First Attempt at building a Recipe - Pale Ale

[heserb]

I am embarking on building my own recipes and doing my first all grain batch after almost 2 years of brewing extract and partial mash recipe kits. I chose to do a Pale Ale because the recipes seem fairly simple. My first stab at it is below. Please provide constructive feedback specifically on the hops (my weakest area). Any suggestions/tips on recipe building and all grain brewing is appreciated at this point in time. I have a 10 gallon Igloo Converted Mash Tun, 10 gallon igloo Hot Liquor Tank, and a 8.5 Gallon Brew Pot. I do full boils and cool with a wort chiller.

If I am way off base with this recipe please let me know. Thanks!!

Method: All Grain
Style: American Pale Ale
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 5.5 gallons (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 7.5 gallons
Boil Gravity: 1.043 (recipe based estimate)
Efficiency: 70% (brew house) *Assumed at this point

Original Gravity: 1.059
Final Gravity: 1.015
ABV (standard): 5.7%
IBU (tinseth): 39.69
SRM (morey): 7.72

Fermentables
Amount Fermentable PPG °L Bill %
10.5 lb American - Pale 2-Row 37 1.8 89.4%
0.75 lb American - Caramel / Crystal 40L 34 40 6.4%
0.5 lb Belgian - Biscuit 35 23 4.3%
11.75 lb Total

Hops
Amount Variety Type AA Use Time IBU
1.25 oz Amarillo Pellet 8.6 Boil 30 min 30.36
1 oz Cascade Pellet 7 Boil 10 min 9.33
1 oz Cascade Pellet 7 Boil 0 min

Mash Guidelines
Mash at 152 F
Starting Mash Thickness: 1.5 qt/lb

Yeast
White Labs - California Ale V Yeast WLP051

 

[MizzouFermentationScience]

Welcome to the party, below are my thought which are worth what you paid for them:
- 7.5 gallon boil volume is high, I rarely boil off more than 1.5 gallons unless I need to- slow brewers boil with one stream of bubbles works fine. That said, efficiency increases if you sparge the crap out of the grain so nothing wasted except propane. Calibrate your boil kettle so you know where you’re volume is- it sucks to have an extra half gallon of wort.
- adjust the base malt down to the lowest acceptable ABV (5%?). 70% efficiency is pretty low, if you do in fact do a massive sparge you may end up with over 7% (personnally, I don’t make this adjustment, I just get drunker).
- biscuit malt tastes like washcloth and bread dough to me, make sure beers you like use it. I’m not gonna yuck your yum but I don’t use biscuit ever because I personally dislike the taste.
-my gut feeling is 0.5 lbs of crystal is enough, but it’s really just a color thing so try it and adjust next time.
- mash 152 (and the biscuit) are going to make the beer “smoother” than I like my pale ales, I like consider them flavorful Czech lagers. I like 148-149.
- hot take: late hop additions are useless. Hit your IBU with an hour or half hour adds, save aromatics for flame out (we should stop calling it that, it should be called “chiller on”). Dump some pellets in when you start cooling and rack off later. I’m a firm believer that aromatics are destroyed by heat and only “chiller on” and dry hops bring any aromatics and flavor.
- cascade is great, but personalize this beer with a neat aromatic hop at “chiller on”. My rule of thumb is hops that start with “c”, except c sometimes sounds like an “s” so simcoe counts. Also Amarillo and ahtanum are great. My rule is complicated. Essentially I hate golding and fuggles.
- 1.25 quarts/lb is fine for single infusion, save room for more sparge. For me I am always in 5 gallons so I don’t have a bunch of room to add cold/boiling water for adjustment (I use HERMs and use a minimum of 1.5 q/lb so it doesn’t really matter.
- heat sparge water to essentially boiling before you put it in your HLT. You have to overcome a pretty big heat sink to get to 168, I have specifically tried to extract tannins during sparge and have yet to do so. Storing in a cooler and transferring is going to drop your sparge enough that it needs to be as hot as you can get it.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

the recipe looks sound for a pale ale, it wont have a huge hop flavor after 30 days so don't expect it just a nice pale beer, good one

 

[JKaranka]

I'd avoid biscuit malt in that quantity and add a cascade dry hop.

