Hoppy Golden Strong Ale

[yard_bird]

I’m working on a recipe for a dry, light, crisp, fruity/hoppy, clear, pale, 8.5% beer. Maybe like an Americanized Tripel? I am thinking something like this:

85% pils
10% corn sugar
5% rice

Mash below 150F

Apollo for bittering, Cascade/Apollo for flavor/aroma/WP to about 40-50IBU

Yeast: either Chico or Ardennes strain. I really like the beers made with Ardennes because of how dry they are and the esters that come out during ferm. Chico granted will be cleaner but I don’t usually work with it. I get about 90-95% AA with Ardennes, don’t really know if I can expect that from Chico. Any advice to get Chico to dry a beer out?

Thanks

 

[Miraculix]

I’m working on a recipe for a dry, light, crisp, fruity/hoppy, clear, pale, 8.5% beer. Maybe like an Americanized Tripel? I am thinking something like this:

85% pils
10% corn sugar
5% rice

Mash below 150F

Apollo for bittering, Cascade/Apollo for flavor/aroma/WP to about 40-50IBU

Yeast: either Chico or Ardennes strain. I really like the beers made with Ardennes because of how dry they are and the esters that come out during ferm. Chico granted will be cleaner but I don’t usually work with it. I get about 90-95% AA with Ardennes, don’t really know if I can expect that from Chico. Any advice to get Chico to dry a beer out?

Thanks

Hoch kurz mash with 60 minutes steps each. Cannot get much higher attenuation than that. Also pitch a HUGE amount of highly active yeast ie a really oversized starter that is actively fermenting.

 

[yard_bird]

Sounds good! I’ll give it a shot

 

[Miraculix]

Sounds good! I’ll give it a shot

Because of the high gravity in combination with the highly active yeast in big amounts, this one will be extremely exothermic. So better have a solution to keep the temperature down on hand.

 

[yard_bird]

Thanks! I figured. I usually pitch Ardennes around 64 in the fridge and ramp it up a degree or two/day after the first week.

 

[Miraculix]

Thanks! I figured. I usually pitch Ardennes around 64 in the fridge and ramp it up a degree or two/day after the first week.

I have no experience with that specific strain, but generally speaking I would probably increase the temperature after main fermentation is done, even further probably.

 

[Bobby_M]

Apollo at anything other than 60min is a bit of a garlic bomb.

 

[hottpeper13]

I second the 2 hr mash! That and Notty at <64* will get you there, if a chico is what you want.

 

[Willy]

I prefer flaked corn to corn sugar - you get the similar benefit of improved "mouth-feel" with flaked corn (no need to mill it)... And it also helps filter out the wort naughty bits during mash .

 

[yard_bird]

Apollo at anything other than 60min is a bit of a garlic bomb.

Thanks for the FYI, I hadn’t realized. Always disappointing to get the onion/garlic from an poorly hopped IPA.

 

[Miraculix]

Onion or garlic is not part of any hops flavour profile, unless the hops get oxidised after being harvested. This can happen with any hops. I've had really great Apollo beers with big late hop amount. It's pretty piny!

 

[Bramling Cross]

Hoch kurz mash with 60 minutes steps each. Cannot get much higher attenuation than that. Also pitch a HUGE amount of highly active yeast ie a really oversized starter that is actively fermenting.

I agree that a long, escalating mash is good. But I'm not sure about the 60min steps, the bulk of the conversion happens quickly at each step. Aggregated over the length of a standard Hochkurz mash, you're going to get just about all the conversion you could ask for. Moreover, don't 60min steps make it anything other than, as its name suggests, high and brief?

I'm not knocking long rests, but my decades of records seem to indicate that there are vanishingly small returns to be had beyond 90mins. Indeed, 90mins is really, really stretching it. You're already running into diminishing returns, with a non-decoction mash, at 60min. That said, I mash my summer fizzy yellow swills for 90min--because I want those diminishing returns. I don't see the wisdom in mashing, sans a decoction, for three hours, though. There's nothing to gain there.

Instead, I would suggest pulling a page from the Belgians and British. Just use some sugar! It's easy, it accomplishes the objective, and there's nothing wrong with it. In your case, you're shooting for dryness only, right? Simple cane sugar from the grocery store will give you a much greater effect than trying to squeeze out the last diminishing returns from your mash while all kinds of bad things (yes, I'm a LODO guy) are going on inside your mashtun.

Don't mash for three hours...nothing good will come of it.

 

[Malticulous]

Onion or garlic is not part of any hops flavour profile,...

Summit can get onion. Not always, but I know.

 

[Bramling Cross]

Onion or garlic is not part of any hops flavour profile...

