American Pale Ale High Plains Pale Ale

[gwapogorilla]

Recipe Type

All Grain

Yeast

White labs 090 San Diego Super

Yeast Starter

yes

Batch Size (Gallons)

5

Original Gravity

1.053

Final Gravity

1.010

Boiling Time (Minutes)

70

IBU

37.9

Color

6.6

Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)

10

Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)

7

Tasting Notes

PERFECT Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone!

If your looking for a spot on Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone...here it is! It took a few times to get this just right, but I finally nailed it!:rockin: I did a lot of homework on this brew...going by what Sierra Nevada posts on their web site for gravities, hops and grains. I worked my through a few partial mash trials, tweeked in my beersmith software, and made a lot of my own tasting notes.
I sat down with a buddy this weekend and did a side by side comparison, we both agree that my brew was spot on( except for the chill haze...sigh)
The color was perfect, head and lacing were great and the flavor matched great!
The secret? Home toasted 2 row malt. I see a lot of recipes with darker caramel malts for the color. But when I drink the real deal...it tastes more toasty to me. So, I toasted my own malt and used "it" to give me the desired color.
The best thing is the turn around time...2 1/2 weeks fermentation then 3 weeks in the bottle.

High Plains Pale Ale

8.7 lbs 2-row (Rahr)
12.0 oz Carapils (Briess)
12.0 oz Caramel Malt - 20L (Briess) (20.0 SRM)
12.0 oz Toasted Light Amber(home) (30.0 SRM)
0.3 oz Magnum [14.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min
0.5 oz Perle [8.00 %] - Boil 40.0 min
0.9 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min
1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 mins)
1.0 pkg San Diego Super (White Labs #WLP090) Yeast 10 -

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.054 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.011 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.6 %
Bitterness: 37.7 IBUs Calories: 175.5 kcal/12oz
Est Color: 7.0 SRM

Mash Steps
Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Mash In Add 13.1 qt of water at 153 F 60 min

Home toasted malts were made by toasting 2 row in a 350* oven for a total of 30 minutes. Every 10 minutes take the pan out of the oven, stir the grain and place back into the oven. When grain is done toasting, it must be placed in a paper bag for 3 weeks to air out. The toasted flavor is really intense at first, so the 3 week period gives the grain time to mellow out and stabilize.

CHEERS!

 

[shadows69]

This looks really tasty, the only thing i do with mine is add .50 Simcoe (Dry hopped).

 

[gwapogorilla]

This looks really tasty, the only thing i do with mine is add .50 Simcoe (Dry hopped).

I dry hopped a PM batch I did before with 1 oz. of Cascade...just to keep the ingredients in line with Sierra Nevada's web site. It was good... REALLY GOOD, a little more of the grapefruit flavor came through.

 

[gwapogorilla]

Tasting notes....

AWESOME!!! So incredibly close to Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, but with more hop flavor. Very nice grapefruit flavor from the magnum and cascade hops. Color is spot on with SVPA.

After 7 weeks in bottles, grapefruit flavor has subsided just a little, but is still noticeably more flavorful than SVPA. Color is spot on, head is very good...just like SVPA.

After 9 weeks in botttles, flavor still has noticable hop grapefruit. Compared it side by side(again) to SVPA. Color is spot on, head is spot on...but I like the flavor of MY beer better.
NOT CHANGING A THING!!!! NEW HOUSE BEER!!!

 

[ianw58]

Home toasted malts were made by toasting 2 row in a 350* oven for a total of 30 minutes. Every 10 minutes take the pan out of the oven, stir the grain and place back into the oven. When grain is done toasting, it must be placed in a paper bag for 3 weeks to air out. The toasted flavor is really intense at first, so the 3 week period gives the grain time to mellow out and stabilize.

This sound really interesting.

I've never been interested in brewing a "clone", but this would be one I would brew.

Are you using a baking sheet or a sided pan?

Do you place the paper bag in a fridge or just on a counter?

 

[gwapogorilla]

This sound really interesting.

I've never been interested in brewing a "clone", but this would be one I would brew.

Are you using a baking sheet or a sided pan?

Do you place the paper bag in a fridge or just on a counter?

I use a sided 12" x 15" pan, so as to not get grains all over the place.
I put my paper bag in a closet on a shelf for 3 weeks. The fridge wouldn't help at all, as it's the time not the temperature we are after. Or, at least I gather that from John Palmers book.


If you brew it, let me know your results. I would really like to get someone's opinion on this on...other than a close friend/relative.

 

[Meyer1980]

Is this a 5gal recipe

 

[madscientist451]

Thanks for posting. I used to be a big fan of SN, but there are just so many choices these days, I usually pick something else when I choose to buy beer instead of drinking homebrew.
I'm going to try it and maybe do a variation with some rye malt.
So I'm wondering what SN is using for their "toasted" malt? Victory? Biscuit? Something else?

 

[gwapogorilla]

Thanks for posting. I used to be a big fan of SN, but there are just so many choices these days, I usually pick something else when I choose to buy beer instead of drinking homebrew.
I'm going to try it and maybe do a variation with some rye malt.
So I'm wondering what SN is using for their "toasted" malt? Victory? Biscuit? Something else?

SN just uses pale ale malt along with some crystal malt, they don't use any toasted malt in pale ale at all.
The toasted was malt was an experiment of mine that paid off. I still brew this from time to time. The flavor and aroma is much better than SN...their beers have gotten...."meh".

 

[madscientist451]

They must be doing something (or using something) to get the toasted flavor that you were able to clone?

 

[gwapogorilla]

They must be doing something (or using something) to get the toasted flavor that you were able to clone?

It is possible. But SN has changed the recipe for this beer since I posted this recipe. They no longer include cascade hops in their recipe, but they used to.
If memory serves(and I wouldn't bet the farm on this) but I believe they used to list carapils as ingredient...but no longer do.

Trying to reverse engineer this beer took a lot of drinking.(work, work work) the original SN pale ale didn't have a caramel flavor to it at all. But, rather a nice full flavor.
If you were to omit the toasted malt and tried to get the same color using caramel malt, you would have to use about 12 oz. of caramel 80. IMO thats way to much caramel for this beer. That's why I tried home toasted...MUCH BETTER!!!:rockin:

SN pale ale as it is brewed now....sucks. SN has gone mainstream and are trying to focus on IBU listings rather than flavor. Sad, I used to really like their stuff.

If your palate can remember the way SN pale ale used to taste 5 years ago, give it a whirl.