"spicing up" a west coast pale ale - Page 3

Willie3 · 10-26-2007, 07:31 PM

Looks like a normal apa to me. I would rid the 2 row and add .75# of Crystal 60 for flavor and .25 # of flaked oats for mouth feel. 3 oz of cascade (5.5% AA) at 60min would give you a solid 52 IBUs for a nice citrusy bite. But you would also want to add 1-2 oz at FO or DH into secondary for floral aroma. You should start near an OG of 1.056 and end up with an FG of 1.015 for abv near 5.5%.

Do you have any of those numbers from your brew?

You can add oak chips to the secondary. You can add spices to like jasmine, juniper, corriander, cardimom, orange peel (sweet and/or bitter), cinnimon or anything you wish, really! Whatever your heart desires. However when adding these spices to the boil be careful not to go overboard. Once they are in you cannot get them out. If you want to add fruit you can for the whole batch by adding puree (fresh or canned) to the secondary. Or if you would like just for a portion of your batch to be flavored add extract flavoring at bottling time to the part of the batch you bottle last.

Or you can simply adhere to reinhietsgebot and use simply hops to spice your brew up. Read about hops and their characteristics on-line or in this forum do a search and you should find plenty of information on them.

Good luck!

- WW

Willie3 · 10-26-2007, 07:36 PM

Correction:

Since you are boiling only 2.5 gals your hop utilization had dropped. Here is what I recommend to get it back to a nice "grapefruity" bite.

3oz Cascade (5.5%AA) at 60 min
3oz Cascade (5.5%AA) at 30 min
2oz Cascade (5.5%AA) at Flame Out (FO)

Total IBUs = 50.6

- WW

palmettobum · 10-26-2007, 07:39 PM

Wow, thank you for a most educational and well thought out reply.

The recipe suggests

OG: 1.050
FG: 1.014

my thoughts: ...thats a lot of hops!

flagrant noob question: what is flame out?

edit to say: chococherry bourbon porter sounds just divine.

krispy d · 10-26-2007, 07:41 PM

your flame out hops are added as you shut off the heat and steep while you chill.

you can never have too much hops my friend...

**the_bird** · 10-26-2007, 07:44 PM

I'd grab some Amarillo hops for some flavor additions. I tend to do hop additions on a beer like this at 60, 15, 5, 0 (flameout), and dryhop; I figure with the 30 addition, there's not much flavor left but I'm not getting all the bitterness, so why bother? I'd rather do that addition either earlier (more bitterness) or later (more residual flavor).

Take a look at my Murder In The Red Barn recipe for a lot of hops!

palmettobum · 10-26-2007, 07:52 PM

to be perfectly honest with you guys, I am probably gonna have to settle for 3oz hops in the boil. No LHS in charleston to get any one short notice, and we are brewing either tonight after I bottle the porter or tomorrow afternoon.

but possibility of dry hopping in the secondary is still open since we are about to place another massive order with AHS.

side note: as if leaving work on a friday afternoon isn't nice already, I scored two 6.5 gal carboys with handles from lab tech at my job. He was fermenting soy/animal proteins and yeast to make organic fertilizer, these jugs don't know what theyve been missing! he actually got them from ebrew too.

Willie3 · 10-26-2007, 08:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_bird

I'd grab some Amarillo hops for some flavor additions. I tend to do hop additions on a beer like this at 60, 15, 5, 0 (flameout), and dryhop; I figure with the 30 addition, there's not much flavor left but I'm not getting all the bitterness, so why bother? I'd rather do that addition either earlier (more bitterness) or later (more residual flavor).

Take a look at my Murder In The Red Barn recipe for a lot of hops!

You are right about the 30 addition. I just figured I'd be standard. I never really knew why they ask for a 30 addition in the first place. Middle of road in everything. You paid for the hops why not use them as best as they can be used. I was also aiming for 50 IBUs or so and that was the easiest method. Here is one I used (mine was all Cascade (doubled amt) but Amarillo works just as nice):

1.50 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (60 min) Hops 22.1 IBU
1.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (60 min) Hops 14.3 IBU

1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (15 min) Hops 7.3 IBU
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (15 min) Hops 4.7 IBU

1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -

Total IBUs for this = 48.5 which is aweful nice and smooth.

- WW

palmettobum · 10-27-2007, 05:47 PM

Thanks for the suggestions. I am about to brew right now, going to use all my hopes at 60 and 15 minutes and then order another 2 onces of amarillo/cascade to dry hop. My only question: what kind of hops should I get for dry hopping, pellitized or 'leaf hops' http://www.austinhomebrew.com/index.php?cPath=178_21_93_94

ABS has both, so just wondering what I need and also if I need to take any steps to avoid contamination adding hops into the secondary. thanks!

Willie3 · 10-29-2007, 05:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by palmettobum

Thanks for the suggestions. I am about to brew right now, going to use all my hopes at 60 and 15 minutes and then order another 2 onces of amarillo/cascade to dry hop. My only question: what kind of hops should I get for dry hopping, pellitized or 'leaf hops' http://www.austinhomebrew.com/index.php?cPath=178_21_93_94

ABS has both, so just wondering what I need and also if I need to take any steps to avoid contamination adding hops into the secondary. thanks!

I dry hop (DH) with whole leaves but many others DH with pellets and plugs. I am not too worried about having the leaves floating in my beer because my syphoning extracts them as the beer enters the bottling stage. However, there are bags that can be used as well as strainers. You can purchase them from on-line or at your lhbs.

Again to each his own. As far as contamination I usually just place the hops directly in the beer without any issues (thus far).

- WW