American Pale Ale Cascades / Orange Pale Ale

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Ahoy hoy,
I have 2 5 gallon batches working right now. One will go in the fridge to crash for the keg transfer friday, the other, I just did a couple days ago. Now Ill see how an oz of sweet and an oz of bitter work compared to 2 of either. I think I also went 60L on the first one, then back to 20L on this last one. I sure love this stuff. I have had an abundance of leaf cascade i got cheap right before the shortage, and now that its flowing again, ive been wanting to burn off the older stuff. Sufficient motive to make OC if you ask me. Soon as it warms up around here and i can get back to propane, Ill do 10 gallon batches, keg 5 and bottle 5. I havent let anyone but the wife have any, as I know what will happen. Once i have a stock in, Ill share :tank:
Right now Im out of everything, sipping a deschutes bucksaw brown. Sorta like watered down porter, but not too bad....
A great day to you all.
 
Making my second batch of this today. I am going to use pacman that i harvested from a prev batch of DFH 60 since i have about 10 half pint mason jars with pacman. Hope it turns out as good as my first batch.
 
I just bottled my first all grain batch of this. I added some fresh orange zest to the secondary with the dry hops. All I can say is when i transferred it to the bottling bucket the aroma of hops and citrus was amazing. I can't wait to try this version.
 
Ahoy hoy,
after 4 days on the gas, I gave my OC a try. This is the first one i used both sweet and sour orange, as well as 60L crystal as a variant.
WOW....
And I think that pretty much covers it. I can drink that stuff all night till i nod out if im not careful. I just cannot believe its drinkability. I have to watch myself with this stuff. Lordy its good. I look forward to getting home and after getting all chores and travel for the day done, its beer O'clock! Yummy. Goes great with most all foods. Last night we had bacon eggs hash browns and french toast for dinner. The OC played off the syrup like magic. When your beer tastes great with breakfast style meals, you know you have found your house beer.
A great day to you all!
 
A friend and I are giving this recipe a shot on Saturday as our first all grain brew. I have a couple questions.

1) We're substituting US 2 Row for the Maris Otter. This _shouldn't_ change things too much should it? I haven't plugged it in to Brewsmith yet but that seemed like a reasonable substitution.

2) We're also using WLP001 instead of S-04. I noticed the recipe calls for two packets of that. Should we be using two vials of the White Labs yeast then? I know someone who generally uses two but being someone new (< 10 brews) that's kind of uncharted territory for us when it comes to yeast.

Thanks for any input people have. We're pretty excited about our all grain beer so I want to make sure our ducks are as lined up as possible when we start.
 
I have never used more than one packet of yeast in a brew, including this one. You will be fine with one vial, though Id make a starter for any liquid yeast.
 
Poured my 1st glass of this today!
What a great beer:mug:
Beer_OrangeCascade2_2009.jpg
 
I have never used more than one packet of yeast in a brew, including this one. You will be fine with one vial, though Id make a starter for any liquid yeast.

Agreed, I only pitch two packets because I am lazy. Definitely make a starter as the Pol mentions above.
 
I just purchased a 8 gallon pot so I can start to do some stovetop all-grain batches, and I'm going to give this beer a whirl (hopefully this weekend.) I may sub in Amarillo for Cascade though, becuase I've been wanting to try making an Amarillo pale, and Amarillo is cheaper than Cascades at my lhbs at the moment ;) (I'll be stopping by tonight to see what they actually have in stock though.) I may drop the orange too to let the hops shine more, and I'll probably have to reduce the hopping in the boil a bit to keep it out of IPA land...ok, so I guess I'll be doing a brew inspired by this one :p
 
I just purchased a 8 gallon pot so I can start to do some stovetop all-grain batches, and I'm going to give this beer a whirl (hopefully this weekend.) I may sub in Amarillo for Cascade though, becuase I've been wanting to try making an Amarillo pale, and Amarillo is cheaper than Cascades at my lhbs at the moment ;) (I'll be stopping by tonight to see what they actually have in stock though.) I may drop the orange too to let the hops shine more, and I'll probably have to reduce the hopping in the boil a bit to keep it out of IPA land...ok, so I guess I'll be doing a brew inspired by this one :p

Uhh..... I don't think it is going to be the same beer with the changes, actually no where near the same beer, but if you just looking to mix it up, that is cool too.

