Category Archives: pale ale

Lab Bench Pale Ale

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Another weekend, another brewing session. Because the IPA on tap just ran out, I figured it was a good time to rev up another IPA or pale ale. A recipe I saw in the September 2013 issue of BYO was intriguing. Miss’ippi #BIGCASCADE Pale Ale was originally brewed in honor of the legalization of homebrewing in Mississippi, back on July 1, 2013. Beyond its historic interest, this recipe also interested me because it incorporated hops in the mash as well as first wort hopping. I had heard of both techniques, but never used them, so this seemed like a great opportunity to expand my brewing horizons. I made a few other (minor) adjustments to the recipe for my equipment, and thus Lab Bench Pale Ale was born.

As another note, I added a small amount of gypsum to the boil. My hope is that the sulfate from this will help add some “zing” to the hops character. Additionally, I prepared the yeast starter 4 days in advance, and cold crashed it in the refrigerator after 3 days. After approximately 36 hours, and just prior to pitching the yeast, I decanted most of the spent wort, and pitched just a yeast slurry of approximately 0.5 L volume.

Finally, I have been doing some adjustments to my equipment profile in BeerSmith, to try and get my mash temperatures a little closer. For this time around, I assumed a mash tun temperature of 164°. Finally, that seemed to do the trick, and I hit my mash temperature pretty much square on.

Lab Bench Pale Ale

  • 8.6 lbs. 2-row malt (Great Western Malting Co.)
  • 6 oz. 40° L crystal malt
  • 0.5 oz. whole Cascade hops (added to mash; approximately 85 minutes steeping total)
  • 0.5 oz. whole Cascade hops (first wort; steeped in wort for approximately 45 minutes and boiled for 60 minutes)
  • 1 oz. whole Cascade hops, 20 minute boil
  • 0.75 oz. Cascade hops pellets (7.5% alpha, 5.5% beta), 10 minute boil
  • 1.25 oz. Cascade hops pellets (7.5% alpha, 5.5% beta), added at flame-out and steeped for ~30 minutes during chilling of wort
  • 2 oz. Cascade hops pellets (7.5% alpha, 5.5% beta), dry hop for 10 days
  • 1 tbs. 5.2 pH stabilizer (added to mash)
  • 8 g. powdered gypsum (added to boil)
  • 1 tsp. Irish moss  (10 minute boil)
  • California Ale Yeast (White Labs WLP001), prepared 4 days in advance with 1.5 L starter
Anticipated statistics
  • 1.047 o.g., 1.010 f.g., 4.8% abv
  • 37.8 IBU
  • 5.0 SRM
Procedure
  • I mashed in with 4 gallons of water at 164°. The grains, 0.5 oz. of whole hops, and 5.2 pH stabilizer were all included in this mix. The temperature had stabilized at 152° within 10 minutes, and was down to 150° after 30 minutes.
  • After a 60 minute mash, I added 1.35 gallons of 190° water, let it sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected approximately 3.25 gallons of wort.
  • I added 3.14 gallons of water at 180°, which brought the mash up to 168°. I let this rest for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected the remainder of the wort.
  • All together, I collected ~6.65 gallons of wort, with a gravity of 1.038 at 60°. This translates to 76.8% mash efficiency, within a percentage point or so of where I predicted.
  • I added the gypsum and brought the wort to a boil, adding hops at the designated intervals. Thus, hops were added at 40 minutes, 50 minutes (along with Irish moss), and 60 minutes (at flame-out). I noted a larger than normal amount of hot break; I’m not sure why this was.
  • I chilled the wort down to 72°, transferred it to a carboy, and pitched the yeast. I plan to start fermentation (the first 12-24 hours) at 67°, and will do the remainder of fermentation at 65°.
  • I plan to transfer to the keg and dry-hop in 7 to 10 days.
  • Starting gravity was 1.047, exactly as calculated by BeerSmith. This has been a really good brew session, in terms of nailing efficiency, temperatures, volumes, and gravities.