 

[heserb]

Welcome to the party, below are my thought which are worth what you paid for them:
- 7.5 gallon boil volume is high, I rarely boil off more than 1.5 gallons unless I need to- slow brewers boil with one stream of bubbles works fine. That said, efficiency increases if you sparge the crap out of the grain so nothing wasted except propane. Calibrate your boil kettle so you know where you’re volume is- it sucks to have an extra half gallon of wort.
- adjust the base malt down to the lowest acceptable ABV (5%?). 70% efficiency is pretty low, if you do in fact do a massive sparge you may end up with over 7% (personnally, I don’t make this adjustment, I just get drunker).
- biscuit malt tastes like washcloth and bread dough to me, make sure beers you like use it. I’m not gonna yuck your yum but I don’t use biscuit ever because I personally dislike the taste.
-my gut feeling is 0.5 lbs of crystal is enough, but it’s really just a color thing so try it and adjust next time.
- mash 152 (and the biscuit) are going to make the beer “smoother” than I like my pale ales, I like consider them flavorful Czech lagers. I like 148-149.
- hot take: late hop additions are useless. Hit your IBU with an hour or half hour adds, save aromatics for flame out (we should stop calling it that, it should be called “chiller on”). Dump some pellets in when you start cooling and rack off later. I’m a firm believer that aromatics are destroyed by heat and only “chiller on” and dry hops bring any aromatics and flavor.
- cascade is great, but personalize this beer with a neat aromatic hop at “chiller on”. My rule of thumb is hops that start with “c”, except c sometimes sounds like an “s” so simcoe counts. Also Amarillo and ahtanum are great. My rule is complicated. Essentially I hate golding and fuggles.
- 1.25 quarts/lb is fine for single infusion, save room for more sparge. For me I am always in 5 gallons so I don’t have a bunch of room to add cold/boiling water for adjustment (I use HERMs and use a minimum of 1.5 q/lb so it doesn’t really matter.
- heat sparge water to essentially boiling before you put it in your HLT. You have to overcome a pretty big heat sink to get to 168, I have specifically tried to extract tannins during sparge and have yet to do so. Storing in a cooler and transferring is going to drop your sparge enough that it needs to be as hot as you can get it.

Thank you for the advice here. I will go back to the drawing board a bit on the Biscuit Malt. Would a Munich or Vienna malt serve me better or just go with the 2-Row and Crystal? I want to have a good crisp pale and looked at Simcoe hops as well. For hops I found this website that has given the description to off of. https://www.homebrewstuff.com/hop-profiles

As for the efficiency, I am just guessing at what I will have as I have never done an all grain brew let alone one with this equipment. I guess I will see as I go.

 

[heserb]

What would you guys do for a hop schedule to make bring out the bitter/hop flavor profile for a pale ale but not make it a hop bomb?

 

[JKaranka]

Efficiency: I think my first all grain was around 50-55%. Many years later I still use a simple setup and it's around 70 with the odd surprise.

 

[MizzouFermentationScience]

Thank you for the advice here. I will go back to the drawing board a bit on the Biscuit Malt. Would a Munich or Vienna malt serve me better or just go with the 2-Row and Crystal? I want to have a good crisp pale and looked at Simcoe hops as well. For hops I found this website that has given the description to off of. https://www.homebrewstuff.com/hop-profiles

As for the efficiency, I am just guessing at what I will have as I have never done an all grain brew let alone one with this equipment. I guess I will see as I go.

I’d say Munich would be your best bet, but nothing is wrong with a 100% 2-row beer. I use this website for malt character- https://www.winning-homebrew.com/malts.html

I did a quick search for a boulevard pale ale clone recipe (my “if you could only have one beer for the rest of your life”) and it used 10% Munich. As for hops- 40 ibu is about right, I’d use a cheap hop with high AA at 60 minutes to get to 40 ibu then add flavor hops at flameout. I’d be tempted to add pellets loose and try to get some into your fermentor, a quasi dry hop that should bring you more enduring aromatics.

As for efficiency, there is no way to tell before you start, experience is worth a lot of points. Have some extract around in case you need to bump it up. I used to get 75% on a similar set up every time, but I’m sure my first beers where a lot less.

 

[Morrey]

Designing your own recipe is very rewarding in that your end results are your own.

What would you guys do for a hop schedule to make bring out the bitter/hop flavor profile for a pale ale but not make it a hop bomb?

You'll get (and retain) good hop flavors and aromas by using them later in the boil or FO just as you have outlined. You want bittering early on, but flavor and aroma really comes at the end. Good job.

