American Pale Ale Carton Boat Session Ale clone

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WWJPD

Supporting Member
HBT Supporter
Joined
May 22, 2014
Messages
164
Reaction score
35
Location
Plainville
Recipe Type
Extract
Yeast
Wyeast Kolsch 2565 smack pack
Yeast Starter
No
Batch Size (Gallons)
5
Original Gravity
1.044
Final Gravity
1.011
Boiling Time (Minutes)
60
IBU
37
Color
SRM:3.50
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
28days @68°
Tasting Notes
Light, session ale, not too bitter, nice aroma
I put together a whole bunch of little bits of information from articles and videos from Augie Carton and Jesse Ferguson from Carton. Augie also gave me some advice on Untappd on the hops used and when.

Carton Boat Beer Clone, Extract version
OG=1.044, est FG=1.011 est ABV=4.3%
SRM:3.50 IBU=37

Link to beer on Untappd

Target 5gal volume into fermentor

60min boil

Water:
6gal Poland Spring water
2tsp Gypsum, 1tsp kosher salt

Steeping grains:
1lb Flaked wheat(for head)
.66lb American Light American Munich Malt - 10L

Fermentables:
4lb Briess Pilsen Light DME
.5lb Muntons Extra Light DME

Boil Hops:
-60min .5oz Nugget
-5min 1oz Cascade
-5min 1oz Columbus
-5min .25oz Galaxy(was going to use Centennial, but didn’t have any)

-5min Irish Moss

Yeast:
Wyeast Kolsch 2565 smack pack

I transfer to corny keg for dry hopping.

Dry Hop 1 - Days 1-4
1oz Citra
.5oz Amarillo

Dry Hop 2 - Days 5-8(Leave 1st dry hop batch in, add 2nd dry hop batch in, purge with CO2)
1oz Citra
.5oz Amarillo

Finings
1T gelatin in cool water, allowed to “bloom” for 30 minutes, hit with 15sec increments in microwave until felt it was dissolved. Added gelatin to keg, purged with CO2, shook up to mix in gelatin. Cold crashed for 3 days, then stored in basement @67° for 2 weeks.


The color is dead on. It cleared pretty well with the gelatin, but when I make this again, I think I'll only cold crash and not use gelatin. Taste and color wise, I think it's pretty close, but Boat has a bit more depth, aroma and that Citra zing on the back of your tongue, so I would probably add yet another ounce of Citra in the dry-hop.

In the pic, the clone is on the left and Boat is on the right

3 Hour Tour Boat Clone.jpg
 
This recipe came out great, but when I brew next I'm going to go all-grain.

Listening to Augie Carton today on Brewing Network Session, he mentioned that for malt they use 10% wheat, 4% acidulated, and the rest Pilsner. That acidulated malt might give it the zing I'm looking for.

I was at the brewery a month ago talking to brewery Jeremy and he said I was close on the hops. He also showed me the 8' high "hop rocket" they have which looks sort of like a rocket ship. He told me they pump Boat through it and that really pumps in the aromas. I don't have a hop back, so I'm thinking chill down to somewhere between 200° and 180° and steep/whirlpool the late hops for 30min.

For the yeast, 2565 is the one to use per Jeremy, but I will make a 1.5L starter first and also ferment around 62°-64°. I'll be going next weekend and I'll try to get advice on what temp they ferment at.

I'm sticking with the dry hop that I originally had per Augie's advice. Jeremy also told me that Boat is supposed to be cloudy due to the dry hop and the Kolsch yeast, so I won't be using gelatin and will just cold crash down to 34°.
 
Just wondering how your second batch turned out and if you have gotten any more information on the fermentation temperatures. I'm thinking of brewing this beer over the weekend.

Looks really good.
 
This recipe came out great, but when I brew next I'm going to go all-grain.

Listening to Augie Carton today on Brewing Network Session, he mentioned that for malt they use 10% wheat, 4% acidulated, and the rest Pilsner. That acidulated malt might give it the zing I'm looking for.

I was at the brewery a month ago talking to brewery Jeremy and he said I was close on the hops. He also showed me the 8' high "hop rocket" they have which looks sort of like a rocket ship. He told me they pump Boat through it and that really pumps in the aromas. I don't have a hop back, so I'm thinking chill down to somewhere between 200° and 180° and steep/whirlpool the late hops for 30min.

For the yeast, 2565 is the one to use per Jeremy, but I will make a 1.5L starter first and also ferment around 62°-64°. I'll be going next weekend and I'll try to get advice on what temp they ferment at.

