American Pale Ale *3/16/2011*

Today was a brew day, I decided upon an American Pale Ale recipe kit from my LHBS. The kits that they sell are a little less "generic" that most recipe kits. They come with liquid yeast and fresh hops! I was in no hurry to get this beer brewed so I took my time and documented the process with some pictures. I know that nobody can resist a little beer porn.



My SWMBO is a graphic designer so I had her make me a quick label to use on this beer. It is simple but it gets the job done for me! If anyone is interested in having some labels made, let me know. I am sure she can do it for like 10 bucks depending on the complexity of design you want.

This is the recipe:

Ingredients

4lbs Alexander's Light Syrup
3lbs Amber DME
1/2lbs Crushed Briess Crystal Malt 60L
13HBU Centennial Hops (Bittering)
3/4oz Cascade Hops (Aroma)
1 1/2oz Cascade Hops (dry hop)
5oz Priming Sugar

White Labs British Ale Yeast (005)

Target O.G. 1.054-1.056
Target F.G. 1.015-1.017

My actual O.G. was a little bit over that at 1.058 so I left it at that.

If you dont know what that is, it is the LME sitting in hot water!

Weighing my hops so I can divide them evenly




ADDING THE MALT!


No boil over for me! Its nice to have a relatively big pot for 5gal batches!

First hop addition!






Second Addition!

Random

Aroma hops

Adding the water, aerating the wort!





BATTER UP! PITCHING THE YEAST!


AERATING THE YEAST AND WORT

This is my new beer's resting place, next to my Vanilla Coffee porter that is about 6 weeks old and ready to be bottled as soon as I get my ass in gear!

Well done. That was a buttload of pix.

MeatyPortion said:

Well done. That was a buttload of pix.

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Thank You! I really enjoy documenting the things I do with pictures. I use to always do write ups when I would do motor swaps, suspension work, etc to my cars over the years. Its cool that even years and years later those write ups are still on the internet forums that I posted them on. So I guess documenting my brewing is a way to leave a little bit myself on this forum!

As I progress I will continue to do these types of write ups especially when I start learning to do more complex brewing!

Thanks Again,
Jimmy

Very nice! I just finished up my first IPA kit and it looks very similar in color to your brew. Luckily this time (by 2nd brew) I used a blow off tube on my primary because the 3rd day I cam in and there were trace amounts of beer in the tube. Im guessing if I had used my air lock it would have made it out and onto the bucket/floor.

Great job documenting the process, very detailed & some great pics!

Nice!! Great documentation, and it looks like you are very organized for your brew days. That's always a huge plus. Hope it comes out great, man!

Thanks! I appreciate the compliments. I tend to be pretty organized with my brew days and always have a plan going in. I am hoping the good practices now will help me when I start creating my own recipes then moving to all grain.

* I will add the gravity readings, the bottling process and then a taste score sheet to this thread!

Good luck with that yeast. I have used it twice and with extremely tight temperature controls both times there was banana esters coming through. The batch I am working with now has slight banana esters and that is even controlling the fermentation temp in a chamber. Initial wort needs to be chilled to ferm temps (62-64'f) before pitching. I pitched at ~72'f and am having banana esters.

This is the first time that I will be using this yeast so I do not have much of an opinion formed. The reviews I read on White Labs website were all favorable. The guys at my LHBS did not have too much to say about it. I will be fermenting at the upper level of its temperature range, 68-70 degrees.

Thank you for mentioning your experience with this yeast. I will watch my temperature and make sure to comment specifically on the flavors of the beer when it is finished.

WLP005 British Ale Yeast
This yeast is a little more attenuative than WLP002. Like most English strains, this yeast produces malty beers. Excellent for all English style ales i
Including bitter, pale ale, porter, and brown ale.

Attenuation: 67-74%
Flocculation: High
Optimum fermentation temperature: 65-70°F
Alcohol Tolerance: Medium

TwoFortySX said:

This is the first time that I will be using this yeast so I do not have much of an opinion formed. The reviews I read on White Labs website were all favorable. The guys at my LHBS did not have too much to say about it. I will be fermenting at the upper level of its temperature range, 68-70 degrees.

Thank you for mentioning your experience with this yeast. I will watch my temperature and make sure to comment specifically on the flavors of the beer when it is finished.

WLP005 British Ale Yeast
This yeast is a little more attenuative than WLP002. Like most English strains, this yeast produces malty beers. Excellent for all English style ales i
Including bitter, pale ale, porter, and brown ale.

Attenuation: 67-74%
Flocculation: High
Optimum fermentation temperature: 65-70°F
Alcohol Tolerance: Medium

Click to expand...

