A little critique on my Pale Ale

Hey all,

I'm brewing up a batch Saturday from what I have on hand. I think it should turn out well. Let me know what you think!

Steeping grains:
.5 lb Caramel 40L
.25 lb Cara-Pils

6 lbs Pilsen Light LME
(2 lbs. added at beginning, 4 lbs 5 min boil)

Hop schedule:
.25 oz Simcoe (60)
.25 oz Simcoe (30)
.25 oz Amarillo (30)
.25 oz Amarillo (15)
.25 oz Amarillo (5)

Was thinking about dry hopping with .5 oz Amarillo for about 5 days (last 5 days of primary), what do you think?

I only have .5 oz of simcoe, quite a bit of amarillo, and a ton of Chinook... but I'm not sure I like chinook for this one, going for something more citrusy, kind of light colored/tasting.
I also have some Crystal-10L.

Please let me know any suggestions you have!

dandw12786 said:

Hey all,

I'm brewing up a batch Saturday from what I have on hand. I think it should turn out well. Let me know what you think!

Steeping grains:
.5 lb Caramel 40L
.25 lb Cara-Pils

6 lbs Pilsen Light LME
(2 lbs. added at beginning, 4 lbs 5 min boil)

Hop schedule:
.25 oz Simcoe (60)
.25 oz Simcoe (30)
.25 oz Amarillo (30)
.25 oz Amarillo (15)
.25 oz Amarillo (5)

Was thinking about dry hopping with .5 oz Amarillo for about 5 days (last 5 days of primary), what do you think?

I only have .5 oz of simcoe, quite a bit of amarillo, and a ton of Chinook... but I'm not sure I like chinook for this one, going for something more citrusy, kind of light colored/tasting.
I also have some Crystal-10L.

Please let me know any suggestions you have!

Click to expand...

Looks pretty good, but I'm finding that I like later addition hops and very little, if any, between 60 minutes and 20 minutes. For more IBUs, use them at 60 minutes. For more flavor, use them at 15 minutes or less. To "stretch" the hops, I'd use .5 simcoe at 60 minutes, and then .5 of amarillo at 15, and .5 hops at 5 minutes, simcoe AND amarillo. Dry hop with some simcoe and amarillo. Together, they give awesome flavor.

Do you have any brewing software? For a beer like this I'd probably go with an OG of 1.050-1.060 and IBUs of 45-50.

Thanks, Yooper. Yeah, I've got beersmith, and plugged in kind of what I was looking for. So I'm thinking of maybe grabbing one more 1 oz. package of simcoe, and this will be my hop schedule:

.5 simcoe, 60
.5 amarillo 15
.5 amarillo 5
.5 simcoe 5

dryhop .5 simcoe and .5 amarillo, around 5 days.

Was just going to throw these in the primary 5 days before bottling. That's OK, right? Don't see the need to go to secondary...

Just out of curiosity, what is the reason for not doing hop additions between 60 and 20? Just wondering, I did them with both my pale ale and IPA, and I wasn't impressed (though, part of the reason is my water, I'm using bottled now), but just wondering if there's something that happens in this time period (like, not enough time to create bitterness, but too much time to keep the flavor?). I'm going to take your advice, just so I'm trying something different than I've been doing, but just wondering about reasons. Thanks!

dandw12786 said:

Thanks, Yooper. Yeah, I've got beersmith, and plugged in kind of what I was looking for. So I'm thinking of maybe grabbing one more 1 oz. package of simcoe, and this will be my hop schedule:

.5 simcoe, 60
.5 amarillo 15
.5 amarillo 5
.5 simcoe 5

dryhop .5 simcoe and .5 amarillo, around 5 days.

Was just going to throw these in the primary 5 days before bottling. That's OK, right? Don't see the need to go to secondary...

Just out of curiosity, what is the reason for not doing hop additions between 60 and 20? Just wondering, I did them with both my pale ale and IPA, and I wasn't impressed (though, part of the reason is my water, I'm using bottled now), but just wondering if there's something that happens in this time period (like, not enough time to create bitterness, but too much time to keep the flavor?). I'm going to take your advice, just so I'm trying something different than I've been doing, but just wondering about reasons. Thanks!

Click to expand...

Well, hops bitterness is pretty much maximized at 60 minutes, although you can get a few more IBUs out of them if you boil for 90 minutes. That's why most boils start with 60 minute hop additions.

You get tons of hops flavor at 15 minutes or so- not much bitterness since the hops oils don't get as long to isomerize. That leaves flavor behind, which is a good thing.

Between 60 and 20 minutes is sort of a "waste" then. You don't get much, if any, flavor from 30 minute hop additions. But you don't get much in the way of IBUs, either. I use them occasionally, when I want to use an "even" amount of hops but would get the beer too bitter if I added them all at 60 minutes. Anything added from less than 60 up to 20 minutes is sort of useless from that point of view. No flavor except for bittering, but not an optimized amount of bittering, either, if that makes sense.

For flavor, 15 minutes seems to be the magic number for me. For aroma, 5-0 additions seem to be the ticket.

For a really hoppy tasting beer, sometimes I go with 60-15-10-5-0.

As far as dryhopping, you can dryhop in the primary if you want. About 5-10 days before bottling is a good time to do it.

Kind of the logic that worked its way into my little head, thanks a lot!