I'm sticking with the dry hop that I originally had per Augie's advice. Jeremy also told me that Boat is supposed to be cloudy due to the dry hop and the Kolsch yeast, so I won't be using gelatin and will just cold crash down to 34°.

Used this insight to make a batch. 3 gallon, All Grain. Just racked to a keg last night, it's promising thus far.

Primary for 2 weeks, cold crashed and racked to Secondary, 1st dry hop for 4 days, the added 2nd/ CO2 purge for 4 days.

I'll pour it tomorrow and show it off.

Eric
 
I was going to brew this back in the spring, but needed a higher ABV for a homebrew fest/competition, so I changed up the recipe a bit. I did go with the acidulated malt %, but it didn't give me that zing I had hoped for.

I did forget to mention that when I talked to Jeremy last, he told me to ferment between 62°-64°.

@Jackpot01, I'm curious to hear how yours came out.
 
Came out pretty good, 4 lb Pilsner, 1/2 Flaked Wheat, 1/4 Acidulated. Followed your hop schedule. Gave it about 15 mins before I cooled the wort. Fermented around 68, will try a lil cooler next time. My fave Homebrew thus far

20151004_133153.jpg
 
I was going to brew this back in the spring, but needed a higher ABV for a homebrew fest/competition, so I changed up the recipe a bit. I did go with the acidulated malt %, but it didn't give me that zing I had hoped for.

I did forget to mention that when I talked to Jeremy last, he told me to ferment between 62°-64°.

@Jackpot01, I'm curious to hear how yours came out.

How is the hop taste as compared to Boat Beer.

I tried my own clone of this once and it failed miserably. It is such a light bodied beer and not much room to hide anything of an off taste.
 
My Boat clone turned out fantastic and I was very happy. I can't do the hop rocket like Carton has but my dry hop was pretty damn good.

The Nelson Sauvin version I did with the same grain bill was just dank and I liked it, but the Boat hop schedule was better.
 
The hop schedule was great. I made another batch, just put it in secondary. Used German ale yeast this time, LHBS was out of Kolsch, but the properties were darn close.
 
The German Ale yeast is just a little bit different. I can tell something is a little off compared to the Kolsch yeast.
 
I was going to brew this back in the spring, but needed a higher ABV for a homebrew fest/competition, so I changed up the recipe a bit. I did go with the acidulated malt %, but it didn't give me that zing I had hoped for.

I did forget to mention that when I talked to Jeremy last, he told me to ferment between 62°-64°.

@Jackpot01, I'm curious to hear how yours came out.

WWJPD,
Excellent recipe. Thank so much for sharing. I have been wanting to try this clone as Boat is a wonderfully drinking beer and very hard to get out West. Anyways, I was doing some more research and found this article on Carton

http://beerstainedletter.blogspot.com/2011/07/carton-brewing-fires-up-kettle-in-test.html

In it, it mentions they do the following

"The beer is bittered with Crystal and Nugget hops, with later additions of Galaxy, Citra, Cascade and Nugget again."

Maybe that is what you are missing the zing from.

I will be hopefully trying the all grain version this weekend if the Honey-dos don't pile up. Keep you all posted.
 
Thank you WWJPD for sharing this.
I have been wanting to make this recipe as Boat is a wonderfully drinking beer. Wish I could always get it out West here. I will hopefully trying this out this weekend if all goes well and the Honey Do's do not pile up.

Anyways, I was doing some research and found this article on Carton. It maybe the "zing" you are looking for.

http://beerstainedletter.blogspot.com/2011/07/carton-brewing-fires-up-kettle-in-test.html

"The beer is bittered with Crystal and Nugget hops, with later additions of Galaxy, Citra, Cascade and Nugget again."

:mug:
 
I was going to brew this back in the spring, but needed a higher ABV for a homebrew fest/competition, so I changed up the recipe a bit. I did go with the acidulated malt %, but it didn't give me that zing I had hoped for.

I did forget to mention that when I talked to Jeremy last, he told me to ferment between 62°-64°.

@Jackpot01, I'm curious to hear how yours came out.


@WWJPD and @Jackpot01
Can you tell how many days you kept your primary in fermentation at 62-64 degrees? Mine has been in primary for a week now at the formentioned 68. I will adjust my temp to the 62-64 but wanted to schedule into my calendar when to dry hop.

Great work you guys. Thanks for sharing.
 
@WWJPD and @Jackpot01
Can you tell how many days you kept your primary in fermentation at 62-64 degrees? Mine has been in primary for a week now at the formentioned 68. I will adjust my temp to the 62-64 but wanted to schedule into my calendar when to dry hop.

