- A nice clean hoppy Pale Ale is one of my favorites, particularly in summer. Not too heavy, plenty of fresh hop flavor and not so big, you can have a couple-few. I tend to just wing-it as far as a recipe goes. I know that about 12# of grain will get me a 1.055ish OG. I’ll get 30 or so IBU hit for the long boil, most hop additions happen in the last 15 min. Today we are going with mostly Cascade and Simcoe.
- 8# Pale Malt
- 3# Pilsener
- 1.5# White Wheat
- .5# Crystal 15
- Plus a couple pounds of rice hulls just to keep the grain bed fluffy.
For hops, .5oz of 14.8 Columbus for most of my bitterness, an ounce of 9.4 Cascade at 10min to go, an ounce of 12.5 Simcoe at 5 min to go, an ounce of 9.4 Centennial at flame out, and another ounce of Simcoe as it began to chill at about 190F
Years ago when I was a regular participant in trading craft beer amongst other beer nerds around the country, I was sent a 22 of something, one day called “Double Simcoe IPA”. It was produced by Weyerbacher brewing near Allentown, PA and was the best tasting hoppy beer Id ever had. It just captured the flavor and bite of what I imagined as the goal for the style. Since then I assumed Simcoe was the hop that was the center the flavor profile i liked so much. Every hoppy beer I’ve made since then has featured this hop variety. To varying degrees of success.
My mash temperature came in right at 152F, a temperature that generally favors a more complete fermentation stage. So that was good. Calculated for one big batch sparge and finished with just over 7 gallons of 1.044 this also was just about according to plan.
An hour boil, per the above hop addition schedule got me to 6gallons of 1.052 chilled. A little lower than I planned, but it somehow always seems to turn out that way.
I didn’t bother with making a stated the day before, so in when the yeast right form the pouch/envelope thing. Gave it a good shake for a few minutes, and set it inside in a cool dark place.
Next morning there was plenty of activity so I knew we were off and running. By the end of the week, I transferred to secondary and saved most of the yeast into a large sanitized mason jar for later. Even though I whirlpooled the chilled wort and left much of the hop sludge behind, there was quite a bit in with the yeast form the primary vessel.
My next beer will likely be a big IPA with a similar hop blend, so pitching this leftover yeast I think will be fine even if it has some left over hop sludge in it.
Nearly a week in secondary and measured its final gravity at 1.010 A tad higher than I hoped… but again this is typical for my process and equipment. Into the cony keg it went and siphoned of a litel for myself. The first (warm and flat) sample was promising and I thought absent of any obvious flaws or mistakes.
After a couple days in the keg and in the refrigerated kegerator, at about 25psi, took my first sample. Hop flavors was about what I was hoping for, less bitterness than I expected and the beer was a little sweet and a little full/thick. Was hoping for something a lite more dry and crisp. Finishing out at the slightly lower gravity that I was aiming for probably would have got me closer to this.
Anyway, over the next week or so, as the carbonation has come up and a little more sediment has come out, I think it “passes mustard”, as my grandpa used to say. I dont filter my beer so it is a bit cloudy. It has good fresh hop flavors and sits right at about 5.2% ABV. It will be a god summer beer to have at the house and to share with friends. Next up, will probably be a big 8% IPA. Similar recipe, just taking it up a couple notches.
