Simple Blonde Partial Mash for review

[Jonell]

Bear with me for formatting. This is my first post, though I've been brewing hybrid extract for about two years, and searching this site for my needs for about ~18 months. I thought I would share a recipe, get some feedback, and maybe ask a question or three from our more experienced brewers.

This recipe is a partial mash version off of

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f62/simple-blonde-ale-extract-54953/

which I made last year, and it was one of my better brews.

The goal for the mash is partial mash 2 gallons for 30-40 minutes (152°F), then sparge deathbrewer-style with 1.5 gallons (170°F) and come out with ~ 3 gallon boil volume and then a ~2.5 gallon top-up into the fermenter.


4 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 52.6 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 2 5.8 %
4.0 oz Carapils (Briess) (1.5 SRM) Grain 3 2.9 %
3 lbs 4.8 oz Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 4 38.6 %
0.75 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 8.2 IBUs
0.75 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 6 5.0 IBUs
1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins) Fining 7 -
0.50 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 1.0 min Hop 8 0.2 IBUs
1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) [50.28 ml] Yeast 9 -


Gravity, Alcohol Content and Color

Est Original Gravity: 1.057 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.013 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.8 %
Bitterness: 13.4 IBUs
Est Color: 4.1 SRM

I upped the gravity to account for inevitable lower efficiency from first-time partial mashing.

Questions!:

I have an ounce (7.3%AA) of Cascade hops left over from something. Where could I add it here? This blonde is a bit light on IBU's so I could keep the 2oz of Willamette, and do an ounce at 60, and then cut the 1min addition to 1/4oz + add the Cascade 0.5oz each at 10min and 1 min.

This will be a 2-3 week primary and then straight to bottle with maybe a gallon held off to strawberry-ify.

Thoughts?

 

[Jonell]

Bueller?

 

[barrooze]

You could leave the Willamette where they are and just add the cascade to your current hopping schedule by adding half at 5 min and the other half at 1 or 0 min with the last of the Willamette.

As for the ferment, your plan sounds fine. I personally don't ever secondary unless I'm dry-hopping, extended aging, or I'm adding something to the beer (fruit, oak, nibs, etc) and contact time is needed.

Good luck!

 

[Jonell]

Brewed this tonight and achieved 60% efficiency, which equates to 4.5 gallons of 1.054 wort. Not bad for a first try. If I had a second kettle it would probably go better, as I would be able to dunk the grain bag into the sparge water, rather than just pouring the water over the grain bag with a measuring cup.

 

[Jonell]

Bottled this brew two nights ago. It attenuated well down to 1.013, which is excellent. My interior closet stayed a nice 66-68 for the duration. Smell was superb, and 2 gallons were bottled with 1 oz of strawberry extract (~half the recommended amount/volume, because I heard it was really potent).

I'll let everyone know how it turns out.