You guys are making me jealous with the pics here. I think my next batch of this will be my first 10 gallon batch as this stuff is just too good to have run out so quickly. Maybe make a little lighter of a version for when summer rolls around and I need to drink while I swim.
 
Yep you are right, it won't be the same beer, but it's inspired by it. I can never seem to follow a recipe anyways- I always want to forge off on my own :) I was going to do this one exact, but I've been wanting to do an Amarillo pale for a while too, so I just merged the two ideas.

Anyways, I got the malt, coriander, and 5 oz of Amarillo last night and will be brewing this weekend. The Amarillo is 6.8% I think, so I'm going to scale back the 1oz 60 minute boil addition a bit (probably .75oz), do 1 oz at 10, and put about 1.25 oz just before flameout. I'm keeping the idea of 2oz dry-hopping. I know that's 1 less oz than the original recipe, but that should be plenty hoppy for me :)

I noticed that I have a few oranges in my fridge, so I may put some fresh zest in too...so the beer will be similar, but not exactly the same.
 
I just kegged this beer. Already its the non greenest tasting beer Iv made to date. I'm having a glass and you can taste the orange in the back round. Especially when I burp. Its really bitter but in a good way.

Cant wait till she chills down and carbonates. A couple more weeks ageing and whoa.
 
This beer has grown in the keg. Its now at its perfection. Every one loves it. I served it at are Saint Patrick's day dinner. Every one loved it...... even the non alcohol drinkers. One buddy of mine said it could pass for his favorite IPA.

The keg is about to kick and I'm bumming. I dont usually make good beer, but this one is. It needs 1 month in the keg however to get really really good.

This beer didnt have much off flavor to bigin with, but there were a few. There all gone. I pore a pint and the aroma of hops and orange come blazing out of the glass. Its nicely carbonated with a good malty taste and bitter Delicious finish.

I need to step up to 20 gallon batches, lol
 
Ok so after a couple runs at this (being my first all grain) I'm having middling success. A lot of this I think just comes from learning the ropes, along with your equipment on top of everything else that goes in to brewing. That all being said after futzing with BeerSmith I've had to make some tweaks to this recipe to make it come out with similar FG and color as this one. Could you guys take a look at this and tell me if I'm either way off base or going to be heading into 'a totally different beer' territory.

http://i43.tinypic.com/30x7o7r.jpg

A few specifics given the changes here.

- I somehow boil off A LOT of water. Last go around I sparged up to 7 gallons and after cooling ended up with 4.5 in the carboy. I think some of this was due to the hops sucking up a lot of liquid along with cooling taking a bit longer (chiller only, no ice underneath).

- Entering in the ingredients in the original recipe into Brewsmith left me with a slightly lower OG, FG, and color. Does anyone know why? Because of this I had the recipe adjusted to what you see here which requires almost two lbs more malts.

- In conjunction with the extra malt we're going to mash a little higher 154, would these two together result in super extra maltiness?

- I was a little underwhelmed with the orange aroma (or lack thereof) when I racked the beer so I think this time we're going to go with fresh orange peel in the boil and half the dry hops with an oz of peel. Any thoughts on the outcome of this?

Sorry for the massive wall of questions. Like I said before, I'm still trying to wrap my brain around a lot of this.
 
- I somehow boil off A LOT of water. Last go around I sparged up to 7 gallons and after cooling ended up with 4.5 in the carboy. I think some of this was due to the hops sucking up a lot of liquid along with cooling taking a bit longer (chiller only, no ice underneath).

There are a lot of factors at work here. I generally boil 1.25-1.5 gallons off in an hour. Variables are air temp, vigor of boil, your altitude, and more I'm sure.

- Entering in the ingredients in the original recipe into Brewsmith left me with a slightly lower OG, FG, and color. Does anyone know why? Because of this I had the recipe adjusted to what you see here which requires almost two lbs more malts.

The OG and FG are related to the efficiency you have in the system, which is 68%. Comparing your actual FG to the % and altering it in Beersmith will allow you to dial in your system for your actual percentage obtained. The color on this beer varies across the various brew software packages, for me, even between Beer Tools Pro releases.

- In conjunction with the extra malt we're going to mash a little higher 154, would these two together result in super extra maltiness?

I don't think there will be an appreciable difference in the 150-154 range. As you move from higher mash temps between 148 to 158 (roughly), the level of unfermentables contributed to the wort will rise, which will increase your perceived maltiness. Super extra malty will probably not occur with a mash temp 2 degrees higher than last time.