One key factor you'll soon discover in recipe design is how water management (ie ph and brewing salts) can impact your efficiency and the flavor profiles you are asking about. Chlorides (Cl)...not chlorine, lol, can impact the beer by enhancing the maltiness and boosting mouthfeel. By contrast, Sulfates (SO4) will increase hop perception and make the hops "pop" in your beer.

Even starting out by buying some bottled RO water and adding some brewing salts and a small amount of lactic acid can turn an average beer into one to be proud of.

 

[heserb]

Thanks Mizzou and JKaranka. I really appreciate the help. I think I have settled in on a recipe to brew. I am going to switch out biscuit malt and add 10% Munich Malt. I'm also going to take the 1.0 oz of Cascade hops that I had at Flameout and put that in as a dry hop addition to see how that works. I haven't ever dry hopped before so might as well get that under my belt with this batch too.

As long as I don't screw something else up, I should at a minimum have a drinkable pale ale that I can build off of.

 

[heserb]

Thanks Morrey, I haven't really worried about brewing water to date. I've had some really good kit beers with our tap water here in Colorado. I definitely want to start geeking out on water chemistry after I get an all grain batch or two on my scoreboard. Thanks for the information.

 

[Morrey]

Thanks Morrey, I haven't really worried about brewing water to date. I've had some really good kit beers with our tap water here in Colorado. I definitely want to start geeking out on water chemistry after I get an all grain batch or two on my scoreboard. Thanks for the information.

Yeah, I hate to be the bearer of gloom news, but water makeup is a frontier you'll need to tackle at some point. But, first things first and getting the process down obviously comes first. Lots of info is available on water, and if you need some starting points, just reach out.

 

[aprichman]

Welcome to the party, below are my thought which are worth what you paid for them:
- 7.5 gallon boil volume is high, I rarely boil off more than 1.5 gallons unless I need to- slow brewers boil with one stream of bubbles works fine. That said, efficiency increases if you sparge the crap out of the grain so nothing wasted except propane. Calibrate your boil kettle so you know where you’re volume is- it sucks to have an extra half gallon of wort.
- adjust the base malt down to the lowest acceptable ABV (5%?). 70% efficiency is pretty low, if you do in fact do a massive sparge you may end up with over 7% (personnally, I don’t make this adjustment, I just get drunker).
- biscuit malt tastes like washcloth and bread dough to me, make sure beers you like use it. I’m not gonna yuck your yum but I don’t use biscuit ever because I personally dislike the taste.
-my gut feeling is 0.5 lbs of crystal is enough, but it’s really just a color thing so try it and adjust next time.
- mash 152 (and the biscuit) are going to make the beer “smoother” than I like my pale ales, I like consider them flavorful Czech lagers. I like 148-149.
- hot take: late hop additions are useless. Hit your IBU with an hour or half hour adds, save aromatics for flame out (we should stop calling it that, it should be called “chiller on”). Dump some pellets in when you start cooling and rack off later. I’m a firm believer that aromatics are destroyed by heat and only “chiller on” and dry hops bring any aromatics and flavor.
- cascade is great, but personalize this beer with a neat aromatic hop at “chiller on”. My rule of thumb is hops that start with “c”, except c sometimes sounds like an “s” so simcoe counts. Also Amarillo and ahtanum are great. My rule is complicated. Essentially I hate golding and fuggles.
- 1.25 quarts/lb is fine for single infusion, save room for more sparge. For me I am always in 5 gallons so I don’t have a bunch of room to add cold/boiling water for adjustment (I use HERMs and use a minimum of 1.5 q/lb so it doesn’t really matter.
- heat sparge water to essentially boiling before you put it in your HLT. You have to overcome a pretty big heat sink to get to 168, I have specifically tried to extract tannins during sparge and have yet to do so. Storing in a cooler and transferring is going to drop your sparge enough that it needs to be as hot as you can get it.

This is terrible advice.

7.5 gallons is a normal volume to start a 60 minute boil.

70% is a pretty normal efficiency, I would expect 65 - 75% depending on your setup.

Biscuit malt tastes great.

0.75 lbs of crystal is fine. I'm pretty sure Sierra Nevada Pale Ale uses a full lb for 5 gallons.

152 lbs is a good mash temp for a medium bodied beer.

