Recipe Critique: Stardust (I?)Pale Ale (SH Galaxy Hops)

[Rhaegar92]

Hey everyone, I've been lurking here awhile and frankly I have yet to be able to not answer a question I've had with a quick search until now. Fantastic wealth of knowledge here!

Anyways, as the title says I'm looking for some help with a recipe I'm designing. I'm calling it the Stardust Pale Ale (potentially an IPA) because the purpose is to display Galaxy Hops. I have never dry hopped and this will be my first functional all-grain attempt (My cooler totally failed me last time trying to brew Biermuncher's Oktoberfast and I had to do a very improvised BIAB - ended up with what could potentially be called a session Oktoberfast ale ). I'm a massive fan of West Coast IPAs and really hop-bombed beers. That being said I want to capture the essence of a hop without it being a total hop-bomb, which is why I'm going the PA route, though I'm slightly afraid of it being too weak and am not opposed to increasing my hop count (I also have some Calypso on the way and may add those in, though that does deviate from my original intent with the beer...might order some more Galaxy instead depending on suggestions).

More than anything, I want my numbers checked to make sure I'm not missing obvious things in the mashing process.

11 Lb Rahr 2-Row
1 Lb Vienna
1 Lb British Crystal 50/60L
1 Lb White Wheat

Mash Temp: 154-156F - 167-170F strike water (forgive me if my terminology is not correct, I'm intending to add 165-167F water to my cooler prior to grain addition) It'll be 21 quarts or 19.87 litres
- 60 Minute Mash
- 175F sparge water (very open to suggestions with all these numbers, I have only ever followed recipes and am just going on what I've read).

Boil:
60 mins Magnum 0.5oz
20 mins Galaxy 1oz
5 mins Galaxy 1oz
1 min Galaxy 1oz
Irish Moss 5 mins

Dry hopping of 2oz Galaxy at 7 days into fermentation and dry hopped for 5 days (65ishF for fermentation - I just put it in my basement). This is where I'm EXTREMELY open to suggestions with every aspect (enough hops, right time for addition...). I've never dry hopped before but I will be transferring to a secondary prior to, and dry-hopping in there. I want the beer to be very yummy and really demonstrate all aspects of the hop, especially with flavor.

I've read dry-hopping is really intended for aroma, so if I were to boost the hop flavor, should I increase the 20 minute Galaxy boil to 2 or 3oz instead of 1? And what do you think would happen if I increased the dry-hopping to 3 oz?

I realize this is A LOT to read and I'm sorry for the noobish questions, but I'm trying to create a generic Pale Ale/IPA recipe so I can focus very heavily on single hop aromas and flavors. Any help and suggestions are really appreciated!

Cheers

 

[Ghosteh]

Found this via a search on Galaxy hops, so I'll stay tuned. I like it. I have a similar APA recipe up on HBT that I did previously with just Mosaic and Simcoe and C60 instead of C20 (trying with C20 this time). It turned out nicely, and we kicked the keg in three days. I like the white wheat and Victory in the grain bill. What are your percentages? I'll plug it into Brewsmith and check. High five for a cool idea, and get pictures as you do it! I'm doing my C20 attempt tomorrow.

 

[Rhaegar92]

My grain percents are:

78.7% Rahr 2-Row
7.1% Vienna
7.1% British Crystal 50/60
7.1% White Wheat

I'm strongly leaning towards adding 1oz galaxy at my 5 and 20 min boil each and order 2 more ounces for the dry hopping. I'm hopping that'll really push the hop character. I need to read up more on getting hops to be expressed in beers haha

 

[bbrim]

I'd move the 20 minute addition to 10 minutes and the 5 to 0 minutes. I'd also recommend doing a hop stand with the 0 minute addition. I'm not a huge fan of dry hopping so I would skip it, but if you like that the 2 oz is a reasonable amount. Galaxy works great in single hop beers.

 

[alhounos]

I'd go a step further and move all the boil additions to flameout and do a 30+ minute hopstand, or as long as you have patience.
Also, if you want more hop character, they're never wasted in the dry hop. It wouldn't hurt to have three ounces there as well as in the hopstand.

 

[Ghosteh]

I recently did a no-chill version of my pale ale similar to this beer (was for a medieval group that I was teaching beer), due to inspiration from the Aussie, and forwent my 60m for a larger 35m addition. Did all 35 5 0* with Simcoe @ 35 and Mosaic the rest of the way. I ended up adding the flameout hops directly to the keg and poured from BK into a clean corny after I turned the heat off. Similar to a post hop first wort hop (let's call it last wort hop?) but at end of boil. Sealed the posts up with StarSan'd tin foil and sat it aside. After a few hours I put it in my ferm chamber and set it aside for 36 hours (meant to transfer next morning, but had to wait till next day) to cool to pitching temps.

