Advice on Second Ale

[SkiNuke]

Hey everyone, I am fairly new to brewing. I have bottled mead, cider and my brewers best scottish ale was bottled just yesterday. I have caught the beer bug and I want to make a lighter beer for my next beer.

I was originally thinking of making an oktoberfest beer (to be ready by october), but I decided sticking with brewing ale for my first couple times would be a wise choice. In terms of ale, I was thinking of either a pale ale (like lefthand brewery's stranger [jackman's] pale ale) or an amber ale. Kolsch and golden ales seem to bland or sweet so I wanted to avoid those. I have read and re-read how to brew by palmer and have been messing around with brewtarget trying to see what I should make. I was originally going to go with one of palmer's recipes, but they seem very hoppy and, while i do like hops, ipa's and overly hoppy pale ales are not my favorites.

I was hoping I could get some advice on either a good pale ale/amber ale recipe or on the amber ale recipe I hacked together:

3 lbs Pale LME
4 lbs Pale LME (Late Addition)
1 lb Crystal 40L
1 lb Crystal 80L

Perle (7%) .75 oz: 60 min
Spalt (5.5%) 1 oz: 30 min
Tettnang (4%) 1 oz: 15 min

OG: 1.056, FG: 1.014, Boil SG: 1.064, IBU: 33, Color: 17.2


I feel like this either isn't coming out dry enough or the bitterness is off for an amber.
Thanks

 

[HOPCousin]

You might want to dial back the crystal. Its going to add alot of caramel sweetness and your percentage of crystal is high for a pale. Pales usually have crystal around 5-6% or so. I vary mine for different pale ales. A basic Sierra Nevada pale ale is around 6% crystal 60L and the rest pale malt as an example. Your hop schedule looks interesting. let us know how that turns out. cheers

 

[SkiNuke]

Should I just reduce both crystal 40 and 80 malts down to a quarter of a pound each, or just remove one completely and do a half of a pound of one type of crystal malt (local brew store has 40, 80, or 120)? Would that end up making a drier beer or just decrease the amount of alcohol present?

 

[McGarnigle]

I think the beer will be more interesting if you keep both 40 and 80, but in smaller amounts. If were to go with only one, it would be 40.

 

[SkiNuke]

Alright. I'll try splitting the grains into a quarter pound each. This bumps up the IBU to 37.1 and drops the color to 10.5.

With regards to the hop schedule, I was following Palmer's generalized schedule that he used for most of his ale recipes in how to brew . However, I have been reading that for good aroma you should be adding closer to 5 and flavor is closer to 20. Should I try modifying the hop schedule to 60 20 5? Or should I wait till I experiment to deviate from the 60 30 15 schedule?

Thanks

 

[HOPCousin]

How much hop flavor do you like? I do mine different ways depending on style and preference. If you want it more malt and more bitter stop you hops at around 20 minutes and add some at flameout for aroma. If you like more hop flavor hit it at 10 and even skip the 15 if you want.

You could do 60 30 15 and an addition at 0 min/flameout to give great aroma. Experiment to see what you like.

 

[SkiNuke]

It looks like I don't understand is what type of flavors can you get out of a beer by just modifying the hop addition times. My understanding is that sweet and malty are one in the same as are hoppy and bitter, as such you can have flavors from very sweet to very bitter. Your last post makes me think that I am viewing this very 1 dimensionally. Can you obtain a bitter/malty beer by adding more hops early on or a sweet/hoppy beer by adding more hops later? I guess what I am asking is what is the difference between a hoppy flavor and the bitterness obtained from hops?

 

[LexusChris]

This graph helped me think about the different aspects of using hops: Bittering, Flavor & Aroma.

Basically, the longer the boil, the more alpha acids isomerize and create the bitter componants. With shorter boil times, the flavor componants have not boiled out yet, but only a little bitterness is added. On very short boil times, the aromatic oils are released, but not boiled off.

 

[SkiNuke]

I have seen that chart and I understand on a basic level how the different times can change these aspects from a chemistry perspective. However, I am having an issue discerning the difference between all of these from a senses stand point. For example, what would a very bitter beer with little hop flavor (hops only added at 60 min.) taste like compared to a very hoppy flavored beer with very little bitterness (hops only added at 20 minutes)?

 

[SkiNuke]

Oh, if there are any specific beers that I should find and drink that would help articulate your descriptions, that would be fine by me.

 

[McGarnigle]

Hops can gave all kinds of different flavored: citrusy, herbal, earthy, etc. Often beers with high bitterness also have high hop flavor, although it's often not an issue of bitter beer so much as dry or balanced beer.

IPAs usually have high hops all around. German alt biers use early hops for bitterness (not nearly as sweet as doppelbocks, for example) but aren't really big on hop flavor. Stouts have a decent amount if early hops (and sometimes roasty bitterness) but not hop taste. I can't think of examples of beers with lots of hop flavor. Actually, big IPAs often have enough malt to cut the bitterness, and have tons of hop flavor.

 

[SkiNuke]

Ok. Well it sounds like my question is harder to explain than I was hoping. I am most likely going to try out a hop schedule with 60 20 5 additions, since the chart seems to suggest that this will get the most out of my hops.

 

[LexusChris]

If you haven't checked out the BJCP 2008 style guides, they can offer some insight into which styles tend to use bittering, flavor or aroma hop additions.

There are always exceptions, and many a good beer have gone against the guides.

Also, the recipes link on this site (& others) can show you many example recipes that use different combo's of those hop addition categories.

Good luck!
--LexusChris

 

[HOPCousin]

Bitter would be the bitterness in a stout. I think Smuttynose robust porter would be a good example of hop bitterness and accentuation of the dark malt.

Humbolt's Nectar would be a good example strong flavor additions or any big IPA like Greenflash, or Stone IPA.... those might be easier to find.

I see you live in boulder. I bet if you go into your local brew pub and ask them that question they could set you up with a nice sampler and demonstrate it for you.

Any excuse to go to the brew pub is a worth doing... especially for educational purposes

 

[SkiNuke]

Well I just bottled the recipe we talked about (seen below) a week ago and decided to break one open to taste test.

7 lbs pale lme (half added late)
4 oz of crystal 40L
4 oz of crystal 80L

1 oz Perle (60)
1 oz Spalt (20)
.5 oz Tettnang (5)
.5 oz Tettnang (flameout)

Unfortunately, this turned out way too sweet. I can only notice a hint of bitterness at the end of a mouthful if I try to taste it. And I can't taste any of the hops.

My question is: This is only after 1 week, if I let it sit for another 2, will I notice a difference, or does the hop flavor never really come back?