- I was a little underwhelmed with the orange aroma (or lack thereof) when I racked the beer so I think this time we're going to go with fresh orange peel in the boil and half the dry hops with an oz of peel. Any thoughts on the outcome of this?

If you want more orang-ish aroma, I would add another ounce a bit later in the boil, perhaps at 5 mins or even flameout. Others have told me that fresh grated peel gives more aroma. The actual orange flavor is always going to be low in the mix, because any sugars contributed will be eaten by the yeast. The orange you are obtaining is really from the oils in the peel, which are volatized by boiling, and quickly boil away. This is why the addition is late in the boil.

Sorry for the massive wall of questions. Like I said before, I'm still trying to wrap my brain around a lot of this.

NP - Looks like you're doing fine! Hope you enjoy your first batch.:fro:
 
Thanks for the reply blacklab. I went ahead and brewed yesterday and I'm feeling pretty good about this one. My efficiency looks like it came out ok and I hit my target gravity. So far so good. The one thing I completely forgot to do is toss in the Irish Moss towards the end of the boil. It's bubbling away right now so it's hard to tell but my gut is telling me the beer is going to be pretty cloudy. Live and learn I guess.
 
Ahoy hoy,
I have 3 batches right now. One, I modded and am testing before I post on here, is sort of a super citrus version, one batch good ol original recipe, cepting i use 1 oz bitter and 1 oz sweet in the orange dept;
and the 3rd, the same as the second, except I took 2 pounds of the 2 row, and toasted it in the oven. We will see how this impacts the flavor. I just made a batch of that lake walk pale ale, and was so impressed at the smell of the toasted malt i made for that, that I thought it might fit in well with the rest of the flavors.
Ill post more when i see how they turn out....
A great day to all.
 
So, I just crushed the grains for this, and now I'm headed off for bottled water (at menards, I get 4 gallons for $6 in a large PET 'carboy' - so awesome of them to do that!). I am going with the Pol's sub of crystal 40L because I forgot the 10L at ordering time.....oh well. Pol has totally sold me on this with his enthusiasm. And, Black Lab, congrats on creating such a popular recipe. I can't wait!.....oh, and sometime soon I should be joining the ranks of the Oregonian brewers......we're likely moving to Corvalis sometime this year.
 
I kegged my first batch of this recipe this weekend, It is great probably one of my favorite beers i have made. I think i am even going to take this keg to a Kentucky derby party to share with others.
 
mmm, this is definitely the going to be my next brew this weekend! one question though: for an extract version of this, if i were to go all DME, should I use 3 lbs light DME and 3 lbs amber DME? also, i have coriander powder, so what would the equivalent of that be in teaspoons (ie 1 oz of coriander seeds crushed to teaspoons of already crushed from the store coriander)?
 
In beer tools pro, it looks like you can use 3 lbs Amber DME, 3 lbs Light DME, and steep the 1 lb of Vienna and 1 lb of 10L. That will get you to the approximate OG of the all grain recipe. I haven't brewed extract in ages so I'm not sure about the color/flavor contribution of the Amber stuff. My only advice in that arena would be to add most of your extract late in the boil to avoid caramelization. Not a clue on the spice aspect, I've always crushed my own fresh.
 
I just tasted a sample at 5 days dry-hop and it was excellent. I didn't have enough cascades (forgot to order the dry-hop amounts), so I mixed a touch of (18.5 IBU) Summit at each step, while keeping the IBU's in line with your original. Summit, even though it can be a bittering monster, is supposed to add a nice complexity to 'c' hop schedules, so that's why I went with it - I've done the centennial/cascade thing already. Anyhow, this sure is coming along tasty!....I'll be bottling it early next week, gonna be hard to wait it out for the carbonation.
 
mmm, this is definitely the going to be my next brew this weekend! one question though: for an extract version of this, if i were to go all DME, should I use 3 lbs light DME and 3 lbs amber DME? also, i have coriander powder, so what would the equivalent of that be in teaspoons (ie 1 oz of coriander seeds crushed to teaspoons of already crushed from the store coriander)?

SInce you're just subbing the DME for the Maris Otter, I'd go either all Light DME or use no more than 1 lb of Amber. Maris Otter is a base malt that is basically a tastier, slightly maltier equivalent of 2-row......the color of this beer comes more from the steeping grains than anything.....