Long story short. I've never gotten as much flavor and aroma out of hops as I did there, and the numbers weren't through the roof. I'm gonna do it next time with a solid dryhop.

 

[Rhaegar92]

So after a whole bunch of research on whirlpooling/hop stands I ended up revamping the entire hop process.

Grain bill was the same, hopefully I mashed correctly (first all grain!!). I believe I did - took well over and hour to sparge roughly 6.5 gallons for my 5 gallon batch. My boil was absurdly low and pretty much was a rapid circulation at around 209F as opposed to a vigorous boil (need a propane burner for my 8 gallon aluminium bucket, takes atleast an hour to boil even covered on my stove). Given that the boil was less than ideal, I did it for 90 mins instead of 60 and I also did this to reduce DMS in the hop stand (apparently its rarely an issue but the duality of the long boil made this reason all the more worthwhile!). Anyways...

Magnum .5oz for 90 mins
Galaxy 1oz 7 mins
Galaxy 1oz 5 mins
Galaxy 2oz 2 mins and removed the pot from boil at this point.
Added 1oz Motueka, Calypso, and 2oz Galaxy when the wort hit around 175F and I've been letting it sit around 158-160F (I have it on a burner) for a little under an hour. I'm going to let it sit at this range as long as I can (probably another 15-30 mins - I've been working on this since 2PM and it's now 10:45PM, I don't know how much longer I can wait haha). Stirring roughly every 10 mins just to keep it moving around. I have the hops in muslin bags. After the hop stand I'm chilling it to 68F and pitching Safale 05 and fermenting at 64-70F (my basement) for 5-7 days and then dry hopping 2oz Galaxy for 5 days.

I ended up adding the extra Motueka and Calypso because I ordered them on clearance/for another beer, and after reading up on them thought they might just help make this one very good IPA. It's obviously a Galaxy bomb (9oz total at the end), but I've read that Moteuka is a good complement hop and Calypso is just down-right tasty so the more the merrier! I'll post updates along the way of course.

I intended this to be an APA showcasing Galaxy hops, but at this point I'm pretty sure it's found its way into the IPA world - I personally have no complaints there! I'm very curious how this will turn out.

Absolutely tangent side-note: my brew day beer of choice - Wormtown's Be Hoppiest. I'm fortunate enough to live near this fantastic brewery and snagged a 32oz growler of it. It's a triple IPA version of "Be Hoppy" (fantastic IPA, try it fresh and you'll be blown away that it's 6.5% with that much flavor). I thought it fitting I have a monster IPA in tribute to brewing my first IPA. Cheers!

Things I forgot:
To take an OG reading...
Adding Irish Moss in the boil

Worthwhile Info:
My FG was 1.065, though without the OG this isn't the most informative reading
I ended up with just under 3.5 gallons of final fermentation product - oh well, lesson learned in all-grain brewing.
- side note: I added a lot of hops under the assumption that I'd have 5 gallons or so of wort. The wort was EXTREMELY bitter once I cooled it to pitching temp. Does anything think that this is going to be disgustingly bitter and hoppy? I figure this will mellow out with the fermentation process. I may totally eliminate the dry-hopping if the wort continues to be completely overwhelming in the hop character. I've never used this many hops so I'm unfamiliar with the final wort product in regards to IPA styles. Irrelevant of all that, the aroma is AMAZING!

 

[Rhaegar92]

So I dryhopped with 2oz of Galaxy for 3 days and just bottled today. The beer is irrationally hopped and as a result is quite bitter and overwhelmingly hoppy so far. Definitely getting a massive tropical fruit smell from it so far, but it's way too early to tell exactly how it came out. All I know is I'm glad I re-ordered the ingredients (with modifications) so I can give this another whirl.

The main issue I'm having is the beer is EXTREMELY murky. After doing some research I think it's starch haze and not contamination, though I'm not sure (I'll post pictures once I've poured it carbed - I work in a lab and regularly deal with both fungal and bacterial contaminants and the smell and taste seem to be lacking anything but beer). I'm hoping after 1.5 weeks of carbing and 2 weeks chilling this might resolve slightly as will the raw bitterness, but at the moment I'm quite disappointed. That being said this was my first AG and I expected to make quite a few errors. The beer tastes (on the surface) good, I just hope it gets BETTER in a week or 3.