Cascade is a fine, again SN Pale Ale uses this as the flavor / aroma hop.

Do not heat your sparge water to boiling temperatures. You can also BIAB and do a full volume mash.

Brew the beer you designed, it looks like a fine recipe. Taste it. Make changes based on that. Taste is subjective.

 

[MizzouFermentationScience]

This is terrible advice.

7.5 gallons is a normal volume to start a 60 minute boil.

70% is a pretty normal efficiency, I would expect 65 - 75% depending on your setup.

Biscuit malt tastes great.

0.75 lbs of crystal is fine. I'm pretty sure Sierra Nevada Pale Ale uses a full lb for 5 gallons.

152 lbs is a good mash temp for a medium bodied beer.

Cascade is a fine, again SN Pale Ale uses this as the flavor / aroma hop.

Do not heat your sparge water to boiling temperatures. You can also BIAB and do a full volume mash.

Brew the beer you designed, it looks like a fine recipe. Taste it. Make changes based on that. Taste is subjective.

And queue the *********. Looking for an argument? I said 7.5 is high, I boil off 1 gallon typically but there is no harm in boiling off more.

I said that I personally don’t like biscuit and he should make sure that pale ales that he likes use it. If he loves SN, then by all means go for it.

I said my gut feeling is 0.5 lbs crystal but it doesn’t really matter- tell my how that is terrible.

I said 152 will make the beer smoother than I like my pale ales. Nothing wrong with 152 but I prefer a crisper style that is brewed at 148-149.

I never said anything bad about cascade, I like “c” hops.

If you are sparging from an HLT and your mash is at 150, then your sparge water should be damn close to boiling. I claim no knowledge on BIAB, for it is the method of amateurs. Measure the effluent temperature and I guarantee you that 168 sparge water will not yield 168 wort temperature. Efficiency will plummet, and like I said- using electronic HERMs I have yet to achieve noticeable tannin extraction at 180.

Finally, do whatever the hell you want and adjust in the future. You will make beer with the original recipe and it will be fine. Just try to understand what you are doing and isolate variables.

As for the water questions raised by previous posters- my philosophy is that certain styles originated around specific water sources. I don’t try to clone beers and appreciate the nuances of my local water source (which is low in sulfates so I know that I have to increase hop additions). If you want to geek out on water, more power to you. It’s worth getting water reports to find out what you are working with, but my approach is to create styles unique to my water rather than replicate other beers.

 

[heserb]

I have taken a bit of advice from all and will impart my own experiences. I will have to do a bit of trial and error and come up with what works best for my setup and my area. I appreciate the critique and feedback on this recipe and look forward to being more active on these forums. Like I said I’ve been brewing for a couple of years, but lately have gotten the bug to move beyond the kits and experiment more.

 

[Morrey]

I have taken a bit of advice from all and will impart my own experiences. I will have to do a bit of trial and error and come up with what works best for my setup and my area. I appreciate the critique and feedback on this recipe and look forward to being more active on these forums. Like I said I’ve been brewing for a couple of years, but lately have gotten the bug to move beyond the kits and experiment more.

You have a good background from which to grow your advanced brewing skills and recipe design. From this point forward you'll simply "finesse" the beer you want to suit your own personal tastes. Only you and your taste buds will know which malts and hops are right for YOU.

You obviously have sanitation and temperature management under control since that is a big part of any effort. Now it comes down to a dabble more of this or a dribble less of that. In the kit mentality, all of this is measured and packaged out for you. But when you start from scratch, this is your baby from the word go. Most recipe designers will suggest that you take meticulous notes to refer back and replicate next brew or make adjustments. Even if you screw something up, make good notes so you can avoid that...or even replicate that if it ends up to be good. I keep an acetate folder full of recipes I have built with the dates, recipe, fermentation temp, yeast type.....and on.

Great beers will come your way! Good luck.

 

[kh54s10]

I find all the advice given to be good. There are personal choices in there. I like the original recipe with the exception of the bisquit. I have never used it, but hear it actually gives a bread/bisquit flavor. I would not want that in my pale ale. I too would go for a crisper, drier mouthfeel by mashing a little lower. I would use 150 as a target.

