Dry pale ale

We have a local brewery here Evolution and I love their pale ale it has a dry kind of finish to it I've never had in other pale ales. I want to replicate it but not sure how they do it. Is it a certain yeast?

To get a dry finish you need to dominate fermentation, get that TG down to 1.010 or so if you can. Bright neutral yeasts can work for this: WLP001, WLP090, even dry Nottingham ale perhaps. If you're all-grain, mash at lower temps (150). Keep a simple malt bill, minimal Caramel or Munich malts.

cheers.

+1

When I want to dry out a beer, I mash it at 146F to extract as much short-chain sugars as possible.

I overnight mashed a pale ale (See recipes) at 153 which dropped to 143 overnight. That beer finished as close to 1.000 as I've ever seen. Got over 90% attenuation with US-05 repitch.

Ok I just downloaded Beersmith pretty cool stuff but heres what I came up with tell me what you think.



Type: All Grain Date: 10/6/2012
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal Brewer:
Boil Size: 8.19 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
End of Boil Volume 6.77


Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
6 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 65.0 %
2 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 2 20.0 %
1 lbs Corn, Flaked (1.3 SRM) Grain 3 10.0 %
8.0 oz Torrified Wheat (1.7 SRM) Grain 4 5.0 %
1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 32.7 IBUs

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.047 SG Measured Original Gravity: 1.046 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.010 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.8 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 4.7 %
Bitterness: 32.7 IBUs Calories: 151.6 kcal/12oz
Est Color: 3.3 SRM
Mash Profile



Mash Steps
Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Mash In Add 12.50 qt of water at 163.4 F 150.0 F 75 min




I haven't done an all grain yet but I'd like to do this as BIAB. I'm not sure if my pot with hold 8 gallons though. I usually only do about 6 and its about 5 inches from the top so I'll have to double check how much I can fill it. I'm also not sure about my mash for BIAB. Should I just bring the water up to 150F and let it sit for 75min? I'll probably use one of the yeasts you mentioned.

I like that recipe, except for the whole pound of flaked corn. 95% base malt and 5% torrefied wheat would make for a nice, plain beer, which is great to showcase hops. Just make sure ot keep the bitterness in the low range of the style.

If you're going for a pale ale, you really need some late hops. Consider a 15 and a flameout addition for flavor and aroma.

Do you truely boil off 1.5 gallons in a 60 min boil?? That would be a little higher than average, but you may just have a big diameter pot. That may just be the default for BeerSmith.

Just asking because 8.19 gallons of starting volume seems pretty darn high for a 5.5 gallon batch. I brewed a 5.5 gallon BIAB batch on Friday night and my starting volume was 7.49 gallons, but I have closer to a 1.0 gallon boiloff for 60 min. Boiloff is a function of pot diameter (water surface area), and my pot is 13" wide. Measure your pot, and if it is bigger than 13" your boiloff is going to be more than 1.0 gallons/hr, and if it's less than 13" it is going to be less than 1.0 gallons/hr.

If you have not done so, go create a custom equipment profile for your pot. It'll go a long way in making your numbers for accurate.

Also, you said that your pot isn't big enough to do this 5.5 gallon batch...why not just scale it down to a 5.0 gallon or 4.5 gallon batch??

TopherM said:

Do you truely boil off 1.5 gallons in a 60 min boil?? That would be a little higher than average, but you may just have a big diameter pot. That may just be the default for BeerSmith.

Just asking because 8.19 gallons of starting volume seems pretty darn high for a 5.5 gallon batch. I brewed a 5.5 gallon BIAB batch on Friday night and my starting volume was 7.49 gallons, but I have closer to a 1.0 gallon boiloff for 60 min. Boiloff is a function of pot diameter (water surface area), and my pot is 13" wide. Measure your pot, and if it is bigger than 13" your boiloff is going to be more than 1.0 gallons/hr, and if it's less than 13" it is going to be less than 1.0 gallons/hr.

If you have not done so, go create a custom equipment profile for your pot. It'll go a long way in making your numbers for accurate.

Also, you said that your pot isn't big enough to do this 5.5 gallon batch...why not just scale it down to a 5.0 gallon or 4.5 gallon batch??

Click to expand...

Good idea I'll play with Beersmith some more when I get home and make a profile for my equipment. My pot is pretty wide but I'll measure when I get home.

I'm still kind of confused about how much water I should put in before mash and how much I should have left after the grains are taken out. So with my recipe I have about 9lbs grain. Normally for extract I would put in about 6-6.5 gallons water and do a full boil for a 5-5.5 gallon batch.

With BIAB would I need more water in the beginning to account for the water that would be soaked up by the grain? Would I need like 7 gallons of water then do my mash and take the grains out and I'd have my 6 gallons right? But it depends on how much the grains take. Am I kinda on the right track?

