What did I make? Turning a Kolsch into an APA?

Okay so this is my second batch of homebrew. We had a Kolsch style kit and some grains and hops. Not sure what we made but it smell really good.

5 gallon batch of: ?

3lbs. Caramel Malt
3.3lbs Pilsner LME
4.0lbs Alexander Amber LME

4oz. Cascade Hops (leaf) 7.5%
3oz. Williamette Hops (pellet) 4.9%
4oz. Amarillo Hops (pellet) 11. %
1tsp. Irish Moss

Nottingham Yeast (was with the kit)

I steeped the grains @ 160F for 30 minutes in 2 1/2 gallons of water. then slowly poured 170F water over the grains. Started my boil and added the LMEs, 2oz. of Cascade 1oz. of Williamette. At 45 minutes into the boil I added 2oz. of Amarillo, 2oz. of Williamette, and the Irish Moss. For the final 2 minutes of the boil I added the final 2oz. of Amarillo and Cascade.

Chilled the wort to 70F, added it to the primary and water up to 5 gallons. and pitched my rehydrated yeast. O.G. 1.081

If it tastes half as good as it smells I'll be happy. So what do you guys/gals think we made?

Is 3 pounds of caramel a typo, and should be .3 pounds?

If it's really 3 pounds of caramel, it'll be sweet. Maybe you have enough bittering hops to counter act it (it's way too many bittering hops). So, very bitter, hoppy and sweet.

Yikes! Unfortunately not a typo. Hope you're right about the hops offsetting the sweetness. I like well hopped beers though. Would've you recommended 1/2 of what I used for bittering hops or even less?

StLouisBrews said:

Yikes! Unfortunately not a typo. Hope you're right about the hops offsetting the sweetness. I like well hopped beers though. Would've you recommended 1/2 of what I used for bittering hops or even less?

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I would have used 1/3 of the crystal for sure. For bittering, I'd go with the cascades. The willamette isn't needed. The 4 ounces at 15 minutes is a bit much too, so I would have used less and probably not both varieties. For the aroma addition, the amarillo and cascade is a good mix.

The problem with adding so many different hops is that you can get a "muddy" flavor, and some of the hops are stronger flavored so they'd cover up the others. I think the willamette will be totally lost under all that amarillo.

Those ingredients don't add up to an OG of 1.081. Your reading must be off. If the reading really was 1.081, it wouldn't be quite bitter but I come up with a maximum possible SG of 1.055 in a 5 gallon batch.

while i will be the first to applaud experimentation with recipe creation...this was simple a 'throw everything plus the kitchen sink in, and see what comes out'. 2nd batch of beer...no offense but you really do need a few more established recipes brewed successfully before you get too ambitious.
it'll just save you time, a fair amount of money, and a ton of un-necessary frustration.

On the bright side the rest of your procedure sounds good, and even if this turns out a bit 'off' to drink, it'll be a fine cooking beer/marinade.

Thanks I'll definitely be sticking to basic recipes in the future. Thanks for the tips Yooper. I'll retake the reading when I tranfer to the secondary to see if it's below 1.055. I hope I didn't break another hydrometer.

That sounds delicious, and nothing like a Kolsch! Enjoy!

Update: Checked with Brewvedere the other day ( this brews fermenting in his basement) we only used 1 1/2 lbs. of Caramel 45L malt. Not sure if that makes a difference and the gravity reading I got was high because I took it when the wort volume was only 3 gallons.

So my question is if my OG was reading 1.081 at 3 gallons, what would it be when adding the other two gallons? Sorry I'm not only a noob, but also terrible at math problems.

81 x 3 / (3 + 2) = 1.049

thanks.