FWIW this batch was pitched at ~72'f and kept at a constant 62'f from there on out. Everyone that I have talked to said that the initial pitching temp was way to high. What temp did you pitch this? The last batch was pitched at 74'f and it was fermented between 70-72'f and it was undrinkable. Hopefully YMMV

jvcjbl said:

What temp did you pitch this?

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I pitched at around 75 degrees, and like I said previously, my spare room where I ferment keeps whatever I am fermenting at about 68 degrees. I am not doubting your experience at all and I respect your opinion but I am not one to worry. I am very far from a perfectionist, and pretty laid back when it comes to most things. As long as the beer is relatively drinkable then I am pretty okay.

I did read that someone ended up with some off flavors from this yeast and emailed White Labs. White Labs responded with this:

"It could be a lot of things, including contamination. But if it is just
with WLP005, perhaps it is fusel alcohols. The British Ale yeast produces
more then other strains, so this may be coming through in the beer. Lower
fermentation temperatures reduce fusel alcohols. Hope this helps and if you
have any other questions don't hesitate to write."

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We will see where this batch goes. If it ends up having some off flavors and being barely drinkable, I will take some bottles to my LHBS and do a little talking.

TwoFortySX said:

I pitched at around 75 degrees, and like I said previously, my spare room where I ferment keeps whatever I am fermenting at about 68 degrees. I am not doubting your experience at all and I respect your opinion but I am not one to worry. I am very far from a perfectionist, and pretty laid back when it comes to most things. As long as the beer is relatively drinkable then I am pretty okay.

I did read that someone ended up with some off flavors from this yeast and emailed White Labs. White Labs responded with this:


We will see where this batch goes. If it ends up having some off flavors and being barely drinkable, I will take some bottles to my LHBS and do a little talking.

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I wish you nothing but the best with this.... please remember that 68'f is your AMBIENT room temp and will not be the temp of the beer. During fermentation it can be up to a max of 10'F higher which would put you way out of the range of that yeast. Do keep us posted!!

jvcjbl said:

I wish you nothing but the best with this.... please remember that 68'f is your AMBIENT room temp and will not be the temp of the beer. During fermentation it can be up to a max of 10'F higher which would put you way out of the range of that yeast. Do keep us posted!!

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Thank you.

I do realize that the ambient room temperature is not the temperature of the liquid within my primary especially during fermentation. All of my fermenters have LCD strip thermometers on them so I can monitor the temperatures. I usually take temperature readings when I pull a sample to test gravity. The LCD strips are normally accurate so I am okay with using them to monitor temperature.

I will keep this thread updated

I like the white board...I keep things in a bound journal but the last two batch at a time (one on the outdoor burner and one inside on the stove) with buddies (over while drinking) was a mess!!!!

Large, clear, easy to read...and I could transcribe to the bound book later. Excellent idea!

woodstone said:

I like the white board...I keep things in a bound journal but the last two batch at a time (one on the outdoor burner and one inside on the stove) with buddies (over while drinking) was a mess!!!!

Large, clear, easy to read...and I could transcribe to the bound book later. Excellent idea!

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I have a 5 subject notebook that I keep my batches in too! I transfer the recipes and specifics over. I always hand write a dated taste test for each occasion that I drink a beer that I brew.

Did you guys make a starter for this yeast? If not you may have put too much strain on it.

Where is the thermometer and clip from? I really want that.

FoundersBrew said:

Did you guys make a starter for this yeast? If not you may have put too much strain on it.

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I didn't make a starter. If I end up with some off flavors and a not so good tasting beer, then I will know better next I use this yeast.

RiseAgainstMe said:

Where is the thermometer and clip from? I really want that.

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Southhillsbrewing.com is my LHBS website which is where I bought it!

*March 23, 2011 UPDATE*

The airlock slowed to a stop so I decided to test the temperature, gravity and give this beer a taste.

The color is looking very nice.



This is the gravity reading that I took this afternoon. 1.020 @ 70F so corrected it is about 1.021. The final gravity that the recipe listed is 1.015-1.017 but since my starting gravity was a few hundredths high, I am guessing that this is going to finish a slight bit high.





Anyway, the taste..... Since there was a lot of talk about off flavors from this yeast I was really eager to give this a taste. The beer has no off aroma so that's good. There is a slight banana/buttery flavor to the beer, and when I say sight, I mean its so little that I might be imagining it. I figure another week on the yeast then I will rack this to my secondary and dry hop it. I am thinking that dry hopping this beer should help hide the slight off flavors.