You can back into the water volume amount. These are the same numbers BeerSmith is going to ask for in the custom equipment profile. Besides boil-off, you can use the numbers I measured below and be close enough:

1) Batch Size

+

2) Boil Off - I measured 0.90 gallons of boil off per 60 minutes, but like I said, this varies depending on the diameter/liquid surface area of your kettle

+

3) Loss to grain absorbtion - with a good bag squeeze at the end of the mashout, I measured about 0.4 gallon loss to grain absorbtion per 10.0 lbs of grain. I press my bag, almost like a fruit press, through a perferated basket into another kettle, so I get more wort out than your average squeezing or suspending of the bag, so your loss to grain absorbtion might be a bit higher than this.

+

4) Loss to trub - typically about 0.25 gallons for a 5.0 gallon batch

+

5) Loss to contraction in cooling - I measured about 0.2 gallons for a 5 gallon batch

=

Full strike water volume for BIAB.

Another way to do it with BIAB if you can't fit everything in your main kettle is to mash with as much water as you can, then use the remaining water volume in a second pot at 170 and dunk sparge in that pot as your mashout step. You could easily mash with 4ish gallons of water, then have the remaining water volume in a second pot (large kitchen pot?) for the dunk sparge mashout. I did my first few BIABs this way in a 7.5 gallon main pot and a 4 gallon pot for the dunk sparge.

Don't forget kettle loss if you're using a valve to drain. Granted it's *almost* the same thing as trub/hop losses, but sometimes there is relatively clear wort that you just can't get.

I made this (link below) recently and got 1.053->1.006 with a 152F->150F mash and Wyeast 1056 starter. +1 to mostly base malts and low mash temp for a dry APA.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/bee-cave-brewery-haus-pale-ale-31793/

DSmith said:

I made this (link below) recently and got 1.053->1.006 with a 152F->150F mash and Wyeast 1056 starter. +1 to mostly base malts and low mash temp for a dry APA.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/bee-cave-brewery-haus-pale-ale-31793/

Click to expand...

That sounds exactly like what I'm looking for. I might try that and see how close it is and go from there. Thanks.

I measured my kettle and its about 7.5 gallons so I put that in the Beersmith and changed the recipe I had a little bit. I'll try it or Edworts recipe sometime and see how it goes with BIAB. What do you think of this one I put honey in for a lower/drier FG.


English Pale Ale
Standard/Ordinary Bitter

Type: All Grain Date: 10/6/2012
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 6.22 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
Equipment: 7.5 Gallon
End of Boil Volume 5.72 gal
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 5.50 gal
Est Mash Efficiency 72.0 %
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage
Taste Rating(out of 50): 30.0


Ingredients

6 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 59.1 %
3 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 2 27.3 %
8.0 oz Wheat, Torrified (1.7 SRM) Grain 3 4.5 %
0.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 4 18.4 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 5 15.5 IBUs
1 lbs Honey (1.0 SRM) Sugar 6 9.1 %

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.054 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.046 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.013 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.5 %
Actual Alcohol by Vol: 4.7 %
Bitterness: 33.9 IBUs
Calories: 151.6 kcal/12oz
Est Color: 4.1 SRM
Mash Profile

Mash Name: BIAB, Full Body
Total Grain Weight: 11 lbs
Sparge Water: 0.00 gal
Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.1 F Tun
Temperature: 72.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: TRUE
Mash PH: 5.20

Mash Steps
Mash Out Heat to 168.0 F over 7 min 168.0 F 10 min

Sparge Step: Remove grains, and prepare to boil wort
Mash Notes: Brew in a bag method where the full boil volume is mashed within the boil vessel and then the grains are withdrawn at the end of the mash. No active sparging is required. This is a full body beer profile.
Carbonation and Storage

Carbonation Type: Bottle Volumes of CO2: 2.3
Pressure/Weight: 4.32 oz
Carbonation Used: Bottle with 4.32 oz Corn Sugar
Keg/Bottling Temperature: 70.0 F
Age for: 30.00 days

You only have yourself losing 0.70 gallons of water throughout the whole process. You are going to lose alot more than that. As stated in my previous post, you are going to lose something like 0.95 not even counting boiloff:

0.5+ to grain absorbtion
0.25 to trub
0.2 to cooling contraction

So there's 0.95 easily not even counting boil off, which should be closer to 0.75+ gallons/hr. for your pot.

I think you are going to lose more like 1.7+ gallons, NOT 0.7. Your starting water volume for a 5.5 gallon batch is about 1.0 gallons short. Go back into the BeerSmith custom profile for that 7.5 gallon pot and correct those numbers, or you are going to end up with a concentrated 4.5 gallon yield.

With that, you are not going to be able to pull off a full volume BIAB in a 7.5 gallon pot. Believe me, I had the same pot for my first few BIAB batches. You'll need to either do the dunk sparge mashout like I described above, or you are just going to need to add topoff water at the end of the process before you pitch.

