critique my american pale ale - house brew - recipie

[tranceamerica]

Ok, I'm working towards my first partial mash brew - and want to make a 'house brew' american pale ale.

Idea is for a very drinkable, middle range alcohol recipie, that I can share with friends, and enjoy myself on a regular basis.

**********recipie***************

4 pounds light two row - partial mash
3 pounds light DME
1.5 oz cascade hops 60 minutes
.5 oz cascade hops 15 min
windsor ale yeast (this is what I have collected from my previous all extract batch)

I would mash the 4 pounds two row for 60 min, in 5 quarts of water, then sparge with an additional 1.5 gallons. add this to boil water to total 3.5 gallons. Add in DME as soon as boil starts again. do hops as described above, add to cold water in carboy & pitch as soon as possible.

I think this gives me 32 IBU.

comments?

 

[Mutilated1]

That sounds pretty good. I would drink that.

 

[tranceamerica]

sorry, forgot to post my questions:

1) what alcohol content should I expect? shooting for about 4-6% 5 would be ideal

2) I've never done a partial mash before, only extract brews. I usually use 6-8 pounds of LME, and get excellent results. Would the 4 pounds of grain equal about 3 pounds of extract? That's sort of my goal.

 

[Mutilated1]

sorry, forgot to post my questions:

1) what alcohol content should I expect? shooting for about 4-6% 5 would be ideal

ProMash puts you at about 1.049 to start with, if you finish at 1.010 that would be a bit over 5%.

2) I've never done a partial mash before, only extract brews. I usually use 6-8 pounds of LME, and get excellent results. Would the 4 pounds of grain equal about 3 pounds of extract? That's sort of my goal.

It doesn't exactly equal it, but yeah thats pretty close. Depending on your efficiency it could be more or less.

 

[Beerthoven]

That looks like an OK recipe to me, but I'd do a little something different.

First, I'd add some Crystal malt to the mash...maybe half a pound of Crystal 20. That would add some light caramel/honey flavor that I enjoy. It would also add a touch of color.

Second, I'd switch up the hopping schedule to give more flavor and aroma, maybe something like this (I'm assuming you have 2 ounces of Cascade to work with):

1.0 oz Cascade at 60 min.
0.5 oz. Cascade at 30 min.
0.25 oz. Cascade at 15 min.
0.25 oz. Cascade at 5 min.

Third, I'd use a different yeast, maybe Nottingham or SafAle US-05. Windsor doesn't attenuate very highly and I'd want something that isn't going to leave much residual sweetness.

 

[Soulive]

What temp are you planning to mash at?

 

[tranceamerica]

ProMash puts you at about 1.049 to start with, if you finish at 1.010 that would be a bit over 5%.




It doesn't exactly equal it, but yeah thats pretty close. Depending on your efficiency it could be more or less.

Sorry for the stupid noob questions but:

1) how do I calculate what gravity I would end at? I'd assume it's a function of the amount of fermentables I put in, and the type of yeast.

2) how do I calculate how much efficiency I'd get out of the mash?

 

[tranceamerica]

What temp are you planning to mash at?

good question. I was thinking I'd shoot for 155-160*F, and sparge at 170 - 180*F. I'm open to suggestion though.

Regarding yeast, I'll use the suggestion to use Nottingham. I can get that easily from my local homebrew supplier and it's cheap enough.

thanks for the hopping schedule. I'll try. I usually can't work fast enough to do that many hop switchouts.

 

[tranceamerica]

ok, here's the modified recipie

**********recipie***************

4 pounds light two row - partial mash
1/2 pound crystal malt
3 pounds light DME
1.0 oz Cascade at 60 min.
0.5 oz. Cascade at 30 min.
0.25 oz. Cascade at 15 min.
0.25 oz. Cascade at 5 min.
nottingham ale yeast

 

[Soulive]

good question. I was thinking I'd shoot for 155-160*F, and sparge at 170 - 180*F. I'm open to suggestion though.

Regarding yeast, I'll use the suggestion to use Nottingham. I can get that easily from my local homebrew supplier and it's cheap enough.

thanks for the hopping schedule. I'll try. I usually can't work fast enough to do that many hop switchouts.

