Falconer's Flight Pale Ale

This will be my third attempt at an American-style pale ale & I'm still looking for improvements in both hop aroma and flavor.

I have 6 oz. of Falconer's Flight hop pellets and I'm really tempted to just go ahead and use them all, so here's what I'm thinking:

8.0 # Rahr Pale Ale malt
1.0 # Victory
0.5 # Caramel 60L

0.5 oz. Falconer's Flight @ FWH
1.0 oz. Falconer's Flight @ 15
1.5 oz. Falconer's Flight @ flameout

Dry hop with the remaining 3.0 oz. Falconer's Flight hop pellets for 7-10 days.

Wyeast 1272 American Ale II is my yeast strain.

Questions:

-- Do you think a half pound of cara 60 is too much? It's in there for color, as my last APA was all 2-row/cara 20 and was very pale
-- Please suggest any changes to the grain bill you might have. The malt backbone of my last APA was lacking & I'm trying to get some toasty/bready flavors in the background of this one

3.0 oz. is the most I've ever dry hopped with but I'm not overly worried about hop floaties like I was last time. I think dry hopping in primary, racking to keg & cold crashing is getting the job done for me there.

Thanks!

You could easily turn this into an IPA if you added a few pounds of Pale malt, then you could switch an ounce from dry hop to FWH, making it 1.5 oz FWH and 2 oz Dry Hop.

As far as dry hopping, try putting them in a one gallon paint strainer bag. Keeps the pellets contained very nicely.

I see what you're saying, but I definitely want to keep it sessionable. I actually considered moving the 15 min addition to 10 to lower the IBU's, but BeerSmith put that right at the lowest end of the style guidelines. Maybe that's ok though... dunno.

Recipe looks good as it is, if you want some color the obvious answer is an oz or two of chocolate malt. The chocolate malt i use, 2oz per 5 gals, gets me an absolutely gorgeous copper hue with a similar grain bill.

Gwitz said:

Recipe looks good as it is, if you want some color the obvious answer is an oz or two of chocolate malt. The chocolate malt i use, 2oz per 5 gals, gets me an absolutely gorgeous copper hue with a similar grain bill.

Click to expand...

I thought about chocolate malt too - that is a good suggestion. Do you think the 1lb of victory is gonna get me the subtle bread/toast I'm looking for?

I haven't used it personally, but from a little research i dont think 1lb of victory will disappoint you.

Your recipe is solid. If it were me, I would go 7 lb 2row, 2lb Victory and 0.5 C60.

Well, unfortunately I only bought 1lb. of Victory. I guess I could home-toast a pound of the 2-row, but I think I'll just try this one as it is and see what happens. Thanks all.

jbrookeiv said:

You could easily turn this into an IPA if you added a few pounds of Pale malt, then you could switch an ounce from dry hop to FWH, making it 1.5 oz FWH and 2 oz Dry Hop.

As far as dry hopping, try putting them in a one gallon paint strainer bag. Keeps the pellets contained very nicely.

Click to expand...

Ok, I changed my mind. I think you're right. This is begging to be an IPA & I haven't made one yet. I also wanna add a little rye and make it into a rye-PA. Here's what I think I might change it to:


Will probably grab some rice hulls too, as I'm @ about 14% rye in the grist. My hop additions might look a little strange but yeah... the goal is to use 6 oz. of these hops on this batch and the remaining 2 on a saison.

Let me know if anything looks stupid!