1 Gallon Apple Crisp Ale

[Scubbastv]

Update... I bottled it today, which went well. I used a little less then 3 tbsp honey. I did however get to taste what was left in the bottling bucket and yes I do have to say... I wish I had made 5 gallons! Will update again in 3 weeks.

 

[DarthBeer]

Good to hear. Ok, heres the final recipe I put together yesterday. As stated I did alter it slightly, but tried to stick to something pretty much resembling your own. I had some reservations about 32 IBUs, but I'm rolling with it. I added some flaked outs to round it out. I chose gala apples because they are both sweet and tart, also because they were in the fridge. I did have S-05 on hand, but I really like my london ale yeast. Bittered with Brewer's Gold to save some money, but stuck to your fuggles for aroma. blah blah blah, yatta yatta yatta, I plan on chipping up some applewood and tossing that in secondary as well. I'll let you know how the final product is in 3-4 weeks!

Recipe:

8.5# 2-row
2.5# Crystal-40
0.5# Flaked oats
0.1# Chocolate malt
1.0 oz Brewers Gold (9.7%AA) 60 min
0.5 oz Fuggles (4.2%AA) 10 min
1 Cinnamon stick at flame out 10 min
3.0# Gala apples (approximately 10 petite sized) at flame out 10 min
WLP013 London ale yeast

Still debating if the applewood will be toasted, boiled, or just thrown in covered in nasties! But I have a few days to think about that.

OG estimate 1.057
FG estimate 1.016
ABV estimate 5.3%
32.7 IBUs
14.6 SRM

Is this still for a 1 gallon batch or 5 gallons? Wondering since the first post showed about 1 pound of 2 row and this one lists 8.5 pounds.

 

[Scubbastv]

Is this still for a 1 gallon batch or 5 gallons? Wondering since the first post showed about 1 pound of 2 row and this one lists 8.5 pounds.

This recipe here is for 5 gallons...

 

[tjpfeister]

My recipe (which I modified from Scuba's 1gallon recipe) is for 5 gallons, yes.
I invite you to make it into one gallon though, I have never eaten beer with a spoon before ;-)

 

[DarthBeer]

My recipe (which I modified from Scuba's 1gallon recipe) is for 5 gallons, yes.
I invite you to make it into one gallon though, I have never eaten beer with a spoon before ;-)

Hmmm.. Beer oatmeal? "Beer..It's what's for breakfast!"

 

[Justibone]

My recipe (which I modified from Scuba's 1gallon recipe) is for 5 gallons, yes.
I invite you to make it into one gallon though, I have never eaten beer with a spoon before ;-)

I LOL'ed.

 

[DarthBeer]

A (maybe crazy) idea. Instead of adding apples in secondary. Maybe try adding apfelwein in secondary instead?

 

[bovineblitz]

You should put that recipe in a new thread.

You will also have zero head on that bacon porter.

I recently did a bacon porter and it actually has no head retention issues at all.

 

[Justibone]

How did you get rid of the oils? It's my understanding that oils act as a surfactant (?) that makes the forces necessary to retain bubble walls (LaPlace forces?) too high for the cohesion/attraction (?) of the proteins... or so I think I heard!

Clearly I don't know much about this, but I am wondering, how did you handle the oils from the bacon? Maybe they all congealed into solids because the beer was cold and it was an animal lipid source?

 

[bovineblitz]

How did you get rid of the oils? It's my understanding that oils act as a surfactant (?) that makes the forces necessary to retain bubble walls (LaPlace forces?) too high for the cohesion/attraction (?) of the proteins... or so I think I heard!

Clearly I don't know much about this, but I am wondering, how did you handle the oils from the bacon? Maybe they all congealed into solids because the beer was cold and it was an animal lipid source?

I cooked the bacon in the oven until just under burnt (which is how I like bacon anways), immediately transferred to paper towels while still hot, then immediately pressed with paper towels to pull out as much oil as possible. It wound up breaking the bacon into small pieces but minimized the oil.. though I'm sure a lot was still present in the bacon. I dry porked the beer with the bacon pieces inside a muslin hop bag.

The bacon porter seems to hold its head better than the regular porter, oddly enough.

 

[tjpfeister]

I dry porked the beer

yeah, he said it.

 

[tjpfeister]

Post secondary notes-

Well, I remember getting drunk while making this one. It seems that I failed to record my numbers in beersmith. Likely I hit the back button or something and lost the info, because I know I took measurements but they are now missing from the notes. Anyhow, I got retarded-good attenuation again from my london ale yeast. I suspect I need to look into different mash temperatures.

My FG wound up being 1.008. Using the predicted 1.057 OG (I'm sure mine was a little higher) that gives 6.4% ABV. I am currently force carbonating and chilling this beer with plans of bottling out of the keg. I enjoyed the tasting. I don't get real crazy with tasting warm flat beers, but I can tell you that the apple flavor is very subtle. It's there just towards the end of the taste right before the finish. It finishes smooth too, my worries about the IBU level were for naught as this is a delicious amber. I'm just afraid the alcohol content is masking the more subtle flavors. I will reavaluate after bottling, but I suspect dialing up the apple flavor and dialing back the OG will result in a more flavorful beer, but again, I am getting ahead of myself. I will post back in 2 days post-bottling!

 

[Turfmanbrad]

Any results/rebrews of the apple recipe? I'm thinking about incorporating apples in a brew for the 4th of July so I'm curious to see how it worked in beer!

 

[nacho2100]

So I brewed a 5 gallon batch of the apple ale last month and after letting it sit for sometime (2 weeks) I can't detect any apple/cinnamon at all. I remember using GALA apples so it could be that the flavors were too light to stick around, but I remember there being some before fermentation.