 

[mkyl428]

I know I'm late to the party but I have a rye PA I brew that features galaxy and have grown to love this hop I get more complements on that beer than anything else I brew, and it's probably my favorite too....

Anyway for my beer I bitter with magnum for a nice clean bittering, then I don't add any more hops till flameout I do a 2 oz hopstand with galaxy & then dry hop 2 more oz for 7 days after primary the hop flavor is fresh and definitely not bitter and the aroma comes across very strong.

If you want to check out my beer it is the Sunshine Rye Pale Ale in the recipe section

 

[Rhaegar92]

I'm not sure what exactly is going on at this point with the beer. Here's the full timeline:

Boil: cloudy wort, to which I attributed the lack of Irish moss addition.
Primary Fermentation: Allowed to ferment for 5 days (bubbling stopped dramatically) then moved to secondary for dry hopping. At this point the beer was still very, very cloudy.
Secondary: Dry hopped for 3 days, but due to the IMMENSE hop flavor I called it at day 3 instead of a full week dry-hopping (didn't seem necessary for the desired result - I shouldve saved the damn hops lol). FG landed at about 1.025. As for the taste, the aromaticity seems the be rather diminished (though I tried a commercial IPA and I think my nose is off due to the change of the seasons so I can't make an accurate judgement call on the odor. The overall smell from the fermenter and beer itself is enormously tropical and yummy, but the taste is what I'd call "violently" hoppy, but I expected that due to having 3 gallons instead of 5. The beer has a unique and slightly "slippery" mouthfeel, though the flavor seems to be that of a rather raw IPA. I attribute the mouthfeel to the amount of hops used, but I'm probably wrong.

I bottled it yesterday and will carb for 12 days then refrigerate and see what happens. I'm also going to pour a small glass and immediately refrigerate it to see what happens. I left the end of the bottled beer in a glass overnight and a thin murky white layer appeared on the bottom of the glass. I figured it was priming sugar settling out of solution but it got me nervous towards the possibility of infection. I drank probably 8oz of the beer yesterday in an attempt to profile it and I never got sick or even felt ill so I don't think it's anything nefarious as far as a possible infection goes.

What's strange is that I assumed it was yeast in suspension at this point - another reason I bottled yesterday is that there was absolutely no noticeable fermentation in the secondary after 3 days. I usually see a rather intense restarting of bubbling when I move to secondary - I even accidentally aerated the beer a little so the yeast really should've taken off by day 3.

My best guesses are either starch contamination from mashing (though I did a rather hot mash at 160->155F for over an hour and did a 70+ min sparge, so I don't think its that), hop murkiness, infection (skeptical but I'm a paranoid person),or just general oversuspension of contents (cooling will hopefully reveal if this is true). I'm going to post a photo of the glass I pour later today because that may help.

 

[Rhaegar92]

Here's the beer. If I let it sit for a couple hours in the fridge then pour it out, what's left is a white, whispy solution of what honestly looks like cells falling out of suspension. I had no indication of fermentation for 3 days so I think yeast is unlikely, though fermentation seemed to cease at day 5 when I transferred and that still baffles me given that there was clear signs of fermentation prior to transfer. The only way I can foresee contamination is during siphoning where my hand contacted some wort that fell in the fermentor (I had a reaaaally bad time siphoning - ironically the first time I didn't start it with my mouth may be my first time I get a bad batch). My hand was DRENCHED in starsan though. I usually wear nitrile gloves through any non-sterile procedure in the brewing process and ran out this time. Either way the wort was damn cloudy prior to transfer but the white/milky cell suspension is freaking me out since yeast is usually a brown color.

All I know is I'm really damn glad I bought ingredients for another batch - this one may turn out to be an epic failure! Next time I'm letting the primary go a full 10+ days before moving to secondary, I really think that was my biggest mistake. I also need the legendary auto-siphon technology pretty badly

 

[marc1]

You don't really need to transfer to secondary. It sounds like it's causing you problems with racking and sanitation worries - just keep it in primary the whole time. I usually just leave it in primary for 2-4 weeks, dry hopping a few days before packaging. Although, I recently started kegging and like the results from dry hopping in the keg.

For bottle carbing, don't just toss all the bottles in the fridge after 12 days. Put one in, let it cool overnight, and try it the next day. I've had beers take longer than 2 weeks to carb up.