Extract Cascade APA (w/homegrown hops)

I ended up with 12 oz. of homegrown Cascade hops from my first year plant and am trying to write a recipe for an all Cascade APA hop bomb.

If you have any suggestions for a steeping grain and amount i'd greatly appreciate it as this is my first recipe and will be only my 14 batch and first or second full boil. Also any input on hop schedule would be great would love to show off the flavor of my homegrown hops.

So far-

6lb gold/light lme
1lb light dme
6 oz homegrown cascade
steeping grains-?
US-05

hop schedule
60 min- 1.5 or 2 oz.
10 min- 1 oz.
0 min- .5 oz.
Dry hop- 3 oz.

Thanks for any and all input

It is always an interesting experiment to use homegrown hops as the bittering charge, as you'll have no idea of the alpha acids percentage. Could be mouth-puckeringly bitter, could be sweet. Most brewers prefer to use hops with a known AA% for bittering and their homegrown hops for flavor/aroma/dry-hops.

I'd add in some light Crystal malt, no darker than 40L. A full pound of 40L crystal will give a nice full body and some sweetness to stand up to the hops. Your OG should end up around 1.055 with the addition of that much Crystal.

I'd use a neutral bittering hops variety with a known AA%, shooting for IBU of between 35 and 40. An ounce of Perle at 8%AA should get you there. That'll provide a nice balancing bitterness. Then start loading in your homegrown Cascades. I'd add an ounce with 10 minutes left, an ounce at flameout. Taste it before you rack it; if it could use more hops character, add as much as you think fit to the secondary and rack on top of the hops. Note: You stand a very good chance of clogging your siphon when you rack from the secondary to the packaging vessel!

But it's gonna be tasty!

Bob

Thanks Bob, the crystal malt sounds great.

The package that came with my hop rhizome rated the cascade as 4.5-7%, which doesn't seem like that large of a range. I'm fairly determined to use my own hops as the only hops in the batch so if you were to give me a safe bet would you say 1.5% of my cascade would be safe without getting too bitter?

Or is there really no safe bet? I do have enough to make 2 batches so i'm willing to sacrifice the first batch as an experiement. A delicious experiment that is

There's a Bell's Two Hearted recipe somewhere thats got a very similar grain bill to Ed's Haus Ale. (IE, mostly 2 row, couple pounds of vienna, light crystal). Maybe something Like Ed's Haus, but a little bigger with a bunch more hops?

Thanks for the input, finalized my recipe. I'll be sure to post up with results in a month or so.

Homegrown Cascade Pale Ale.

-6lbs Gold LME
-1lb. Extra Light DME
-1lb Crystal 40L grain
-US-05 dry yeast
-6 oz of homegrown Cascade hops

.5 oz. sugar for carbonating


Hop schedule-
60 min- 1.5 oz.
10 min- 1 oz.
0 min- .5 oz.

Dry hop- 3 oz.

How cool is it that you have an idea of your Cascades' AA range? I didn't even know that was possible.

The only possible criticism I have of your finalized recipe is that I hope you misplaced the decimal point on your priming sugar.

Bob

I picked up the rhizome from my LHBS- Midwest Supplies and it was printed right on the bag. Guess I'll find out where in that range it falls once I get my first sip.

Yes, appears that I plan to go light on the carbonation at .5 oz. of sugar

5 oz. of priming sugar is the correct answer.