Pale Ale recipe - any good?

Shambolic · 09-16-2005, 05:42 AM

I feel like I'm about to enter a new phase of my brewing career - one where I actually know what I'm doing

Thanks to this site and howtobrew.com, I now understand things like hot and cold break etc. mean, and have a better idea how to plan and make a brew.

This being the case, I really want my next batch to be good. What do people think of the following recipe (my own) for a pale ale?

1.5 kg pale LME
1 kg light DME
250g crystal grain (steeped)
200g dextrose
200g dried corn syrup
25g Golden Cluster hops (1hr boil)
12.5g Goldings hops (30min boil)
12.5g Goldings hops (10min boil)
12g Goldings hops (dry hopping - steeped then into fermenter)
11.5g dry Safale S-04 yeast

Fermentation at ~18-20 deg C

I will add my bittering hops straight after the hot break. All my hops are in pellet form BTW (and the stuff for dry-hopping is in a tea-bag type thingy)

I bought myself a nice big brewing pot today, so I can do a much better boil etc.
Are there any major problems with my plan?

PT Ray · 09-17-2005, 04:41 AM

Looks to be a text book recipe for an English pale ale. Now it is all up to technique.

Turricaine · 09-17-2005, 08:35 AM

Yeah what you have written down looks simple enough. You wont get a hard time if all you are doing is getting you malt extract out of tins.

Shambolic · 09-18-2005, 07:13 AM

Well, she's all brewed up and in the fermenter.
I'm kind of annoyed though - I coiled the wort to the temp. I wanted to ferment at, and assumed that by that stage all the crud would have settled to the bottom and I could pour clean wort off the top into my fermenter. But nooooo, after about five minutes in the fermenter, I had ~1 inch of trub at the bottom.

Ah well, the wort tasted good, and it's fermenting away nicely, so I'm not too worried

Rookie · 09-18-2005, 09:08 PM

It won't hurt it to be on some trub for a few days, just don't leave it for a couple of months.

OtherWhiteMeat · 09-22-2005, 03:25 AM

My last beer had an inch thick trub on the bottom of my primary, I only had it in for a week before it went to my secondary. Whats bad about having your beer sit with that on the bottom. Is there a way to minimalize that? Straining etc?

Toilet Rocker · 09-22-2005, 04:03 AM

I began dumping my brew into a (sanitized) screened funnel. The screen got so backed up with trub that I had to keep stopping to scrape some off. It was not worth it. It does aerate the cooled wort nicely though having it splash into the primary carboy.

Cheesefood · 09-22-2005, 05:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gaelone

I began dumping my brew into a (sanitized) screened funnel. The screen got so backed up with trub that I had to keep stopping to scrape some off. It was not worth it. It does aerate the cooled wort nicely though having it splash into the primary carboy.

I just pour my pot, little by little, through the strainer. It did a good job of cleaning my Kolsch. When I racked to 2nd, there was minimal trub on the bottom. I dumped a little less than 1/4 gallon of trub and beer. I topped it up with a little water.

gibfried · 09-22-2005, 05:23 AM

Something that worked well for me:

My local HBS packed in little cheesecloth sacks in their kits for steeping the specialty grains. They are really cheap and also work well as a filter for the wort before it goes into the primary. They don't get too clogged either, and when you are done you can just toss them in the can. Ussually I'm too lazy for that, and I just dump all the wort in without the filtering. Then it gets left behind when it's transfered to the secondary.