Beer Update: Gondwana Pale Ale 1.1

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Today I transferred the Gondwana Pale Ale over to the secondary fermenter, following 9 days of primary fermentation. Some highlights:

  • Gravity is 1.012 at 60 degrees, down from 1.048. This works out to 4.7% abv and apparent attenuation of 74%.
  • I racked the beer onto 2 oz. of Citra hops pellets (14.5% alpha, 3.9% beta), and plan a solid 2 weeks of dry hopping before bottling/kegging.
  • In total, 5 gallons of beer was transferred; there was about 0.25 gallons of trub, and another 0.25 gallons of stuff that was just too murky to bother with.
  • The sample is tasted has a slight whiff of Citra hops, presumably from the late addition during the boil. This is quite nice! As with the first version of this recipe, there is a very slight vegetal/off-malty after-taste. Because I haven’t really had this with my other all-grain recipes, I wonder if it is something inherent to the malts I used (maybe the Vienna malt?). In any case, the aroma was very transient in the last batch, and is much fainter by comparison in this batch, so I am not too worried.
  • I set the fermenting chamber (i.e., temperature controlled freezer) to 64 degrees, up 2 degrees from the primary fermentation. I may raise it again slightly later this week.

Gondwana Pale Ale 1.1

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Back in March, at the start of my all-grain brewing, I brewed up Gondwana IPA. The resulting beer turned out unexpectedly tasty, and hooked me on Citra hops (especially for dry-hopping). Because I was still figuring out my techniques at the time, my mash efficiency was a little low (~57%), and the result was closer to a pale ale than a traditional IPA in some respects. Thus, I retooled the original recipe as a pale ale, cutting back some of the malt and utilizing Citra as the only hops for the brew. As before, I want a prominent hops aroma, so this beer will get a nice dry-hopping.

Gondwana Pale Ale (version 1.1)
  • 9 lbs. 2 row malt
  • 1 lb. Vienna malt
  • 0.5 lb. cara-pils malt
  • 0.5 lb. 40° crystal malt
  • 1 oz. Citra hops (bittering, first addition; pellet form; 14.5% alpha, 3.9% beta)
  • 1 oz. Citra hops (bittering, second addition)
  • 1 tsp. Irish moss
  • 1 pkg. Safale American dry yeast (US-05, 11 g)
  • 2 oz. Citra hops (dry hopping)
Steps
  • First, I preheated the mash tun with 9 gallons of water that was as hot as possible from the tap.
  • In my brew pot, I heated 14 quarts of water to 170°. I added the milled grains to the mash tun with 1 tbs. of pH 5.2 stabilizer, and mashed in. The temperature stabilized at 154°. After 30 minutes, the temperature was 153°.
  • After 60 minutes, added 1 gallon of water at 185°, and let it sit for 10 minutes or so. I drained the tun, extracting ~2.9 gallons of wort.
  • Next, I added 3.2 gallons of water at 195°. This raised the mash temperature to ~175°, a little warmer than I wanted. So, I added 1 quart (.25 gallons) of ice cubes. This dropped the temperature down to 168°. I let the mix sit for 10 minutes before draining.
  • I collected a total of 6.7 gallons of wort, with a preboil gravity of 1.043. This works out to a mash efficiency of ~73%.
  • I heated the wort to boiling, aiming for a total of 60 minutes at boil. After 30 minutes, I added the first addition of hops.
  • After 50 minutes, I added the Irish moss.
  • After 58 minutes, I added the second addition of hops.
  • After 60 minutes of boiling, I turned off the heat, removed the hops (they were all bagged), and chilled the wort to ~80°.
  • Once the wort was chilled, I transferred it to the primary fermentation vessel. Along the way, it was oxygenated using my Venturi pump.
  • The yeast was rehydrated in 2 cups of preboiled water at ~90°, and pitched into the wort.
  • Starting gravity was 1.048 at 60 degrees, with ~5.3 gallons of wort. I can probably expect around 5% abv in the end.
  • The beer is fermenting at 64°; after 1 week I will transfer it to the secondary fermenter and dry-hop for 2 weeks, prior to bottling.
Notes
  • Total ingredient cost for this was $27.65. Assuming around a 5 gallon yield in the end, the cost per 12-oz. bottle will be around $0.55.
  • In order to maximize extract efficiency, I have been using a double crush on the mill at my local homebrew shop. Based on a visual inspection of the milled grain, and on conversations with the owner, I decided to try just a single pass through the mill this time. Based on my efficiency, that was an okay decision.
  • In the past, I had been a little frustrated by trying to raise the temperature of the grain bed during the second collection of wort. Thus, I tried adding much hotter water (~195°) than recommended by BeerSmith (168°), and got much better results both in terms of temperature as well as mash efficiency. There was a little fiddling to keep the temperature below 170°, so I might aim for around 185° to 190° next time.