Great work you guys. Thanks for sharing.

Sorry, missed this before now. For my first time, I didn't have ferm chamber, the second time I did and kept it at 63° for 5 days, then raised to 67° over 24 hours, then up to 72° over another 24 hours, left at that for a few days and then crashed it down to 33° to clarify, then brought up to 50° to dry hop. I can't remember why I did that now.

One thing I thought to add... Augie was on the Brewing Network(maybe The Session??) and said for their grain bill they use 10% wheat, 4% acidulated malt, rest pilsner malt. Eventually I'll rebrew this recipe, but probably not for a few months.:tank:
 
@WWJPD

My brew went well, and after month and a half of waiting I finally got to taste the final product amoungst 6 of my buddies. They all loved it for the hop aroma and taste and feel. My best home brew so far thanks to your post. I look forward to continue brewing this. For now and quick turn around, I am experimenting with this grain bill with CA Ale yeast and Mosaic hops. Will let you all know how it turns out.
 
Well, I must say, the IPA version with WLP001 did not fair as well as the Carton Boat clone. It was good, but not as good as the Boat clone. Needed more grain bill to up the ABV rather than throwing extra sugar at it (corn sugar, table sugar, dextrin, etc). Lacked the body of the Boat clone.
 
Used this insight to make a batch. 3 gallon, All Grain. Just racked to a keg last night, it's promising thus far.

Primary for 2 weeks, cold crashed and racked to Secondary, 1st dry hop for 4 days, the added 2nd/ CO2 purge for 4 days.

I'll pour it tomorrow and show it off.

Eric

Silly question for clarification: When you do the above...is it sitting on C02 the whole time. I.e do you add fermented beer to keg, add 1st dry hops seal with C02 and keep on CO2? or just C02 to purge keg until final addition. Meaning after all is said is done it goes on C02 gas to force carb.
 
Silly question for clarification: When you do the above...is it sitting on C02 the whole time. I.e do you add fermented beer to keg, add 1st dry hops seal with C02 and keep on CO2? or just C02 to purge keg until final addition. Meaning after all is said is done it goes on C02 gas to force carb.

Here is my "technique". I primary in a carboy. Rack to keg that was cleaned, purged with CO2. I place the racking hose all the way down in the bottom of the keg so that it forces the CO2 up and out. I put the lid on and purge again with like 5 psi. When I add the second dry hop, I pull the lid, drop in the hops and purge again with CO2.

The thought process behind this for me is that any "loose" oxygen will be displaced when I vent out the CO2. Any that make it into the beer should get cleaned up by the yeast.
 
Raising this thread bc im planning to brew it this weekend. Anybody here rebrew it again? Op, did you move all your 5 minute additions to whirlpool?
 
Thanks for bumping this post. It looks like it could be a real nice session beer. I put the info Beersmith and got it similar to what Carton posts on their site. Probably would skip the late addition hops for a whirlpool\hopstand. Also thinking about cranking up the dry hop some too.
 
I too just entered it into beer smith. I'm pretty close on everything. The color is .2srm off and its assuming FG as 1.006 as opposed to 1.011. I'm still new with beer smith. I also moved the 5 minute additions to whirlpool and I plan to whirlpool 15 minutes at 180.
My recipe is as follows:
OG: 1.044
FG:1.006
7 gal batch
.5 gal fermenter loss
3.3srm
35 ibu
12 lbs grain
10.25 lbs German pilsner
1.25 lbs Flaked wheat
.5. Lb Acidulated
.25 oz nugget 50 min
.4 oz cascade 50 min (didn't have crystal)
.25 oz nugget steep 15 min 180 F
.6 oz cascade steep
1 oz citra steep
1oz mosaic steep (didn't have galaxy)

Wyeast 2565.
No starter

Dry hop 1-4
.25 oz nugget
.5 oz cascade
.5 oz citra

Dry hop 4-8
.25 oz nugget
.5 oz cascade
.5 oz citra

Hoping to at least get close with this.
 
This bubbling away now in my fermenter. My first brew where I got my temps and gravity right on with my new system. Hopefully that's a good sign of the brew to come. Ill post results back for those interested.
 
Update.
My final gravity came in at 1.011.
Racked to keg Saturday and added both dry hop steps at once. Hooked to gas and left to chill since. Pulled a sample last night, taste dam near close to boat and the aroma is close too. Its still flat so I'm waiting for the full week of dry hopping to complete and fully carb up. Thats when ill do my taste comparison with the real beer.
 