Thanks,
Jimmy

You calibrated your hydrometer in distilled water at the calibrated temp? This whole time I have been reading .005 high because my hydrometer was/is way off. Just asking cause you said it seemed to be a tad high on final gravity.

Also, congrats on an awesome beer thus far.

TwoFortySX said:

*March 23, 2011 UPDATE*

The airlock slowed to a stop so I decided to test the temperature, gravity and give this beer a taste.

The color is looking very nice.

This is the gravity reading that I took this afternoon. 1.020 @ 70F so corrected it is about 1.021. The final gravity that the recipe listed is 1.015-1.017 but since my starting gravity was a few hundredths high, I am guessing that this is going to finish a slight bit high.

Anyway, the taste..... Since there was a lot of talk about off flavors from this yeast I was really eager to give this a taste. The beer has no off aroma so that's good. There is a slight banana/buttery flavor to the beer, and when I say sight, I mean its so little that I might be imagining it. I figure another week on the yeast then I will rack this to my secondary and dry hop it. I am thinking that dry hopping this beer should help hide the slight off flavors.



Thanks,
Jimmy

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jvcjbl said:

You calibrated your hydrometer in distilled water at the calibrated temp? This whole time I have been reading .005 high because my hydrometer was/is way off. Just asking cause you said it seemed to be a tad high on final gravity.

Also, congrats on an awesome beer thus far.

Click to expand...

I have not calibrated the hydrometer that I used for this brew. I have 3 hydrometers and only 1 of the 3 I took the time to calibrate.

Upon your recommendation I decided to do a quick check with tap water. I found that my hydrometer was .002 off! After temperature correction of the reading, 1.002 at 75F is actually 1.004 at 60F so I have correction of -.004 to apply to my new hydrometer.

Thank you sir. You are a gentleman and a scholar!

I calibrated my hydrometer last week too, it was off a couple points as well. I'm guessing a lot of them are. After all, it just looks like they shove the piece of paper in there, can't expect too much for the price.

I checked the gravity today, it was still steady. Its been a little over two days with a constant reading. Normally, I would give it a few more days in the primary but I have two pressing factors. The first is that I am not going to have an opportunity to touch this beer for a while after today. The second is that I need this beer bottled in about 2 weeks because I am tentatively moving across state the middle of next month.

On to the pictures, kind of boring ones!

Sanitizing the carboy, airlock, stopper and nylon bag for dry hopping



I still had some bubbles floating on top which makes me think that it was still working even though the gravity reading was the same. I went ahead and transferred anyway. It can finish in the carboy, no worries. Let me know what you guys have to say about that.












And her resting place for the next couple of weeks!

In for the end result, looks good so far!

If you taste butter that's diacetyl that needs to be consumed by the yeast. You may have needed a bit more time in primary to clean that up.

Next time pitch cooler; low 60's and I bet you will like the results better.

Lynux said:

If you taste butter that's diacetyl that needs to be consumed by the yeast. You may have needed a bit more time in primary to clean that up.

Next time pitch cooler; low 60's and I bet you will like the results better.

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Thanks. I didn't know that this yeast was known to produce diacetyl and banana flavors so easily at "normal" pitching and fermenting temps. If I would have known that I would have taken more care to keep the temperature down. Oh Well. You live and you learn. As for keeping it in the primary to help eliminate it, under most circumstances I would have kept the beer in the primary for 2 to 3 week but I am moving in a couple weeks.

Anyway, the buttery flavor is not all that noticeable so I am hoping that dry hopping will help mask it a little bit. If not then I can just let it bottle condition for as long as it needs to. I currently have 4 beers that are bottle conditioning so another one will not hurt. Three of those bottle conditioning beers are doing so because they taste okay but not great. I am hoping time will heal them. The other one is my vanilla coffee porter that has seemed promising through every step thus far and was just bottled a week ago after 3 week in the primary and 2 and half weeks in the secondary! I am still learning so my homebrew is a supplement, for now, to the craft and macro brew that I buy. It helps me have more patience for my beer to properly age.

A quick little update on this beer. Today was the first day that I took the time to check out my beer. I saw krausen and trub with hop flecks floating and settled at the bottom. After staring at the airlock for a little bit I have activity. I guess this shouldn't be a surprise that I have renewed fermentation. Racking to the secondary and dry hopping this beer was premature on my part. If there is a bright side to this the beer will have a chance to clean up some off flavors at the cost of losing some aroma and flavor of the hops.

Ironic yeast choice for an "American Pale Ale" with a label featuring the Gadsden flag.

By the way, the WLP005 flocculates like a madman. Only yeast I've had to hit with the whisk to get the starter out after letting it settle in the fridge overnight.