American Pale Ale BBD Brewing Kabe's Secret APA

no, in the low 60s, which is recommended for the strain, its one of those hybrid ones

Ahhh, cal common yeast. With that and the other changes, it'll definitely be a different beer.

Warming up a liquid will make CO2 come out of solution, so warming it up will make your airlock bubble without any real activity taking place with your yeast, though that CO2 is carrying away our dry hop aroma as it goes. The only way to know if it's done fermenting is by using your hydrometer. Take a sample and if it's done, bottle it up!

Give it some time for the flavors to come together and see. It might be a great beer still!

I'll be making this a third time tomorrow. It's my favorite. I plan on making this my house APA, implementing slight hop variations with each batch just to slightly change things up.

^^Yep^^ gonna be doing this a third time as well. I'm now doing AG but last batch I still brewed it as a PM. Cant wait.

im going to do this this weekend as my first pale ale! im so stoked for it.

i had some trouble finding honey malt (i did find it eventually); if i had not been able to get my hands on some, would this be a significant change?

pwndabear said:

i had some trouble finding honey malt (i did find it eventually); if i had not been able to get my hands on some, would this be a significant change?

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Yea, it would. In this beer, the honey malt is really center stage in the malt.

so i had to go to 3 different LHBSs to get my ingredients (as rochester absolutely SUCKS for homebrewing) and i still didn't get everything I need.

Pacman wasnt available so I had to get Wyeast American Ale II, and they were also out of Amarillo so I opted to go with Centennial instead. Yes, I know, a bit different from Amarillo but not so much as it would ruin anything...

My main question is this:
The flaked barley and the crystal are steeping grains. Since this is a partial mash, would I bring temp up to ~150, steep, and then would i go for the main grains?

pwndabear said:

My main question is this:
The flaked barley and the crystal are steeping grains. Since this is a partial mash, would I bring temp up to ~150, steep, and then would i go for the main grains?

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Nope, it all goes together.
Once you're mashing, you mash all the grains. No reason to steep some and mash others.

ok thats what i figured. making saturday. ill try to grab some pics and throw em on here. thanks for the recipe!

I didn't take pics as I am lazy when it comes to "side quests" if you will.

Looked great. too bad no amarillo in the area... OG 1.064. bubbling away on sunday morning too.

ended up great, finished lower, good recipe

transferred to secondary last night. Dry Hopping now (1.8oz leaf hops).

It looks really good! Unfortunately, the gravity reading last night was 1.022. I probably should have waited to rack however i had another beer brewed and ready to pitch onto this yeast so I kinda didn't have a choice... Stupid mistake: CHECK YOUR GRAVITIES BEFORE GETTING ANOTHER BEER READY TO PITCH ONTO THE YEAST CAKE...
It's actually bubbling a bit more in secondary so many it'll go a little lower still.

Sorry about the poor quality cellphone pic

21 in primary? i'm at 1.014 after 7 days. should i leave it a few more? not much action (obviously) in the primary today.

I would. Another two weeks will do good things for it.

Brewed this one yesterday. Everything turned out great and the yeast is currently happily eating away. I used a seasonal hop called falconers flight in place of the Amarillo (roughly the same alpha acid) I also used wyeast American ale due to pacman being so hard to get my hands on. Really excited about this one. Made some delicious bread from the spent grains also. Thanks for the recipe!

bottled last tuesday. couldnt resist trying one. of course it wasnt carbed but omg it smelled and tasted so good.

3 weeks into bottling. beautiful lacing on the glass, wonderful aroma, taste, body, clarity, etc. this beer is wonderful.

i.
love.
you.
cat.
for.
this.
beer.

Hands down best brew I've made yet. Thank you for this recipe

And I will be brewing this one again (I Think i'm on batch 4 or 5) On Saturday. I think I'm going to use an extra pack of S-05 I have in the fridge and see how that turns out.

I will update when i'm drinking this one to let you guys know how it turns out. The last 4 I have used White Labs CA ale yeast.

im drinking one right now and i love it.

pwndabear said:

im drinking one right now and i love it.

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Its funny, everytime I order a pale ale when I'm out I compare it to this beer. I almost always end up thinking to myself "Mines better at home..." Its gonna be tough to wait for a month till I can have a pint of this.

Well, as luck would have it, Amarillo is out at my LHBS. Can I use Centennial instead (using slightly less amounts to match AAU)?

I think Amarillo is fairly unique, according to my taste buds. But... any of the Northwest's "C" hops should be fine.

bechard said:

Well, as luck would have it, Amarillo is out at my LHBS. Can I use Centennial instead (using slightly less amounts to match AAU)?

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Same here. I subbed em for Anthum. I also used a extra packet of S-05 I had as opposed to my usual WLP001. I would have to say it is still a great beer, but damn I miss my Amarillo's and should have used my usual WLP001

Looks like I'm brewing this tonight, with two substitutions...

Yeast - Wyeast 1056 American Ale (Washed Yeast, 1st Generation)

Hops - Subbed Centennial for Amarillo, as I can't get Amarillo around here right now.

Looking forward to my first partial mash!

Well, brew day went well, I ended up hitting 72% efficiency for my first partial mash.

OG was 1.056 (From Expected 1.057 in Beer Smith2)

Thanks for the great recipe, can't wait for it to be ready.

Thank you very much Cheshire Cat! This beer is outstanding. I made it exactly to your recipe. I now know why it won first place. Fantastic beer, fantastic aroma, my friends and I loved it. This is on my regular rotation now. I am going to brew it all grain this time but change nothing else. Thanks again cat!

So I made this beer last fall, all grain with Maris otter, and let the dry hops sit for about 21 days. Kegged 12 gallons worth and let me tell you this was the hit of the fall. All my buddies are like when are you making another batch, so that's what I am doing today. Best APA I have had in awhile thanks for the recipe!

Brewing this up in a couple days. I'm thinking of putting it on the Nottingham cake I already have.

I haven't used it but I've heard Notty is a pretty clean yeast so I can't see it being a problem. I just love my pacman yeast.

I decided on going with Pacman after all. Its now been in primary two weeks. I was going to leave it another week, then transfer and dry hop. This was my first run on my new burner so I boiled off too much and came out really high at 1.065. Because of that, I think I can get away with adding some extra water at kegging time...so that I can have MORE beer! Can't wait to try this stuff. Thanks for the recipe.

Cat, Brewed this again and it is still the best beer I brew. I brew it all grain but other than that I make no changes from the recipe. I now have my water chemistry dialed in and it is even better than before. People out there, if you want to brew a fantastic APA this is it! Thanks again Cat!

Brewing 20 gallons of this this weekend with 1056.