Williams Brewing sells Maris otter extract, just FYI in case you feel like being more accurate with this recipe.
 
Thanks guys, I'll likely do three lbs each of light and amber DME. I'm not looking to replicate this recipe perfectly, just to make a tasty, refreshing, and easy drinking summer beer.
 
Brewed this up this weekend. I zested three large naval oranges and crushed in an ounce of coriander seed. I strained the wort before primary, but maybe I could have let the zest and coriander go in there with the wort?

Also, are two zested oranges really enough for a mild orange taste in this recipe? Would anyone recommend adding the zest of a third orange when I dry hop in a few weeks?
 
Brewed this up this weekend. I zested three large naval oranges and crushed in an ounce of coriander seed. I strained the wort before primary, but maybe I could have let the zest and coriander go in there with the wort?

Also, are two zested oranges really enough for a mild orange taste in this recipe? Would anyone recommend adding the zest of a third orange when I dry hop in a few weeks?

Take this with a grain of salt, since I'm still pretty new but I've been experimenting a lot with this recipe over the past couple months and I've found that zesting 4 oranges (3oz more or less) and putting it in with about 5 min. left in the boil (outside my hop bag so it floats around) has given me the best results. I thought about "dry hopping" (dry oranging?) with some zest when I racked it but opted against it as I think it'd bring too much orange to the party.
 
What would you rate the size of your oranges? Mine were pretty large, so it would likely be the equivalent of three normal sized oranges using my two large ones. I'm thinking adding more zest to the secondary might not be a good idea since it could introduce sour flavors?
 
OK, this is my official seal of approval..."It rocks!!!".....just one more to add to the list for this winning recipe! thanks Black Lab......PM me your address and I'll send you a couple (maybe I'll throw in a surprise or two as well) as a gesture of gratitude and because I'm curious how mine stacks up to the original. I love it, and I see why Pol was freaking out about the smooth bitterness...it really is smooth for the amount of hop flavor there. this will get brewed again soon! :mug: and the only thing I will do differently is ferment it a bit lower, as I let this one go in my office at around 67-68. Next time I'll make sure to keep it in the low 60's, because I think S-04 is best there - nice and clean.....this still turned out great nonetheless.
 
What would you rate the size of your oranges? Mine were pretty large, so it would likely be the equivalent of three normal sized oranges using my two large ones. I'm thinking adding more zest to the secondary might not be a good idea since it could introduce sour flavors?

They were pretty large. Larger than a baseball but just smaller than a softball I'd say. I think adding fresh zent into the secondary with the hops could come out too orange-y. All the concentrated orange flavor in the oil is just going to be sitting in the beer and I would think make it _too_ strong.
 
OK, this is my official seal of approval..."It rocks!!!".....just one more to add to the list for this winning recipe! thanks Black Lab......PM me your address and I'll send you a couple (maybe I'll throw in a surprise or two as well) as a gesture of gratitude and because I'm curious how mine stacks up to the original. I love it, and I see why Pol was freaking out about the smooth bitterness...it really is smooth for the amount of hop flavor there. this will get brewed again soon! :mug: and the only thing I will do differently is ferment it a bit lower, as I let this one go in my office at around 67-68. Next time I'll make sure to keep it in the low 60's, because I think S-04 is best there - nice and clean.....this still turned out great nonetheless.

Awesome dude! Glad you're enjoying it. I've been remodeling my house and lost the brewery (garage) for a few months, so I'm out of this stuff. The project will be done in two weeks so I can get some more in the fermenter.
 
I'd like to try this one without the coriander seed. What do you think? Sounds like it would be a good one for the summer
 
How much does the choice of crystal matters?
Are there a distinct flavor difference between 10L and 40L other than coloring?
I'll go with the original and use 10L on my first batch.
Time to brew after work on Friday to celebrate memorial day weekned.
 
How much does the choice of crystal matters?
Are there a distinct flavor difference between 10L and 40L other than coloring?
I'll go with the original and use 10L on my first batch.
Time to brew after work on Friday to celebrate memorial day weekned.

The crystal 40L adds a little color and adds more of a caramel back bone... it is really pleasing. Try it after you do the 10L.
 
The crystal 40L adds a little color and adds more of a caramel back bone... it is really pleasing. Try it after you do the 10L.

I made this with 'leftovers' once and only had 60L on hand. It was still good but the 60 seemed to hide the orange flava somewhat.
 
Back
Top