Pale Ale recipe feedback

[mdhomebrew]

Hi everyone, I have been brewing for about a year and have recently been trying to branch out to designing my own recipes. I'm trying to brew a nice pale ale this weekend that has some good tropical qualities that I like in some of my favorite west coast IPA's but with the ABV and body of a good pale ale. I'd love to get some feed back for what I was thinking. Ive got a bunch of Fawcett Pearl and have been using that as my base malt.
10 gallon batch, 75% efficiency.

21 lbs Fawcett Pearl Malt (2.5 srm)
1 lbs 8.0 oz Munich Malt (9.0 SRM)
1 lbs 8.0 oz Victory Malt (25.0 SRM)
1 lbs Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)
1.00 oz Magnum [14.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min
1.00 oz Amarillo [9.20 %] - Boil 15.0 min
0.50 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min
1.00 oz Amarillo [9.20 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 15.
1.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 15.0
1.0 pkg California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) [35.

I would really appreciate any input.

 

[chickypad]

The grainbill looks good to me but I think that will be IPA strength, not sure if that's what you're going for (do you have the specs calculated?). If you want more hop character like an IPA I'd up all the late hops and add a dry hop.

 

[mdhomebrew]

I'm still trying to zero in on my efficiency but this is what I am working with currently:

Boil Size: 13.61 gal
Post Boil Volume: 12.48 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 11.00 gal
Bottling Volume: 10.25 gal
Estimated OG: 1.057 SG
Estimated Color: 7.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 42.3 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 76.4 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

It's definitely the upper end of the pale ale ABV and bitterness. I thought about adding a .25 Amarillo, .50 citra dry hop addition as well. Do you think more in flameout would be appropriate? Thanks for the feedback!

 

[chickypad]

I was going with 75% efficiency and a 10 gal post boil/chill putting you at 1.067. The way your system is set up you're counting on 12.48 post boil (will probably be about 12 gal post chill). Seems like lots of losses to me but if you know your system that's fine. If that's the true OG you hit then looks good. I'd still up the hops as it seems like you wanted a sort of session IPA, but up to you. Given that it's essentially a 12 gal batch I consider that pretty light late hopping for an APA (the equivalent for 5gal of .625 oz at 15, .83 oz flameout, and .3 oz dry hop). I'd probably be doing like 3 oz each at 15, flameout, and dry hop with your size batch for an APA, you could go more for a session IPA/hoppy pale.

 

[mdhomebrew]

Thanks! I've been trying to kick up the numbers to end up with 5 (10 in this case) packaged beer. Most of my experiences so far have been highly hopped beers. I'm probably overshooting. I shy away from the "session" ipa thought because that usually ends up tasting like hop water to me. My alternative is trying to envision pale ale with a good body, and highly hopped. I thought I might be pretty conservative in the late additions. I was using beersmith and the have been using its IBU calc to stay within style.

You are probably right, I'm really trying to design a sessionish IPA. I just want more character than I usually taste in that category.

 

[Brulosopher]

Looks solid to me! I might recommend a more characterful yeast, I'm a personal fan of WLP090, but WLP002 makes a great hoppy Pale as well, just be sure to mash low. Cheers!

 

[mdhomebrew]

That's a great tip. Maybe I'll split the batch, do wlp001 with one and 002 with the other. I'm also tempted to use Vermont ale yeast.

 

[Brulosopher]

That's a great tip. Maybe I'll split the batch, do wlp001 with one and 002 with the other. I'm also tempted to use Vermont ale yeast.

Vermont is great! Only thing is, in my experience, Vermont does better with a low mash temp, which 001 does well with too.

 

[mdhomebrew]

Thanks for the tip. I'm going for a 149 mash temp. Is that what you had in mind?