AHS Anniversary Blonde screwup/experiment

[MSBrewer76]

Been reading/gleaning information from this site for a while, thought I would finally join up and submit a question on my first real screwup on a recipe.
I've been brewing since fall of 2010, mostly extracts until lately. Hoping to get a little feedback on my brew from this morning. Between jobs for a few days, new experience for me brewing on a weekday morning!

I've had this extract kit from Austin Homebrew Supply for a while that I finally got around to brewing today. I have done this kit previously and thought I would try something different. I had 1 oz of Liberty hops that has been in the beer fridge for about a year, thought I would add some of it to the recipe.

Here is the recipe:

AHS Anniversary Blonde Extract kit

Steep 1/2 lb 2 row & 1/2 lb Vienna for 25 minutes @ 155 F
7 lbs extra pale liquid extract.
1 oz Cascade bittering hops @ 60 minutes
1 oz Hallertau flavor hops @ 15 minutes
Nottingham dry yeast

My plan was to use 1/2 oz of Liberty and 1/2 oz of Cascade as bittering hops, and use the other 1/2 oz of Cascade at the 5 minute mark to add some good Cascade aroma to the beer. Figured the Liberty would serve ok as bittering hops although it's low in AA.

My screwup was with the 1 oz of flavor hops - I added the 1 oz Hallertau at 30 minutes. I ended up adding the other left over 1/2 oz Liberty for flavor at 15 minutes and added the remaining 1/2 oz Cascade at 5 minutes.

Any thoughts on how this might taste?

Other info on the brew:
6-1/2 gallons water pre-boil
steeped the 1 lb of grains in 1-1/2 - 1-1/3 gallons water for 25 minutes in a 2 gallon cooler to maintain temperature - about 154 F.
Post boil volume: 5 gallons
Hydrated the Nottingham for 15 minutes, stirred. Added some cooled wort to the hydrated yeast after about a half hour post hydration, added wort a couple more times up to 45 minutes - 1 hour after hydration.
Pitched 76 - 77 degrees F hydrated yeast/wort slurry into 75 F wort.
Aerated by stirring briskly for a couple of minutes. Also aerated by holding a metal strainer over the fermenter while draining the brew kettle.
Put the fermenter bucket into a tub of cool water/frozen ice packs to further cool the wort down from the initial 75 F.

The only other experience I have had with Liberty was with AHS's Low Carb Ale, didn't care for it at all. Not sure if the weird taste was the Liberty Hops or a result of the Beano in the recipe. Possible weird flavors from fermenting too warm - took me a while after I started brewing to figure out I needed to ferment ales closer to 68 - 70 degrees F rather than just "cooling wort to 80 degrees F" and fermenting per the instructions sent with the AHS extract kits.

Anyway, any thoughts on this recipe would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[riss_rizzo]

Overall I think your recipe looks good! If you like hops, this will give some good kick. My only concern with it would be that you said you had the kit for "awhile" and the liberty for over a year. Any off flavors or unexpected results would probably come from there if I had to guess. Otherwise, looks solid enough to me. Let us know how it comes out!

 

[MSBrewer76]

Thanks man! I am not exactly a "hop head" but do tend to like hoppy American style pale ales and some IPA's on occasion if they are not too bitter. I've had the kit for maybe 6 - 8 weeks. My thinking on modifying the Blonde recipe was basically to try to pep up a somewhat boring recipe since I had the hops anyway, and use them up before they got too old - I hate wasting anything.

The steeping grains were kept refrigerated in my beer fridge - no food in it at all. Sealed up in the shipping plastic from AHS. The Liberty hops were also kept in the bottom of the beer fridge in the foil/plastic bag from AHS. I checked my records and have had the hops for almost exactly a year. I had ordered another one of those Low Carb AHS kits before we drank the previous batch and we decided we hated the recipe, so I ended up using the LME from that kit on a golden ale recipe instead.

Getting ready to start a new job (probably next week) and will be on either a 14 days on/14 days off or 21 days on/21 days off schedule. I think it will give me lots of opportunity to brew more. Trying to fit in an all grain brew day on weekends has been hard at times with my previous job.

Anyway, regardless of how it turns out, it will ultimately be beer, and thus good! Any beer is better than none at all in my opinion!

 

[MSBrewer76]

I guess this wasn't a very interesting thread. Anybody else have any comments or thoughts on how this beer might turn out?

Thanks for any help.