Received wrong hops for pale ale

[nolinenowait]

I bought a Sierra Nevada Kit and was suppose to receive 2oz of Cascade hops, but received 1 oz of Cascade hops and 1 oz of Crystal Pellet hops, along with 2oz of German Perle hops. When in my boil should I add the Crystal Pellet hops?

 

[stpug]

I'd imagine that a bunch of the hops are for later in the boil. What was your hop schedule supposed to be?

 

[masskrug]

My SNPA is: Magnum at 60, Perle at 30 and Cascade at 15 and 5.

With what you have I would try something like this: Perle FWH, Perle 60, Cascade 30 and Crystal at 10. You are shooting for 38 IBUs.

Good luck and let us know how it comes out.

 

[nolinenowait]

My hop schedule was perle at 60 and 30, crystal at 15 and Cascade at 2. I also added a gallon of organic apple juice at flameout and used a wyeast smack pack. I'll update the board on how it turns out.

 

[weirdboy]

That sounds reasonable. It probably won't taste like SNPA, but it ought to be a perfectly fine pale ale.

 

[Chefjp]

My hop schedule was perle at 60 and 30, crystal at 15 and Cascade at 2. I also added a gallon of organic apple juice at flameout and used a wyeast smack pack. I'll update the board on how it turns out.

Whats the apple juice for?

 

[Chefjp]

I bought a Sierra Nevada Kit and was suppose to receive 2oz of Cascade hops, but received 1 oz of Cascade hops and 1 oz of Crystal Pellet hops, along with 2oz of German Perle hops. When in my boil should I add the Crystal Pellet hops?

From where did you buy this kit?

 

[bknifefight]

I also added a gallon of organic apple juice at flameout

Just don't complain that the kit doesn't taste like SNPA when it's all done.

 

[nolinenowait]

My plan was to make an Apple Pale Ale with a SNPA base. I got the kit from midwestsupplies.com.

 

[sweed]

If you want some apple flavor, I would add a bunch of apples, cooked and mashed to sanitized them, to the secondary. Not sure about apples, but other fruit is 1lb/ gallon of beer.

 

[Whattawort]

A gallon of juice is gonna need a lot of time to ferment out. It's also likely (if the yeast can muscle through it all) that your beer is going to be thinner and more bitter than you were shooting for. Apple juice ferments out completely and does not impart any apple flavor at all. I also suspect that the potential for a stuck fermentation is higher than average. You have a lot of fermentables in there and unless you used a monster starter, those little yeasties are gonna poop out on you. Not trying to be a debbie downer, but I have had a fair amount of experience with apple juice experimentation. I had a 3 gal batch of caramel apple cider that took 2.5 packages of Montrachet yeast ON TOP OF the initial package of Notty and 5 months to finish.

 

[nolinenowait]

Should I add a yeast energizer? I found someone else who had done something similar online and it turned out well. How do I know if my fermentation has stuck?

 

[thadius856]

A gallon of juice is gonna need a lot of time to ferment out. It's also likely (if the yeast can muscle through it all) that your beer is going to be thinner and more bitter than you were shooting for. Apple juice ferments out completely and does not impart any apple flavor at all. I also suspect that the potential for a stuck fermentation is higher than average. You have a lot of fermentables in there and unless you used a monster starter, those little yeasties are gonna poop out on you. Not trying to be a debbie downer, but I have had a fair amount of experience with apple juice experimentation. I had a 3 gal batch of caramel apple cider that took 2.5 packages of Montrachet yeast ON TOP OF the initial package of Notty and 5 months to finish.

Your situation seems to contradict many I've read on Ed Wort's Apfelwein recipe. I'm over half way through fermentation on a 5 gal batch using one packet of rehydrated Lavlin EC-1118 in under 2 weeks.

A gallon of apple juice only works out to about 5-6% ABV by itself if you don't add dextrose.

I think he'll get some crisp apply flavor, but not the sweet sticky apple flavor he may be used to. If he wants that, he'd need to pasteurize or use tablets, then backfill in some apple cider.

