My 2012 Harvest Pale Ale

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tc33133

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HI, I'm more of a lurker than poster, but I'd figure I'd share my fun brew day. This is my second year growing hops in San Diego, and I have 2 plants, a cascade and nugget. Here's the cascade, its trained to hop twine up the side of the garage, and then across to the fence.
img_4309-56251.jpg


This year I (unintentionally) waited a month later to harvest, and harvested *most* of the hops on 8/25.
img_4311-56252.jpg

They were pretty dry and some had even turned completely brown. The hops were super papery and broke open real easy. Still plenty of lupulin, and even the brown ones smelled good when I broke them open. Recently, the cascade started growing a lot of side shoots and has young hops and even some flowers still.

All said and done, I wound up with 18oz Nugget and 7oz Cascade.
img_4312-56253.jpg


I think I harvested more hops this year, but wound up with less weight than last year, which I can only think is due to the earlier harvest last year. Put the hops in the freezer overnite, and brewed the next morning.

Last year I did a Rye IPA with the hops, but this choose a Pale Ale instead. Originally, I wanted to start out with a Pale 31 type grain bill. Unfortunately, the LHBS was out of Munich malt, and just did a little taste test on what grain was there. The Crisp British Dark was the best, so I subbed in some of that and some Honey Malt. Here comes the recipe:
 
Recipe: fresh hop pale ale 2012
Brewer: Tom Cook
Asst Brewer:
Style: American Pale Ale
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 12.65 gal
Post Boil Volume: 10.40 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 10.00 gal
Bottling Volume: 10.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.049 SG
Estimated Color: 10.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 54.5 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 79.2 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
15 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 80.0 %
2 lbs Crystal Dark - 77L (Crisp) (75.0 SRM) Grain 2 10.7 %
1 lbs Carapils (Briess) (1.5 SRM) Grain 3 5.3 %
12.0 oz Honey Malt (Gambrinus) (25.0 SRM) Grain 4 4.0 %
7.00 oz Backyard Nugget - 2012 [10.00 %] - Mash Hop 5 23.5 IBUs
1.00 oz Chinook [13.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 6 24.0 IBUs
0.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 7 7.1 IBUs
6.00 oz Backyard Cascade - 2012 [5.00 %] - Boil Hop 8 0.0 IBUs
3.00 oz Backyard Nugget - 2012 [5.00 %] - Boil 0 Hop 9 0.0 IBUs
1.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 10 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) [35. Yeast 11 -
1.0 pkg English Ale (White Labs #WLP002) [35.49 Yeast 12 -
3.00 oz Cascade [6.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 13 0.0 IBUs


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 18 lbs 12.0 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 23.44 qt of water at 156.8 F 146.0 F 75 min

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (2.72gal, 6.33gal) of 168.0 F water


SO I really intended to Mash around 150-152f, but since I didn't want the sweetness to overwhelm due to the Crystal 77 and Honey malt, I went a bit lower and hovered around 147f for most of the mash.

I also mash hopped, which I'm not convinced actually makes a difference, but it seemed like a good way to use hops! Here's 7oz Nugget in the mash:
img_4316-56254.jpg


After the batch sparge, the hops looked pretty spent:
img_4317-56255.jpg


I did a 90 minute boil and bittered with some Chinook pellets. After smelling the hops before boiling, I was worried I would only get grassy aromatics, so I added 1.5oz of Centennial pellets at the last moment.
Hops ready to go in at flame out:
img_4323-56256.jpg


SO I had read something about doing a "hop stand" at lower temperatures, so I chilled to 170f and threw in the hops
img_4325-56257.jpg


I took the next hour to make some dinner and eat with the family. When I was done eating, I hooked up the immersion chiller and dropped to 100f relatively quick. Needed another 20 minutes, pond pump, prechiller and 20lbs of ice to get down to mid 60s.

This was my first brew with a bazooka screen. I usually brew with all pellets, but I was hoping that the combo of whole hops and pellets would work ok with the bazooka screen. I was able to knock out 6 gallons of wort before the thing got clogged. I had to scrape the screen with my spoon, but could only get another 1.5 gallon out.
Had to do this to get another .5 gallon out:
img_4326-56258.jpg



Anyway, the plan is to dry hop 5gal of the beer with wet cascade and wet nuggets. and dry hop the 2nd 5gal with some cent and cascade. Will update when fermentation is done.
 
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