Big Wave from Kona Brewing Co. (Hawaii)

Anyone know the malt bill and hops in this beer? I enjoyed one today. Would love to clone it...

Click Brew Specifications on the lower right of this page:

http://konabrewingco.com/beers/big-wave-golden-ale/

wwf4jericho said:

Click Brew Specifications on the lower right of this page:

http://konabrewingco.com/beers/big-wave-golden-ale/

Click to expand...

Outstanding! ;-)

Thanks!

They changed their recipe slightly I think in the last year. I had this email from them awhile ago:

All our specific recipes are proprietary, but I can definitely give you some pointers/hints.

Malt is 2-row and Gambrinus Honey Malt. Hops are Warrior & Millenium for bittering (although you can substitute another high alpha hop if you like), Willamette & Hallertau for flavor/aroma.

Our targets:

OG 12.5 P
IBU 18
ABV 5.3%
Color 7.0 L (finished beer)
Ale yeast

Hope this helps and best of luck!

Cheers,

Rich



Rich Tucciarone, Brewmaster
Kona Brewing Company"

I also really liked this beer, it had great hop aroma, but was an easy drinking beer. Either they do a whirlpool hop addition or they are dry hopping. Both probably can get the same result. Last time I had it I thought I could smell the Citra the most in the hop aroma.

That's what I got as well. Citra and what I thought was Ahtanum, but their webpage says Galaxy, which it certainly could have been.

Unfortunatly, Galaxy is off the market right now, so I'm going to try a Citra only clone. Came up with this earlier today:

Poor Man's Blonde Ale

Recipe specifics:

Style: Blonde Ale
Batch size: 5.2 gal
Boil volume: 3.5 gal
OG: 1.045
FG: 1.011
Bitterness (IBU): 20.8
Color (SRM): 5.1
ABV: 4.4%

Grain/Sugars:

3.30 lb Extra Light LME, 45.2%
2.00 lb Weyermann Pilsner, 27.4%
1.00 lb Light DME, 13.7%
1.00 lb Crystal 10L, 13.7%

Hops:

0.25 oz Citra (AA 13.4%, Pellet) 40 min, 8.3 IBU
0.25 oz Citra (AA 13.4%, Pellet) 20 min, 5.7 IBU
0.50 oz Citra (AA 13.4%, Pellet) 10 min, 6.8 IBU

Yeast/Misc:

Finings, 1.0 unit(s), Fining Whirlfloc tablet, boil 10 min
London Ale yeast, 1.0 unit(s), Yeast


Thoughts?

I don't know much about extract, but I think you could simplify it with just some Light DME and Crystal. I would find a way to add a hint of the honey malt from above.

Finally if you are trying to get that big aroma, either change your 10 min addition to a 0-1 minute addition or dry hop for a short time to get the desired aroma.

I made this recipe - as described in this clone thread
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/kona-big-wave-golden-ale-recipe-input-211583/

6G end of the boil:

OG 1.043
21 IBU (T)
4.6 SRM
75% efficiency

8.5 lb 2-row
1.0 lb caramel 10
1.0 lb Vienna

Mash 150

Boil 60 min

Warrior (15%) 7g at 60
Citra (13.2%) 28g at 5 min
Citra (13.2%) 28g at 0 min
Citra (13.2%) 28g dry hop 4 days

Ferment with WLP 090 (San Diego Super yeast) (or similar) at 65F x 10 days, then dry hop in primary for 4 days.

Its only been kegged for 5 days (now 26 days out from brew). The beer is still changing as yeast continues to drop - but it is in the ballpark. Perhaps needs a few more IBUs - but the citra aroma is definitely on target for Big Wave.

Ok! Well I am going to add some Ahtanum for dry hopping to the recipe I posted. No doubts that it will be tasty! Plus, if its a bit off, I'll enjoy tweaking this for the rest of the summer.

-MG- said:

They changed their recipe slightly I think in the last year. I had this email from them awhile ago:

All our specific recipes are proprietary, but I can definitely give you some pointers/hints.

Malt is 2-row and Gambrinus Honey Malt. Hops are Warrior & Millenium for bittering (although you can substitute another high alpha hop if you like), Willamette & Hallertau for flavor/aroma.

Our targets:

OG 12.5 P
IBU 18
ABV 5.3%
Color 7.0 L (finished beer)
Ale yeast

Hope this helps and best of luck!

