All-Grain Pale Ale - Critiques Please

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.

bernerbrau

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 25, 2008
Messages
8,502
Reaction score
38
Location
Nashville, TN
This is my attempt at a well-balanced beer. I've never done a straight Pale Ale before and I'm working on a repertoire of less extreme beers than I've done in the past so I thought this would be a good one to try.

Grains:
8 lbs Vienna
6 oz Crystal 40L
6 oz Crystal 80L

Hops:
.5oz Chinook @60
.5oz Chinook @20
1oz Amarillo @15
1oz Amarillo @5

Yeast:
1 package WLP060 (American Ale Blend), no starter

Mash schedule:
Mash at 153 for 60 minutes
Decoction mashout at 169 for 20 minutes
Fly sparge at 170 to collect 8 gallons

Fermentation:
Ferment @ 70 for 4 weeks, then bottle or keg.

Estimated Stats:

Size: 5 Gallons
Efficiency: 75%
OG: 1.055
FG: 1.014
ABV: 5.37%
SRM: 9.29
IBU: 43.9

Thoughts/ideas?
 
I wouldn't do a decotion mash out, but then again, I batch sparge.

I haven't made an APA with exclusive Vienna, but I do love a base of 2-row, and about 1lb of Vienna and a 1lb of Munich.

Maybe 6 lbs 2-row, 1 lb Vienna, lb Munich?

Crystal amounts look good, although you could get by with 8-12 oz. of 60L. I usually only mix crystals if I'm doing an amber or brown.

The hop schedule looks great! :mug:
 
Yeah, I really like the Amarillo flavor. If I'm gonna do my white wheat SMaSH again, I'll probably use Amarillo instead of Citra.

You're probably right about the 2 row with a bit of vienna and munich but I already ordered my kit :eek:

I asked Ed to cut the vienna down to 2 pounds and replace the rest with 2-row. It'll be an adventure.
 
This beer will be pretty well balanced, but it wont taste like an APA. More like a hoppy Oktoberfest Ale.

With your reduction in Vienna it'll be closer, but still somewhere in between.
 
This beer was a rousing success. Didn't really taste like an APA, but definitely something I can drink over and over.

Keg's almost empty now, so I'm re-brewing it with MO instead of Vienna, and adding 1 lb of flaked barley for kicks. Same hop schedule. We'll see how it compares.
 
Back
Top