The only other questionable is the sparge water temperature. If you are fly sparging you will want to do a mash-out. That is to bring the grainbed temperature to 170 degrees to stop conversion and changing the flavor profile during the long sparge sequence. If you are doing a batch sparge the temperature of the sparge water doesn't really make a difference. You get to boiling fast enough that the flavor profile doesn't change significantly. I have never sparged with water over 170 degrees. And recently have just used the water that was heated for the strike and was just sitting in the pot without any further heating.

 

[heserb]

At this point I intend to batch sparge. I will likely try fly sparging at some point just to have the experience and see what it potentially changes with the process. I tend to research the hell out of things so when I was building my mash tun and hot liquor tank I probably put in 50 hours of reading batch vs. fly sparging, the pros and cons, and everybody's arguments.

The great thing about brewing, is yes you can make some fantastic beer and you can make some undrinkable beer but for the most part it is all up to the consumer and what they want. So let the experiment begin. I really like kit beers and haven't really ever had a bad one. I'm just excited to build my own book.

 

[Schwabizzle]

Heserb,
I too have started building my own recipes,moving on from the kit life. I have breed some great beers from kits,but like you, I want to build up my own recipes. This is the fun part. Enjoy the journey!

 

[MizzouFermentationScience]

Please disregard my sparge temperature recommendations if you are batch sparging- I don’t have any experience. Fly sparging isn’t difficult with your set up, all you need is altitude. As for the arguments between the two, I defer to others. I personally like fly sparging, but that’s because it’s what I learned first and continue doing.

 

[heserb]

Just an update guys, I brewed that Pale Ale recipe over the weekend and it went pretty smooth. My recipe OG was 1.057 and my tested OG was 1.058. I used Brewer's Friend efficiency calculator and calculated it out to just over 68% for brewhouse efficiency. I know some areas I need to improve on through the process, but I'm pretty happy with the first attempt. Now if the Yeast does it's job, air lock is going crazy as we speak, things will be just peachy.

Thanks again for the input.

 

[jjw5015]

[QUOTE=" I claim no knowledge on BIAB, for it is the method of amateurs. [/QUOTE]

Who's the *********?

 

[Morrey]

Just an update guys, I brewed that Pale Ale recipe over the weekend and it went pretty smooth. My recipe OG was 1.057 and my tested OG was 1.058. I used Brewer's Friend efficiency calculator and calculated it out to just over 68% for brewhouse efficiency. I know some areas I need to improve on through the process, but I'm pretty happy with the first attempt. Now if the Yeast does it's job, air lock is going crazy as we speak, things will be just peachy.

Thanks again for the input.

Congrats...success! When you can nail an efficiency that closely, call your brew day a winner for sure!

You say there are areas (processes) you wish to improve upon. I'm sure we all say this from time to time, but to nail consistent numbers means you'll nail consistent recipes with repeatable results. If 68% is where you find the sweet spot, and provided you can repeat that same efficiency, you are a fine brewer in many circles. Big numbers don't mean much if they are not consistent.

Great job!

 

[heserb]

Hey guys, another update. Last Sunday I kegged my Pale Ale after being in the primary for 2 weeks and then one week in the secondary on one ounce of Cascade Hops. I have run into a couple of interesting things.

1) By my recipe the FG was supposed to be 1.015 and mine came out at 1.010. So I ended up with 6.3% ABV vs 5.5% in the recipe. Not a bad thing in my opinion, it doesn't really have a noticeable alcohol bite. Though the hops get lost in the back end. It was my first time dry hopping and I just dumped them into the secondary and racked the beer on top of them.
2) When I racked to the keg, I only ended up between 4.0 and 4.5 gallons of beer. I left some liquid behind as it had quite a bit of sediment in it. Is there something I can do about this? More boil volume therefore more volume to the primary? The only other thing I can think of is that when I pulled the wort out of the MLT it never got clear, it stayed cloudy. I also dumped from my boil kettle into my primary like I always did with Partial Mash and Extra brews. Should I rack over from kettle to primary when doing all grain?

The beer is pretty good. Not my best, but very drinkable.

 

[bleme]

You can get more beer into your keg by using whirlfloc in your boil and cold crashing 3 days after you dry-hop.

FG has too many factors to really nail down. I usually end lower than a yeast advertises. As your process stabilizes, you'll be able to estimate it more accurately.

 

[trav77]

1) By my recipe the FG was supposed to be 1.015 and mine came out at 1.010. So I ended up with 6.3% ABV vs 5.5% in the recipe. Not a bad thing in my opinion, it doesn't really have a noticeable alcohol bite. Though the hops get lost in the back end. It was my first time dry hopping and I just dumped them into the secondary and racked the beer on top of them.

