APA recipe sanity check

So I've been reading through Ray Daniels' Designing Great Beers (a great resource, by the way), and decided to try my hand at concocting my own potion. I thought I'd post it here to see if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions for me before I actually brew it.

I am looking to do an American Pale Ale, with OG around 1.050 - 1.052 and bitterness around 40 IBUs. I've no idea what to expect for FG or %ABV.

5 lbs. Munton's light DME
10 oz. crystal malt, 20L
4 oz. biscuit malt
1 1/8 oz. Cascade hops (6.8% alpha) 60 min. - bittering
3/4 oz. Cascade hops 10 min. - flavor
3/4 oz. Cascade hops 1 min. - aroma
1/4 tsp Irish moss
American ale yeast (Safale dry)
2/3 oz. Cascade hops - dry hopping

I know there's nothing particularly unique about this recipe, but I constructed it based only from the style guidance and calculation methods in Designing. Afterwards, I compared it to a couple of other APA recipes in Papazian's books, and this seems reasonable to me. Any opinions?

Looks fine to me. For a FG, you'll want around 1.010 to 1.012, I'm thinking.

I would up the dry hop to an ounce if you could. That's about it.

BeerAlchemy tells me your recipe will hit your numbers as long as you're not expecting a full five gallons of finished beer, maybe four.

I think you're right on target for a good beer! ProMash is confirming your numbers at five gallons, BTW. Keep in mind that Muntons extracts tend to ferment quite dry; you may wish to increase your Crystal or add some CaraPils to increase the perception of body.

If you pitch a yeast with 75% average attenuation, you can confidently expect a FG of 1.013.

Cheers!

Bob

My APA was somewhat similiar to yours, however here is what I chose:

5.5 gallon batch

10 lb 2 row pale
.5 lb Crystal 60L
.5 lb Dextrine Malt
1 oz centennial (First wort hop)
1 oz cascade - 15 minutes
1 oz centennial - 15 minutes
1 oz cascade - 5 minutes
1 oz centennial - 5 minutes
1 oz cascade - Flame out
1 oz centennial - Flame out

Wyeast 1056

Dry Hopping - 1 oz centennial and 1 oz cascade

If you can't tell, I love centennial and cascade...

BobNQ3X said:

I think you're right on target for a good beer! ProMash is confirming your numbers at five gallons, BTW. Keep in mind that Muntons extracts tend to ferment quite dry; you may wish to increase your Crystal or add some CaraPils to increase the perception of body.

If you pitch a yeast with 75% average attenuation, you can confidently expect a FG of 1.013.

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The safale US-05 dry yeast tends to attenuate down quite well too. I prefer a dry APA, but if you want it fuller up the crystal malts as Bob said.

Thanks for all the responses. I may increase the crystal to 12 oz, and the dry hop to 1 oz. I'll let you all know how it comes out.

Out of curiosity, what exactly does the crystal malt add to the brew that counteracts the expected dryness imparted by the yeast? Why does this give the beer more body?

SDreher71 said:

Out of curiosity, what exactly does the crystal malt add to the brew that counteracts the expected dryness imparted by the yeast? Why does this give the beer more body?

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i take it as it may ferment to a higher ABV then expected, and rather than taste "dry", you might be able to hide it with more body....i'm probably wrong though.