So last update. Came out fantastic but not quite boat. Boat has a stronger bitter bite then mine does, better piney and citrus hop aroma, and the color is a bit off. I think I enjoy mine a bit better. Its a bit smoother. If I wanted to go closer to boat, i would move the the bittering addition up to the full 60 minutes and increase the amount just a bit, and I would up the dry hop and maybe add more nugget to the dry hop.
Its about 3 weeks old in the keg now and im a little over half way thru it and the yeast has dropped out and the beer has cleared. Still taste pretty good but was much better when cloudy. All in all, its probably gonna become one of my more regular brews, and I probably will stick with my recipe rather then trying to nail boat.
Here's a comparison of color:
 

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Thanks for sharing! The plan is to brew this on the weekend. I tweaked my recipe some too. I've never had Boat but it sounds good so I'm going for a sudo clone\tweaked to my own tastes. I'll make sure to post my results as well.

One question I did have is what temp did you ferment at?

Batch Size (fermenter): 6.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.043 SG
Estimated Color: 3.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 35.2 IBUs

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
8 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 86.8 %
1 lbs Wheat Malt, White (Rahr) (3.2 SRM) Grain 2 10.5 %
4.0 oz Acidulated (Weyermann) (1.8 SRM) Grain 3 2.7 %
0.77 oz Crystal [3.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 4 8.7 IBUs
0.26 oz Nugget [13.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 10.8 IBUs
0.52 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 20.0 Hop 6 2.8 IBUs
0.52 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 20.0 Hop 7 6.0 IBUs
0.26 oz Galaxy [14.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 20.0 Hop 8 3.5 IBUs
0.26 oz Nugget [13.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 20.0 Hop 9 3.3 IBUs
1.0 pkg Kolsch Yeast (Wyeast Labs #2565) [124.21 Yeast 10 -
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days Hop 11 0.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days Hop 12 0.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Galaxy [14.00 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days Hop 13 0.0 IBUs
 
I checked it a couple times during fermentation. IIRC I was at about 68. I don't have a ferm chamber, so i just try to keep it as consistent as I can. I left in primary for 2 weeks, then went right to keg with my dry hop and chilled and pressurized right away to 12psi. I use the set and forget method and let it sit for a week or 2 before I started drinking it. Hope this helps.

You from Jersey at all? If you get the chance, try boat at the brewery. Its the freshest and nice and cloudy. The yeast I feel smooths the bitterness a bit and helps add a better hop aroma/flavor, whereas out of the cans its usually cleared a bit. At least this has been my experience. A very good beer either way.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the temp info. I'll probably start lower but then bump up later to around that temp.

Actually I'm over on the west coast so haven't had the chance to try Carton's stuff just heard about them. I mainly was looking for something that was lower ABV and I havent tried a Kolsch yeast so I thought it might be fun. It sounds like this is a lower floc yeast which explains why its cloudy to start. Also might explain the difference with brewery to cans. Either way looking forward to making this.
 
Brewed this yesterday following the recipe I posted earlier. Super smooth brew day except my OG has been a little high ever since I went to BIAB for my mash tun cooler. Haven't found a good way to bump my mash efficiency without messing up other numbers in Beersmith.

OG was 1.048 and I got a solid 5.5 gallon into my fermenter. Yeast showed activity after a couple of hours. I ended up just using my standard ferm temp of 66. I wanted to get a baseline for the Kolsch yeast since its my first time using it. Still should be in the session beer category at 4.7%. I'll post an update in 2 weeks when I keg. Cheers.
 
Quick update. Kegged the beer on day 14 with a FG of 1.012. (4.7 % abv) First pour was super hazy. Getting lots of nice citrus on the nose and citrus with a little dankness flavor wise. Super crushable. Very happy with how this turned out.
IMG_0483 (1).JPG
 
Looks great. Color looks just like how mine came out. Do you get a little bitter bite from the 60 minute additions? Mine was pretty smooth with smaller 50 minute additions. Drink it while its cloudy, I thought it had the best aroma and flavor then. I got a little left in the keg, I'm considering swirling the keg a bit to try and stir up the sediment, but I'm not so sure that's a good idea.
Cheers.
 
I don't feel the beer is very bitter at all. I was aiming for the 35 ibu like the original and that paired with sticking to late\whirlpool I get more flavor then bitterness. Also when the beer warms up a bit (I keep the kegerator at 36 for foaming reasons) the hops come out even more. Don't think this keg will last long.
 
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