Looks like you got 83% attenuation which is above what whitelabs advertises for that strain but not crazy high. What temp did you mash at? Do you have any fermentation temperature control? In any case, like you said, not the worst problem to have.

How much did you dry hop with? I didn't notice it in your earlier posts...

2) When I racked to the keg, I only ended up between 4.0 and 4.5 gallons of beer. I left some liquid behind as it had quite a bit of sediment in it. Is there something I can do about this? More boil volume therefore more volume to the primary? The only other thing I can think of is that when I pulled the wort out of the MLT it never got clear, it stayed cloudy. I also dumped from my boil kettle into my primary like I always did with Partial Mash and Extra brews. Should I rack over from kettle to primary when doing all grain?

I like to whirlpool and get a good trub cone to leave behind in the kettle, so it's clear (ish) wort going into the fermenter. Others might say it doesn't matter and just dump it all in, YMMV.

Most people wouldn't bother with a secondary on a pale ale these days. Just primary it, dry hop for a few days at the end of fermentation and cold crash if you can. The cold crash will help compact the sediment and leave you with more clear beer.

If you still find you're not getting enough final product then increase your batch size (and scale up your grain amounts to accommodate).

 

[heserb]

Thanks for the responses. I’ll try to answer questions.

-Whirlfloc? I did use a whirlfloc tab in this one but did neither whirlpool nor cold crash.
-Mash temp? I started my mash at 152 degrees and after an hour I was just over 150.
-Fernentation temp control? I fermented at 68 degrees +/- 3 degrees. I ferment in my utility room as I have no room for a fermentation chamber. I’m still working on the wife for that.
-Dry Hop? I used 1.0 oz of Cascade.

I think I will try a whirlpool with the next batch. I wanted to cold crash but I only have a 2 tap kegerator and still had beer in both kegs. I didn’t wanted to pull one out to put my fermenter in. I will keep that in mind next time though. It’s a fine line to drink faster to make room and then not have options for a few days.

I’m thinking a milk stout for the next one. Thanks again.

 

[Schwabizzle]

I would throw the hops in a bag before dry hopping to avoid extra sediment. Plus, it makes cleanup a little easier too.

 

[aprichman]

I use unbagged pellets but add them straight to primary. Not a big fan of secondary in general. I always shoot for 5.5 gallons in the fermenter since I usually leave behind at least 0.5 gallons when I transfer to the keg. If I'm doing a large dry hop (3-4 ounces) I'll usually lose an extra 0.5 gallon.

 

[heserb]

I use unbagged pellets but add them straight to primary. Not a big fan of secondary in general. I always shoot for 5.5 gallons in the fermenter since I usually leave behind at least 0.5 gallons when I transfer to the keg. If I'm doing a large dry hop (3-4 ounces) I'll usually lose an extra 0.5 gallon.

Great to know. Thanks!

 

[heserb]

One more question, I mentioned that I did add a whirlfloc tablet into my boil process. I did this with 15 minutes remaining in the boil. Is this the correct spot or are there suggestions to add it at other points in the boil?

 

[jjw5015]

No that's right. I throw it in with the immersion chiller.

 

[brew703]

Keep Amarillo and the good hops for late additions and dry hopping. Use Magnum, Warrior or CTZ (columbus) for bittering.
Last pale ale I brewed I used 10 oz total hops for 5 gal (5.75 fermenter). 3oz were dry hops. The rest were late additions (FWH for bittering then the rest at 15 min and under).
This one will be kegged on Sunday so getting anxious to try.

 

[bleme]

I wanted to cold crash but I only have a 2 tap kegerator and still had beer in both kegs. I didn’t wanted to pull one out to put my fermenter in.

I prefer to cold crash in an ice bath because it is fool-proof. I don't have to worry about thermostat calibration or poor air circulation. Ice gets it to an exact temperature every single time. It helps that I get ice for free from work though.

 

[bleme]

I know this is a done deal but I just wanted to mention that I went to a homebrew club meeting and one of the brewers brought an IPA to triangle test. His malt bill on both beers was just 2-row and a full pound of biscuit. The hops might have covered them up, but I couldn't taste any of the undesirable flavors attributed to biscuit above.