My pale ale didn't suck!

[stevedasleeve]

My first 2 batches were not terrible but were cidery - second one less so but still. These were Coopers kits pretty much unmodified. I was questioning the whole "brew your own beer because it's BETTER" thing when I tried, a bit early (2 weeks after bottling) my last concoction which was a simple american pale ale. It's GOOD Woohoo! Here are my brew day notes:

Stressed ale - November 18, 2009

3 lbs amber Bries Sparkling Amber DME mixed into 3 gals cold water
brought to boil then added:

60 mins 1/2 oz Simcoe hops 12.7%
30 mins 1/2 oz Amarillo hops 7.5%
10 mins 1 oz Cascade 7.5% (total IBU about 46)

5 mins mixed in 3.3 lbs Coopers Light LME

Cooled wort but not as much as I should have perhaps

Put still hot wort in fermenter, added filtered & distilled cool water to make 19 L total (5 US gals)
pitched hydrated Safeale US-05 dry american ale yeast
Temp was around 26C

OG measured was 1048

So I'd like to make this a little sweeter - not much - and have a bit more hop aroma. I figure I could dry hop say 1/2 once of Cascade next time, but what about making it sweeter?

 

[Pappers_]

Woot Woot!!

 

[Runyanka]

Congrats!!!
If your going to dry hop, go ahead and pump it up to a full oz of cascades, or maybe even amarillo. As far as sweetness goes, try bumping it up to 4 lbs of DME at end of boil, or even go with a different strand of yeast. I usually do most of my pale ales with nottingham or us-05, but every once in a while I'll use liquie yeast and I can tell that the liquid yeast gives me a little more sweetness. Give Wyeast 1056 a try. Anyways, drink that beer with your head up high, for it is the beer that has you hooked once again!

 

[stevedasleeve]

Cool I am looking forward to the next brew day! I'll bump up the malt a bit and try Nottingham yeast as well as dry hop. Thanks for the ideas!!

 

[bigin31]

Do you want malty sweet or sugary sweet? Malty sweet there isn't much you can do except buy different malt. If you AG'd you could raise the mash temp closer to 160 and that would work some. If you just want sugary add table sugar to your bottling process instead of whatever priming sugar you use.

 

[mr_clean]

Congrats laddy

 

[Chudz]

The "cidery" deal may be due to it being a green-beer. I noticed that myself with my first two beers. The American Light Ale was gone in a flash, because it was my first beer and I was all "It's Christmas Time". So I drank it way to soon. My Irish Stout had the same deal that finally mellowed after four weeks in bottles. So maybe it's something else, but it also may be due to the beer being green. Look here under acetaldehyde: http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html

 

[Want2Brew]

Congrats on the success Keep up the good work!

 

[azscoob]

Congrats on the tasty brew! I predict you will be on your way to even better brews in the future! I find myself going back to American pales as my go-to tap beer, I brew seasonal beers and other styles also but I almost always have some variety of APA on one tap all the time.

 

[stevedasleeve]

I am a hophead for sure but I have really been liking APAs and Amber ales recently. My current favorites are Bells amber ale and Flying Dog APA.

But to get back to sweet...! I Thought I might be able to add some specialty seeped grain to add a bit of sweet without getting too malty? Or maybe honey at some point in the process? I'm off to my LHBS so I can bottle and brew again this weekend so any suggestions would be appreciated.

Actually I'm going to try an Amber ale next which will complete my virgin trilogy: APA, IPA, and Amber.

 

[Yooper]

Absolutely! For your next batch, try steeping some crystal grains in the water.

Do you want a recipe now? I'd do something like this:

1/2 pound 10L crystal
1/2 pound 40L

Put in a grain bag and steep in 2 gallons of water at 150-160 for 20 minutes. Lift out the grain bag and throw the grains away.

Add 4 pounds of pale LME and bring to a boil.

Hops:
1.5 ounces cascade at 60 minutes
.5 ounces cascade at 30 minutes
.5 ounces cascade at 5 minutes

Add 3 pounds of LME at the end and stir well and then turn off the flame.

________________________________________________________

Also, if you like a malty sweet beer, try my Dead Guy Clone. It's a malt bomb, but still rich and drinkable. It'll be different than the pale ale and it's really good.

 

[stevedasleeve]

Thanks man - I'll try it! Currently I have a 3 lbs Crystal 60 - actually 64L, and 1 lb of Honey malt 20-30L. Could I substitute any of these? Or I could head on out to my LHBS and get the lighter crystal. How long do these last after they have been ground?

Looks like a snowy weekend, perfect for making beer I think!

 

[Yooper]

They don't last very long once crushed, so only buy what you need at one time. Uncrushed, though, they last a long time.

You could use crystal 60, but it'll give you less sweetness and more of a "darker" flavor. It would work fine, but not be as carmelly sweet. Honey malt is very sweet, but I've only used it once. You could try about .25 pound of honey malt and .50 of crystal 60 if you really want to experiment!