Writing from the USA, it most certainly is. I have no data to back this up, but I've seen it enough times that I think there's something to it: Myself and a few others are enjoying a pint while our other friend finds it undrinkable because of the onion/garlic/cat piss thing.

I'm not arrogant enough to discount the other guy's experience. If that's what he tastes, that's what he tastes. It's real to him and I may not taste that, but I also know that I'm lucky enough to be able to love broccoli and my piss doesn't stink when I eat asparagus. Lucky genes, I guess. Not everyone is that way, though.

There are some hops we like and others we don't. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[Miraculix]

I agree that a long, escalating mash is good. But I'm not sure about the 60min steps, the bulk of the conversion happens quickly at each step. Aggregated over the length of a standard Hochkurz mash, you're going to get just about all the conversion you could ask for. Moreover, don't 60min steps make it anything other than, as its name suggests, high and brief?

I'm not knocking long rests, but my decades of records seem to indicate that there are vanishingly small returns to be had beyond 90mins. Indeed, 90mins is really, really stretching it. You're already running into diminishing returns, with a non-decoction mash, at 60min. That said, I mash my summer fizzy yellow swills for 90min--because I want those diminishing returns. I don't see the wisdom in mashing, sans a decoction, for three hours, though. There's nothing to gain there.

Instead, I would suggest pulling a page from the Belgians and British. Just use some sugar! It's easy, it accomplishes the objective, and there's nothing wrong with it. In your case, you're shooting for dryness only, right? Simple cane sugar from the grocery store will give you a much greater effect than trying to squeeze out the last diminishing returns from your mash while all kinds of bad things (yes, I'm a LODO guy) are going on inside your mashtun.

Don't mash for three hours...nothing good will come of it.

He already uses sugar in his recipe. My suggestions were to increase the fermentability of the grain part of the recipe further.

The long rests increase fermentability compared to shorter rests. Not much, but they do. The second long rest is to mobilise all the starches that have not been gelatinised with the first step amongst other benefits. It works very well, I've tested that.

 

[tdf]

I'd go with wlp090 for a fairly neutral "American" version of a golden strong. You can probably get close to 90% attenuation with that grist and a simple step mash. As mentioned above, pitch a big active starter or oxygenate with pure oxygen.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Onion or garlic is not part of any hops flavour profile, unless the hops get oxidised after being harvested.

Nah, it's just a sign that they've been harvested too late. Which can be for a number of reasons - labour issues, or as happened with much of the UK crop last year, a heatwave in early September that compressed the harvest, so farms were trying to harvest 2 weeks of crop in a week. But Summit does seem to be particularly prone to going onion/garlicy.

my piss doesn't stink when I eat asparagus.

I hate to tell you - but it does. Everyone processes asparagusic acid the same way, but a large minority of people can't smell the sulphur-rich by-products.

 

[Miraculix]

Nah, it's just a sign that they've been harvested too late. Which can be for a number of reasons - labour issues, or as happened with much of the UK crop last year, a heatwave in early September that compressed the harvest, so farms were trying to harvest 2 weeks of crop in a week. But Summit does seem to be particularly prone to going onion/garlicy.


I hate to tell you - but it does. Everyone processes asparagusic acid the same way, but a large minority of people can't smell the sulphur-rich by-products.

The truth can be harsh my friends!

 

[bwible]

Onion or garlic is not part of any hops flavour profile, unless the hops get oxidised after being harvested. This can happen with any hops. I've had really great Apollo beers with big late hop amount. It's pretty piny!

We have a guy here, one of our BJCP Grand Master judges who is so high in the program they’ve had to create new titles just for him. He claims that ever since he had covid he tastes onion and/or garlic in almost every beer. ?

 

[Miraculix]

Nah, it's just a sign that they've been harvested too late. Which can be for a number of reasons - labour issues, or as happened with much of the UK crop last year, a heatwave in early September that compressed the harvest, so farms were trying to harvest 2 weeks of crop in a week. But Summit does seem to be particularly prone to going onion/garlicy.


I hate to tell you - but it does. Everyone processes asparagusic acid the same way, but a large minority of people can't smell the sulphur-rich by-products.

Harvested too late = oxidised in the fields?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Harvested too late = oxidised in the fields?

I can't remember the details off the top of my head, but onion/garlic is sulphur chemistry so oxygen will tend to suppress them.

 

[Miraculix]

I can't remember the details off the top of my head, but onion/garlic is sulphur chemistry so oxygen will tend to suppress them.

OK. Well, let's say, onion and garlic is not part of any hopsesseses flavour, at least not if they've been treated correctly.

 

[Bramling Cross]

I hate to tell you - but it does. Everyone processes asparagusic acid the same way, but a large minority of people can't smell the sulphur-rich by-products.

Fair enough, I was just going by what your lady friend said she tasted.