If you want this beer to be crisp, mash around 150-151F. If you want it to be maltier mash around 153-154F. The Windsor yeast combined with the extract will be conducive to more body. Mashing lower will help balance that out and dry the beer slightly. Sparge near 175F regardless of mash temp...

 

[Beerthoven]

good question. I was thinking I'd shoot for 155-160*F, and sparge at 170 - 180*F. I'm open to suggestion though.

Regarding yeast, I'll use the suggestion to use Nottingham. I can get that easily from my local homebrew supplier and it's cheap enough.

thanks for the hopping schedule. I'll try. I usually can't work fast enough to do that many hop switchouts.

Try to mash a little lower, say 150-155. This temperature range will yield more fermentable sugars from the grain than will the higher range you give above. Sparge temp looks good.

Measure out each hop addition into a bowl before you get started. That way all you have to do is dump it into the pot at the appropriate time.

Sounds like you'll be making a fine beer soon!

 

[tranceamerica]

ok, here's the final modified recipie

**********recipie***************

4 pounds light two row - partial mash
1/2 pound crystal malt
3 pounds light DME
1.0 oz Cascade at 60 min.
0.5 oz. Cascade at 30 min.
0.25 oz. Cascade at 15 min.
0.25 oz. Cascade at 5 min.
nottingham ale yeast

mash the grains in a tad less than 6 quarts of water at 150*F for 1 hour, and sparge at 175*F with 1.5 gallons.

Add to boil water to total approximately 3.5 gallons.

Bring back to boil, add DME and do hopping schedule for total boil of 60 min.

add to cold water in carboy, top off if necessary, and pitch pre-preparared yeast starter (nottingham) ASAP.

 

[tranceamerica]

Measure out each hop addition into a bowl before you get started. That way all you have to do is dump it into the pot at the appropriate time.

I usually use a hop bag. How do you get the hops out w/no bag? I'm thinking I'm using whole hops in your scheme, not pellets, right? (I often use hop pellets - of course, they go right through the hop bag anyway...so maybe this is more of a general question - how do you get hops out of your wort, weather whole hops or pellets).

 

[Yooper]

I use a sanitized strainer over the fermenter, and pour the cooled wort through it. It's strains out most of the hop sludge. (Actually, since I'm a weakling and can't easily lift 5 gallons, I siphon the first two gallons or so off the top, then pour the rest through the stainer- but you get the idea!)

 

[Beerthoven]

I usually use a hop bag. How do you get the hops out w/no bag? I'm thinking I'm using whole hops in your scheme, not pellets, right? (I often use hop pellets - of course, they go right through the hop bag anyway...so maybe this is more of a general question - how do you get hops out of your wort, weather whole hops or pellets).

You can use either pellet or whole hops, I don't think it matters.

I do the same thing as YooperBrew to strain the hops out. I pour the cooled wort through a funnel with a plastic snap-in strainer. Its kinda a PITA, but it works well enough.



If you want to get really fancy you can whirlpool and then syphon. Try searching on whirlpool if you're interested in that.

 

[Willie3]

The recipe looks good, howver I have experienced that adding hops at 30 minutes does little to the beer. You get more from your hops if you add earlier or later in the boil ie better bittering qualities earlier in the boil (60-45min) and flavor and aroma later in the boil (15-0 minutes). I usually reserve these times for hop additions (as many as you can fit in if desired). I also have done 30 minute additions too but seem to get more out of my hops on the other specified times above.

RDWHAHB! The recipe posted will do just fine!!! Let us know how it turns!

- WW

 

[jds]

The only thing I see is that you can probably save yourself some effort with the yeast. Beersmith predicts an OG of about 1.053, assuming a 5 gallon batch. Jamil Z's pitching rate calculator says you need 0.9 of an 11 g package of dry yeast for optimal homebrewing pitching rates.

So, it seems you can skip the yeast starter and just rehydrate and pitch the notty. Heck, I think some folks don't even bother to rehydrate with their APA's.