 

[nolinenowait]

Your situation seems to contradict many I've read on Ed Wort's Apfelwein recipe. I'm over half way through fermentation on a 5 gal batch using one packet of rehydrated Lavlin EC-1118 in under 2 weeks.

A gallon of apple juice only works out to about 5-6% ABV by itself if you don't add dextrose.

I think he'll get some crisp apply flavor, but not the sweet sticky apple flavor he may be used to. If he wants that, he'd need to pasteurize or use tablets, then backfill in some apple cider.

That sounds good. I wanted a crisp apple pale ale flavor. I'm hoping the crystal hops may add a little spice as well.

 

[Whattawort]

Your situation seems to contradict many I've read on Ed Wort's Apfelwein recipe. I'm over half way through fermentation on a 5 gal batch using one packet of rehydrated Lavlin EC-1118 in under 2 weeks.

A gallon of apple juice only works out to about 5-6% ABV by itself if you don't add dextrose.

I think he'll get some crisp apply flavor, but not the sweet sticky apple flavor he may be used to. If he wants that, he'd need to pasteurize or use tablets, then backfill in some apple cider.

The difference here is that he is using apple juice in conjunction with a wort. There are a lot of fermentables involved. The juice itself would probably have been best added to secondary if the apple flavor was desired. Unless there us sufficient yeast in play, the FG will be way off or the beer may even stall out. If it does finish, it will likely be thin and dry. Apple wine is a different beast all together. Different yeast and different fermentation methods. My experiment with the Notty and apple cider was an important lesson learned. The juice/cider.is a fairly hostile environment by itself for yeast.

 

[nolinenowait]

I'll be using kreamyx for bottling (dextrose, DME and heading agent) do you think this will have a positive effect on the beer?

 

[thadius856]

The difference here is that he is using apple juice in conjunction with a wort. There are a lot of fermentables involved. The juice itself would probably have been best added to secondary if the apple flavor was desired. Unless there us sufficient yeast in play, the FG will be way off or the beer may even stall out. If it does finish, it will likely be thin and dry. Apple wine is a different beast all together. Different yeast and different fermentation methods. My experiment with the Notty and apple cider was an important lesson learned. The juice/cider.is a fairly hostile environment by itself for yeast.

Perhaps it will stall. We can get a better estimate if the OP provides:

OG, yeast strain, size and type of starter (if any), and age of the yeast.

 

[thadius856]

Should I add a yeast energizer? I found someone else who had done something similar online and it turned out well. How do I know if my fermentation has stuck?

You can, but it probably isn't necessary. I toss 1/4 tsp of FermAid and 1/4 tsp of Di-ammonium Phosphate into each starter, just in case my yeast was mishandled and strained somewhere in the supply chain.

 

[nolinenowait]

The Yeast was a Wyeast smack pack. It was about 2 months old but swelled like it should. No starter was used.

 

[thadius856]

Strain? OG?

 

[nolinenowait]

It was a Wyeast 1056 American ale yeast. I didn't check the OG...

 

[thadius856]

If we assume you hit the kit's expected OG, there's 5 gallons of pale ale wort, and the apple juice is 1.050... that's roughly 1.052 OG.

With 2 month old yeast, you have a 54% viability. So you should have pitched 219 billion cells, and you pitched 54 billion.

Your yeast will likely finish just fine. I've hit a 4x multiplication with 1056 before around 1.048 just fine. I can't imagine your primary taking longer than 2 weeks to finish.

You might have some off-flavors because of the under-pitch, but otherwise I think you'll probably be fine.

If you had that OG, you'd be looking at an FG around 1.012-1.014, which isn't terribly dry. Of course the sweeter the apple juice you used, the dryer you'll finish.

 

[nolinenowait]

I used Simply Apple. I was thinking of fermenting in primary for 4 weeks. Would this be too long?

 

[Whattawort]

I used Simply Apple. I was thinking of fermenting in primary for 4 weeks. Would this be too long?

You're good. 4 weeks will be ideal to let it finish and clean itself up.