KPA Update

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I just transferred the KPA to my secondary fermenter, to settle out a bit while I’m away for Christmas. Things looked A-OK in the primary, and the beer has a final gravity of 1.011. With my starting gravity of 1.041, this gives about 4 percent alcohol.

The beer has a very nice, dark golden hue, and a good hoppy aroma. The hops flavor is strong but smooth, so I think this will be a very good one once I get it carbonated. Now just to wait a few weeks. . .

Kamikaze Pale Ale

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This is the first time I’ve ever stepped free of the confines of a brewing kit, so I’ve called this recipe “Kamikaze Pale Ale,” or KPA for short. I started with the American pale ale in Charlie Papazian’s Complete Joy of Home Brewing (3rd Edition), and changed ingredients as I felt appropriate. Some of the ingredients were determined by what was available at the nearest home brew supply shop, but that’s half the fun! With the Cascade hops, I suppose it’s an American pale ale, but the Nottingham yeast probably puts it into the British category. We’ll see what it tastes like in the end!

I’m going to go into a fair bit of detail for this recipe, but I don’t expect to do quite as much in future posts.

Here are the basic ingredients:
1/2 pound pale ale crystal malt (at least, that’s what it said on the tub at the store)
6.6 pounds Bries CBW Golden Light Pure Malt Extract
3 oz. whole Cascade hops from South Dakota (2 oz. for the full boil, 1 oz. for the finish)
11 g active dry Nottingham brewing yeast (Danstar brand)

Here’s what I did:

  1. I steeped the crystal malt (all wrapped up in a cheesecloth sack) in two gallons of water, heated to 160 degrees, for 30 minutes.
  2. I removed the crystal malt, let it drip out a bit, and discarded it. Then, I heated the whole mixture to a boil.
  3. I added all of the liquid malt extract and the hops (again, enclosed in a cheesecloth bag), and then boiled the whole mixture for 60 minutes. Two minutes before the end, I added the finishing hops.
  4. I cooled the whole mess in the sink – it took about 15 minutes to get it down to a reasonable temperature. Then, I poured it into the primary fermenter and topped it up to five gallons with cold tap water (with one gallon of Target’s purified water in the mix – it was sitting in the house, so I thought I’d get rid of it).
  5. Finally, I sprinkled the contents of the yeast packet across the top of the whole thing, and sealed it up.
  6. I put the fermenter in the closet, where it’s a happy 70 degrees. Now, I’ll just wait until next weekend, when I’ll siphon it into the secondary (a glass carboy – newly acquired as of last weekend) and let it sit over the Christmas break.

Other odds and ends:
For this recipe, I decided to try crushing the crystal malt at home. Easier said than done. In the end, I crushed a quarter pound at a time in two gallon freezer bags (one inside the other) by rolling over the grains with a large beer bottle. The grains ended up a little more floured than I might have liked, so we’ll see if/how this affects the end result.

My starting gravity is 1.041. A little lighter than I might like, but we’ll see how it turns out. If I were to do it again, I’d probably only top it up to 4.5 gallons (although interestingly enough, I didn’t have any loss due to boiling over this time).

I sampled a bit of the wort – it’s very hoppy and quite sweet (as I’d expect on both counts). I think this is going to be a good one!