

Whirlpool / Hop Stand Hops

40 Minute hot whirlpool/rest(wort chiller gets in the way of the whirlpool) after the boil. Estimated hop utilization the same as a 10 minute hop addition in the boil. Maintaned over 180 F for whole rest.

0.5 ounces Goldings (Kent) hops 5%, Pellet 5 IBU
1.0 ounces Crystal hops 3.1%, Pellet 3 IBU
1.0 ounces Chinook hops 11.8%, Pellet 10 IBU


The goal for this recipe was a nice bready, biscuity, crackery malt flavor. The original recipe used Optic, Halcyon, and Marris Otter malts. But I kept it simple. I also used bolander munich from Briess in the original. But the new homebrew shop I went to only had weyerman light. Thats an upgrade anyways IMO.

I've heard Jamil Z uses no hops in the boil when making Heretic Evil Twin. So obviously you are getting isomerization during hot whirlpools. Figured this was the perfect beer to try it with. I want a big hop character without overwhelming the malt with a bitting bitterness. The crystal and chinook are the perfect floral and piney pairing. If you want a single hopped example of crystal try Rogue's Brutal IPA FKA Brutal Bitter.

Can't wait to taste this bugger.

Brewers Note: I love the new hop union packaging. Easy to open, and the aroma of the chinook was insane. Makes me think all the hops I've used in the past were stale.