Please help me make a basic pale ale

[jangelj]

from my ingredients on hand. My plan is to make a 5 gallon batch. After fermentation, I'll split the batch. Half will go on strawberries (for SWMBO) and half I am going to experiment with Randalling (hop tea instead of dry hop). I have never done either strawberries or Randall before.

Here's what I have on hand:
20 lbs Extra Light DME
3 lbs Munich
1 lb rice flakes
1 lb melanoidan
.5 lb carapils
.5 lb midnight wheat
1 lb white wheat
4 oz Hallertau
6 oz Williamette
washed WLP001

I used up all my Crystal 20 and 40, so no luck there.
Can I get a basic pale ale out of this stuff. It is an experimental batch, so doesn't have to be perfect.

 

[barroomhero1234]

thats a lot of wheat with only 3 lbs of munich.
I dont think you will have the diastatic power to convert the wheat malt and adjuncts. Search some similar recipes you have a lot of stuff for a basic pale ale.

correct me if i am wrong isint randalling pulling beer through a column filled with what you want to your glass. ie in DFH case they use hops, i dont think its a hop tea

 

[BendBrewer]

6 lbs Extra Light DME
3 lbs Munich
.5 lb carapils

2 oz Williamette 60 minute
1 oz Williamette 30 minutes
1.5 oz Williamette 10 minutes
1 oz Williamette 5 minutes
1 oz Williamette flame out

Ideally you would use a more aggressive bittering hop at 60 but if that is what you have then that is what you have.

 

[Walker]

thats a lot of wheat with only 3 lbs of munich.
I dont think you will have the diastatic power to convert the wheat malt and adjuncts. Search some similar recipes you have a lot of stuff for a basic pale ale.

That's not his recipe. It's just a complete list of his current inventory.


For a basic Pale, taking ingredients just from that stockpile, and winging it, I would suggest this (I have assumed 70% efficiency on grain and 5% AA on the willamette):

6.0# DME
2.0# Munich
0.5# CaraPils

1.5oz Willamette @ 60 min
1.0oz Willamette @ 20 min
1.0oz Willamette @ 5 min

ProMash is calculating the following specs for a 5 gallon batch:

OG = 1.054
IBU = 44
SRM = 8.2

correct me if i am wrong isint randalling pulling beer through a column filled with what you want to your glass. ie in DFH case they use hops, i dont think its a hop tea

Yes. A Randall is typically a canister full of fresh hops and you send the beer through it on the way to the glass.

 

[BendBrewer]

Nice Walker

 

[Walker]

6 lbs Extra Light DME
3 lbs Munich
.5 lb carapils

6.0# DME
2.0# Munich
0.5# CaraPils

Funny. Damn near the same.

 

[McGarnigle]

I think it is hard to craft a recipe for both with and without fruit. The fruit half could use the wheat and maybe no Munich.

 

[tjpfeister]

I made some assumptions. about your equipment and alpha acid content and here is what I put together:

60 minute 3 gallon partial boil, extract+grains.

Steep
1.0# Munich + .25# Carapils at 150F for 15 minutes.
Boil
6.0# DME
1.0 oz Hallertau - 60 min
1.5 oz Williamette - 15 min

Approximate results:
OG - 1.054
SRM - 4.8
IBU - 29.2

(I do sort of agree with McGarnigle about the fruit thing, but it's an experiment!)

 

[jangelj]

thats a lot of wheat with only 3 lbs of munich.
I dont think you will have the diastatic power to convert the wheat malt and adjuncts. Search some similar recipes you have a lot of stuff for a basic pale ale.

correct me if i am wrong isint randalling pulling beer through a column filled with what you want to your glass. ie in DFH case they use hops, i dont think its a hop tea

You all are great! Thanks for the quick replies.
Barroomhero - That is just a list of what I have on hand, not the recipe. The randall I am referring to is making a hop tea in a french press (from this thread). It sounds interesting to me.https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/big-hop-flavor-1-3-hops-55721/

By the time fermentation is complete, I should have some more hops. I really like Cascade, so I'll make the tea with that. Do Cascade and Williamette go OK together?

I'll probably follow Walker's recipe with the slightly less aggressive hop schedule. That should showcase the stuff I add to secondary (strawberries and the "hop tea").

You guys are fantastic. Thanks.

 

[jangelj]

I made some assumptions. about your equipment and alpha acid content and here is what I put together:

60 minute 3 gallon partial boil, extract+grains.

Steep
1.0# Munich + .25# Carapils at 150F for 15 minutes.
Boil
6.0# DME
1.0 oz Hallertau - 60 min
1.5 oz Williamette - 15 min

Approximate results:
OG - 1.054
SRM - 4.8
IBU - 29.2

(I do sort of agree with McGarnigle about the fruit thing, but it's an experiment!)

