American Pale Ale

Plan to brew this on Saturday, made up recipe.

- 16# American 2-row
- 2# Biscuit
- 1# Munich
- 1# Crystal 15
- 1# Crystal 40

- 1 oz Centennial @ 60 mins
- 1 oz Centennial @ 15 mins
- 1 oz Citra @10 mins
- 1 oz Citra @ 5 mins

Single infusion mash at 154 F. Batch sparge with 170 F.
Ferment 7-14 days until hit target gravity, secondary if you like.
Force carb in keg.

Let you know how it turns out.

I'm assuming that this is a 10 gallon recipe. Have you used that much Biscuit before? I've never used that much, but it seems a little high to me.

That is a lot of biscuit, even for a 10G recipe. I'd scale that back personally, but this is your beer and your decision. Pale Ales are supposed to be a showcase for the hops. Your malt bill has a lot going on, in my opinion.

My typical pale 10G malt bill looks like this.

17 lb. 2 row
2 lb.crystal 40
1 lb.white wheat
1 lb. carapils

Thanks for the tips, i was split between a red ale and a pale ale, so i decided to go with a toasty pale ale. It is 10 G. Already got my non 2-row grain and all mixed up, no going back now!

Also wanted to get a toasty/biscuity fat tire taste in there too

Sounds interesting, I have often thought I would like Fat Tire with double the IBUs and hop flavor.

I hope it turns out well for you.

Finally got around to getting this out of primary yesterday. Tastes great, toasty but balanced with malt and hops, just what I was looking for! Hit FG of 1.009. Since i only had one keg free, I thought I would do a comparison of secondary vs. no secondary. Put 5 gals in a carboy for secondary and crash cooled a keg with the other 5 and will put that on c02 today. Very happy with it so far. Kept the yeast slurry for another brew.

Originally planned for 60 min boil but was running out of gas and the boil wasn't as vigorous as i wanted it to be so bumped it up to 75 mins thus changed hop schedule to:

- 1 oz Centennial @ 75 mins
- 1 oz Centennial @ 25 mins
- 1 oz Citra @10 mins
- 1 oz Citra @ 5 mins

I will let you know how it is once carbed.

What yeast did you use? I might try a 5 gallon version of something like this. (If I missed a mention of the yeast strain sorry)

lol probably an important part of the recipe eh?
California Ale White Labs WLP-001 and I used a 2 liter starter.

I also have beersmith file if interested.

After a few carbonated brews from the keg, it is a little on the sweet side but I do like the toasty notes and hop level. I aim to perfect this recipe so will brew it again, this time I may alter the mash temp and/or reduce crystal and some 2 row, keep the biscuit though.

Other people love this beer the way it is, i still think it is a tiny bit on the sweet side. I will brew this again but may bring down the mash temp to about 148 that should be perfect.

I actually prefer using a little more (like you did) crystal malt, and mashing a little lower, say 147-148degF. I've brewed pales pretty much identical to yours, and they are fantastic. I don't think it's too much biscuit. APAs do showcase hop aroma/flavour to some degree, but that doesn't mean they can't showcase the malt in balance. It's mostly the malt and yeast that separate many commercial APAs imo. I think it's unlikely that you will make a very unique APA by just trying different hop combos. I think it's a bit of roasted (as opposed to toasty) character, more sweetness, and maybe colour that you need to avoid, lest you slip into Am Amber category.