Cheers,

Rich

Rich Tucciarone, Brewmaster
Kona Brewing Company"

I also really liked this beer, it had great hop aroma, but was an easy drinking beer. Either they do a whirlpool hop addition or they are dry hopping. Both probably can get the same result. Last time I had it I thought I could smell the Citra the most in the hop aroma.

Click to expand...

??

This sounds like a completely different beer than the one I drank. Is this recipe for another one of their beers?

I checked out the link to their web page provided above and it definitly lists 2-row and crystal for the malts, and Citra and Galaxy for hops...

Following the threads on this, it looks like the recipe you point to with the Hallertau was the old recipe, and the current brew has citra. But I can say that my attempt with citra smells a lot like Big Wave that is out now.

FlyDoctor said:

Following the threads on this, it looks like the recipe you point to with the Hallertau was the old recipe, and the current brew has citra. But I can say that my attempt with citra smells a lot like Big Wave that is out now.

Click to expand...

Wow. Ok, never seen a beer change its profile SO much... but still keep the same name. The two malt bills and hop profile aren't even CLOSE.

Why not just give it a new name??



Fyi - my clone is bubbling away @ 70 degrees...

Got a chance to brew a second batch with a few changes. I suspect the crystal level is low still, but the dry hopping may get me closer to the hop profile.

Poor Man's Blonde Ale-2

Recipe specifics:

Style: Blonde Ale
Batch size: 5.2 gal
Boil volume: 3.5 gal
OG: 1.042
FG: 1.010
Bitterness (IBU): 22.3
Color (SRM): 6.4
ABV: 4.1%

Grain/Sugars:

3.30 lb Light LME, 42.0%
2.00 lb Weyermann Pale Ale Malt, 25.4%
1.56 lb Light DME, 19.9%
1.00 lb Crystal 10L, 12.7%

Hops:

0.25 oz Citra (AA 14.5%, Pellet) 30 min, 8.2 IBU
0.25 oz Citra (AA 14.5%, Pellet) 20 min, 6.4 IBU
0.50 oz Citra (AA 14.5%, Pellet) 10 min, 7.7 IBU
1.00 oz Ahtanum (AA 5.7%, Pellet) dry hop

Yeast/Misc:

London Ale yeast, 1.0 unit(s), Yeast

London ale huh, and all the pale ale malt - I'll be interested to hear how this turns out. Are you aiming for a clone or just a good recipe?

Clone would be nice. I really enjoyed the brew I had at my local pub. Since I'm an extract/specialty grain brewer, I find throwing pale malt in helps with grain flavor.

I went with London ale for the clean dry finish of it. I felt the Big Wave I drank went in that direction as well.

Do you have a favorite yeast for that type of finish? OR, do you know what yeast Kona uses??

WilliamSlayer said:

Clone would be nice. I really enjoyed the brew I had at my local pub. Since I'm an extract/specialty grain brewer, I find throwing pale malt in helps with grain flavor.

I went with London ale for the clean dry finish of it. I felt the Big Wave I drank went in that direction as well.

Do you have a favorite yeast for that type of finish? OR, do you know what yeast Kona uses??

Click to expand...

I worry that with all the pale ale malt and the London ale that this will come across as closer to a bitter - citrusy - but with more bready, biscuity flavors. Another tip off is your color is darker than I think the big wave is. My side by side tasting of mine and the bottled original were nearly identical in color - in the 4L range.

I would think this would be best with a clean American ale yeast (1056, 001, US-05, or others like PAC man, San Diego etc). British ale Yeasts are described as being pretty clean if fermented really cool - but I haven't done this, but would the cleanest British yeast brows more esters than the clean US ale yeasts.

Your will make a great and tasty beer, but if I had to guess it won't be a clone. But I could be weong

Tasting day: too hoppy, not sweet enogh. Will have to bump up the crystal, and dampen the hop additions. Just a bit darker by a degree or two. Can't help that much with extracts.

Not bad as is, but basicly just a Citra version of Sierra Nevada.

Glad to hear it is a good beer anyway. Citra SNPA sounds good! Mine just kicked this week - was too thin for big wave as I stayed before. Back to the drawing board

Actually, drinking a second glass, I'm looking at color thinking I'm not far off. First pic is Kona from my favorite local pub...



Second is my own brew...






Now light isn't the same, but that looks darn close to me!

(Score!)

Not too shabby! This beer took first place at an informal tasting this week!