Ok I'll mess with it some more tonight. What do you think about having some sparge water on the side when I take the grains out and just running that water through for however much I need to get my full boil. Is that going to mess up the numbers? How will that effect it? Water it down or improve efficiency maybe?

Any water you leave behind to use as sparge you would subtract from the total starting water volume. So if your total starting water volume is 7.2 gallons, and you want to sparge with 2.0 gallons, then you'd use 5.2 gallons as strike water in your mash, then sparge with the 2.0 gallons at 170F following the mash.

Got it?

Yea kinda your saying I couldn't just put 7.2 gallons in my pot and do the mash then just replace what ever water I lost by sparging with new water. I think I'll just end up topping off I don't think I'll be able to do the proper way until I get a bigger pot. I'll have to experiment a few times. It should still turn out close to what I'm going for right?

Do you have a second 3-4 gallon pot? Most people have a pot that size in the kitchen. If yes, you can do the dunk sparge method. There's no reason to really experiement too much, I'm giving you the info to do it correctly the first time

So would I just do 5.2 gallons in my brew kettle for the mash and then would I just dunk the bag a couple times or let it sit for like 30 mins in the 2 gallons of water in a second pot? Then would I just add the 2G in or should I try and rinse the grains by pouring it through the bag into the brew kettle?

I'm not a BIAB, but the following water volumes should be pretty close for your recipe:

3.75 gallons mash water (1.5 qt/lb), expect 1.5 gallon grain absorption. Total mash volume (water + grain) should be about 4.6 gallons. Measure volume after pulling your grains out, heat whatever volume you need to get to 6.6 gallon total (mash + sparge), this should be about 4.5 gallons for sparge. Boil at about 1 gallon per hour boiloff rate, finish with 5.6 gallons, chill and dump everything into primary for about 5.5 gallons total.

This is a 2-pot method or 1 pot + cooler. If you do a lot of this size a 5 gallon Rubbermaid cooler at Home Depot is about $25 and you can preheat that with about an extra 15F than you need for your mash water, wait for it to cool to your strike temperature, BIAB mash in the cooler and dunk sparge in the boil kettle. I was going to start all-grain brewing this way but decided to add a valve and toilet braid to the cooler for a mash tun and batch spage.

I don't know if you have exactly .5oz Centennial and 1oz Cascade on hand, but anyway I would shift some hops toward later in the boil. A 60 minute and 30 minute add for a pale is not going to leave much in the way of aroma and hop flavor, just the bitterness you need to balance the malt...which you're trying to minimize with your dry pale. I do think ~35IBU is a fair target, but get some 10 or 5 minute additions in there if you have the hops for it - play around with some different things on your software.

Here it is definitely a full boil lol. Hit temps and OG perfect. I let it go a day then checked the temp and it was 82* after 24hrs so I put it in a swamp cooler and got it down to 68* in a couple hours. Do you think it will make any difference letting it go a day?

It might. The first part of fermentation is when most off flavors develop from stressed yeast. You want to start low and finish higher, ideally, but the first few days to a week (or more) of active fermentation are the most critical. Next time get it down to temp and maintain it FIRST, then you can relax on temp control after that as long as you're not exposing the beer to big swings. Letting it free rise after krausen falls is actually desirable though

Ok I guess I'll see how it turns out. So I can take it out of the swamp cooler after the krausen goes away? I have a stout that has grain already crushed and ready to go I want to brew but I don't have another tub to do a swamp cooler so I have to wait until the Pale Ale can be taken out. How long will crushed grains stay good? Their in the plastic bag with a rubber band.

jajao44 said:

Ok I guess I'll see how it turns out. So I can take it out of the swamp cooler after the krausen goes away? I have a stout that has grain already crushed and ready to go I want to brew but I don't have another tub to do a swamp cooler so I have to wait until the Pale Ale can be taken out. How long will crushed grains stay good? Their in the plastic bag with a rubber band.

Click to expand...

Yes. During yeast cell reproduction is when most of the off-flavors develop. You can also take a gravity reading. If it's nearing your expected FG, you can surely remove it from the swamp cooler, just don't let it get TOO warm, like mid-to-high 70's or higher.

Sounds good checked it tonight it isn't foamy anymore its kind of still nasty looking on top but its level. I think I'll give another day or two and do my stout. Thanks.

tre9er said:

I overnight mashed a pale ale (See recipes) at 153 which dropped to 143 overnight. That beer finished as close to 1.000 as I've ever seen. Got over 90% attenuation with US-05 repitch.

Click to expand...

Overnight mashing? There's a fine line between brilliance and madness, I think you just found the gray area... I'm intrigued with the possibilities.

ModernDayNord said:

Overnight mashing? There's a fine line between brilliance and madness, I think you just found the gray area... I'm intrigued with the possibilities.

Click to expand...

6 batches into it and things are going great. Flexibility is just awesome not having to worry about hurrying up and ending a mash by a certain time. I can start it at night then go to bed, or start it early and then do something all day.