Pale Ale Recipe Feedback - First Attempt w/o a Kit!

[oswaldoSinCity]

Hello fellow brewers –

After months of using these forums for advice, I finally decided to sign up. This is my first post! I’m trying to do my first brew without a kit, and I have some questions.

Until now, my friend and I only used True Brew homebrew kits (6 brews total, to varying degrees of success). So, obviously, we normally work with extracts and pre-selected hops. On this occasion, I want to make a hoppy pale ale. I live in the desert and it would be great to have a pale for the early spring. I spent two summers in Portland, OR, and had some great hoppy pales. I guess the most obvious example is Deschutes’ Mirror Pond, but there were other regional breweries such as Caldera that made strong stuff.

Here’s my “rough draft” recipe for the pale:

Hops:
Chinook 11.8%
Amarillo 9.3%
Cascade 6.4%

Malt Grains:
½ pound Crystal/Caramel 60L
½ pound Crystal/Caramel 20L

Malt Extract:
6 pounds Munton’s Light Extract

Hop Schedule:
1 oz Chinook – 60 minutes
1 oz Amarillo – 15 minutes
1 oz Cascade – 10 minutes
.5 oz Amarillo – 5 minutes

1 oz Cascade – Dry Hopped


My most important question is about the hops. I expect that the Chinook hops will make this pale a bit more bitter than other pales, and I like that. The Amarillo hops are new to me – never brewed them, only tasted them in other beers…

Will this amount of hops overwhelm the beer? Do I have a good hop schedule, or should I change up the process? Am I missing something wildly important?

Anything helps – Thanks!

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

looks pretty nice. if it were me, i'd do the late adds at 10, 5, and 0 mins. you'll get a lot more hop aroma that way, and still get a lot of flavor.

 

[Yooper]

Very nice! I would enjoy that beer.

Amarillo hops have a distinctive "grapefruit" character. It'll be really nice with the citrusy cascades!

 

[jfuriosi]

This sounds great. I think i'll buy beersmith to test it because that is how much i want to brew this!!! I might use simcoes.

 

[jfuriosi]

Simcoes instead of cascades in my case.

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

Simcoes instead of cascades in my case.

mmmmm, simcoe and amarillo! :rockin:

 

[HomebrewMTB]

Sounds like all the pieces are there but you'll want to check your IBUs. APA should be around 40ish IBU. A full ounce of chinook at 60 sounds like too much. I'd use half that. But play with it in Beersmith. The style guidelines will help you balance it out.

 

[oswaldoSinCity]

Thanks everybody. I didn't put any thought into the IBUs. Am also worried about overwhelming it with the Chinook... But I REALLY like Chinook.

Thanks so much!

 

[HomebrewMTB]

You can get "hoppy" without being overwhelmingly bitter. You have it right with the late hop additions and dry hopping. If you look at the Mirror Clone example you gave, the IBU is only in the 40 IBU range. I would highly suggest staying within style on bitterness with the APA. If you want something with more IBU, kick it over to the IPA style and add some more malt to keep it balanced.