Well, since it is an experiment, how bout if I sub the wheat for the munich. I certainly don't mind a little wheat in the hop tea version. Sort of a poor man's Bell's Oberon. Hmmmm.

 

[BendBrewer]

Do Cascade and Williamette go OK together?

Like a river and mountain range!

 

[djonas]

All of the above recipes look good. Most of the time, a good pale has quite a simple malt bill. With that said, I usually like to add a bit of wheat malt to my pale ales but it gets carried by a handful of American style hops. It looks like you've got the inventory for a more continental or English pale!

With fruit, you really want your base beer to compliment it. Then again, if a friend of mine tastes strawberries in anything it's pretty much fantastic by association!

Whole fruit strawberries are weak in beer so it takes a long time in the secondary to soak up all of those delicious aromas and flavors. I imagine that you can use a large quantity to speed up this process. I currently have a wheat that has been sitting on 10 pounds of whole strawberries in the secondary. It has been aging for about two months and I am hoping to get it off and into a keg soon! If you have any questions about adding the fruit, please let me know!

We all know that taste buds are strongly influenced by scents so with my strawberry beer I tossed about five strawberry tea bags into the wort at the end of the boil. The aroma was astonishing and persisted throughout fermentation where spices and aromatics are sometimes driven off. Maybe you can do something similar where you boil some water, steep some strawberry tea in it and dump it into the proper secondary. At any rate, best of luck!

 

[McGarnigle]

Well, since it is an experiment, how bout if I sub the wheat for the munich. I certainly don't mind a little wheat in the hop tea version. Sort of a poor man's Bell's Oberon. Hmmmm.

If you add wheat, you could dump the carapils, which is mostly there for head retention (which wheat gives). Munich gives you a nice malt body, wheat does not. The non-fruit version could use the Munich. The fruit half wants a more basic beer to let the fruit be the star.

So it's tough. But DME isn't just 2-row grains. So even the non-fruit version could work without any Munich. And you could make it hop forward rather than malt forward, but that would be unusual for the fruited half. So many options...

 

[tjpfeister]

Well, since it is an experiment, how bout if I sub the wheat for the munich. I certainly don't mind a little wheat in the hop tea version. Sort of a poor man's Bell's Oberon. Hmmmm.

You absolutely can. According to beersmith, the diastatic power is about the same. I just prefer barley to wheat ;-)

 

[barroomhero1234]

Wow, i really should read whole threads before i reply, sorry gentlemen!

 

[jangelj]

the hoppy half of this beer came out fantasitc. here is what I did:
brewed on 1/17 SG = 1.058,
split batch on 1/30 FG = 1.012

put about 2 gallons on 2 lbs strawberries
dryhopped 2 gallons with .75 oz amarillo hops (dropped right in primary)
the other gallon i bottled with some crushed up lifesavers as an experiment
see this thread https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/anyone-try-flavor-beer-lifesavers-220988/

I racked the dryhopped version to keg on 2/6, set on 30 psi. Pulled the first one last night (2/8) and wow! That is a delicious ipa. My first time using Amarillo hops. Delicious! I did NOT make the randall, did not have time to experiment with that, just dropped in hop pellets.

 

[jangelj]

the dryhopped half was delicious, but started losing it's nose after about 10 days in the keg.

the strawberry half...YUCK! not good at all. definitely has a strawberry flavor, but NO sweetness. Makes sense, I suppose the sweetness (sugars) ferment out. Strawberry taste without the sweetness is terrible. SWMBO hates it, too. It is a pretty strong flavor, and not in a good way. I thought about back-sweetening it with an artificial sweetner, but didn't want to bother. I did, however, throw .75 oz amarillo hops in it to dry hop.

Hoping the strawberry flavor fades and the hops flavor gets stronger over the next 7-10 days. I just want it to be drinkable.

No more strawberries for me, but I did make a great pale ale!

 

[unionrdr]

So,it sounds like dry hoping with 1oz of Willamette in my 23L batch of pale ale would be a lil weak? Or just more like the ale style & less like an IPA? I made a hop tea with 1 oz of Kent Golding & 1 1/4 gallons of water in my brew kettle before adding the SDME & hopped LME (hoped with pride of ringwood) for 15mins. 6 days later,it still needs to finish up,but I can already taste some of the malt profile being balanced by the KG hops. The KG does seem to have a lemon grass thing going,with a lil bit of fruity/floral aroma & flavor as well. The Willamette would bring more floral,fruity,earthy,spicy to the equation. I thought it sounded like the 2 would be a good match,since the ale yeast I used produces some fruity esters that I felt needed more complexity from the last batch I brewed with it.

 

[jangelj]

The lifesaver bottle came out good. I crushed up 2 sugar-free cherry lifesavers in a bottle and SWMBO liked it. She said next time to double the lifesavers and see if it comes out even stronger.