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Summer Blonde Ale 1.1

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Thanks to a few recent gatherings at which I have served my homebrew, my three kegs all kicked this past week. That means…more brewing! My Pannotia White IPA just came online this weekend (and wow is it tasty!), but I’ve got two taps to fill as soon as possible. So, I’m fulfilling this “obligation” first with a blonde ale and second with a “wild and crazy brew” (more on that one in a subsequent post).

For tonight’s brew, I elected to rebrew a blonde ale that I did last summer. That one turned out pretty nicely, and the warm summer months are approaching, so on we go again! I made a few minor modifications, partly to account for the efficiency of my equipment but also to use up some hops I had on-hand. Also, I switched yeast strains from US-05 to WLP001.

Summer Blonde Ale 1.1

  • 9 lbs. 2-row malt (Great Western Malting Co.)
  • 8 oz. 15° crystal malt
  • 1.10 oz. Willamette hops pellets (5.2% alpha, 3.7% beta), 60 minute boil
  • 1 tsp. Irish moss (10 minute boil)
  • 1 pkg. California Ale Yeast (WLP001, prepared in 1L starter)
Procedure
  • I mashed in with 3.1 gallons of water at 160°. The temperature stabilized at 151°, was down to 148° after 35 minutes, and was down to 147° after 55 minutes.
  • After 60 minutes, I added 1.25 gallons of water at 160° to the mash, let the mash sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected 3.3 gallons of wort.
  • Then, I added 3.1 gallons of water at 185°, which raised the mash bed to 168°. I let it sit for 10 minutes and vorlaufed.
  • All told, I collected 6.6 gallons of wort with a gravity of 1.039. This works out to 74% mash efficiency.
  • Once the wort came to a boil, I added the hops and boiled the mixture for 60 minutes. 10 minutes prior to flame-out, I added the Irish moss.
  • After removing the kettle from the heat, I chilled the wort down to 70° and transferred all to the fermenter (aerating with the Venturi pump). I pitched the starter (which I had put together five days previous; cold-crashed for two days, and decanted spent wort leaving all but ~0.5 L yeast slurry).
  • My starting gravity is 1.047, with 5 gallons of wort into the fermenter. I’ll be fermenting at 65°.

Gondwana Pale Ale 1.2

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Mash on!

Ramping up for the National Homebrewers Association conference, my club is going to be serving our beers at club night! I’ve (perhaps foolishly) agreed to provide three kegs, using some of my more tried-and-true recipes. First out: Gondwana Pale Ale. I’ve made this recipe in two previous iterations, and have modified the grain and hops bill just a touch as my techniques are refined. Additionally, I’ll be using a liquid yeast starter (WLP001) instead of dried yeast (Safeale US-05).

Gondwana Pale Ale 1.2

  • 8.25 lbs. 2-row malt
  • 0.85 lbs. Vienna malt
  • 0.45 lbs. carapils malt
  • 0.45 lbs. crystal 40 malt
  • 1 oz. Citra hops (pellets, 13.2% alpha, 3.7% beta), 35 minute boil
  • 1 oz. Citra hops (pellets, 13.2% alpha, 3.7% beta), 1 minute boil
  • 2 oz. Citra hops  (pellets, 13.2% alpha, 3.7% beta), dry hop 14 days
  • 1 tsp. Irish moss (boil 10 minutes)
  • 1 pkg. California Ale Yeast (White Labs, WLP001); prepared 24 hours in advance in 1L starter

Procedure

  • I mashed in with 3.185 gallons of water at 164°, nailing 152° on the nose for a mash temperature. This had declined to 151° after 10 minutes and 150.4° after 35 minutes.
  • I added 1.18 gallons of water at 190°, which brought the temperature up to 154°. I let it sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collcted 3.25 gallons of wort.
  • I added 3.18 gallons of water at 185°, which brought the mash temperature up to 172°. This was a touch high, so I added .125 cups of ice cubes, which brought the temperature down to 165°. I let it sit for another 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected the rest of the wort.
  • All told, I collected 6.95 gallons of wort with a gravity of 1.037. This works out to ~72% efficiency. Because my efficiencies have been a touch low the last two batches (compared to the usual 75%+), I rechecked the gap on the rollers on my grain mill. Sure enough, they had slipped out just a touch, so I readjusted them back to 0.039.
  • I brought the wort to a boil and added the first hops charge after 25 minutes (for a 35 minute total boil).
  • I added the Irish moss after 50 minutes of boiling.
  • I added the second hops charge 1 minute before flame-out. At flame out, I removed the “old” hops, left the “new” ones in to steep, and cooled the wort. Once it was down to ~75°, I transferred the wort to the fermenter and pitched the yeast.
  • I have ~5.5 gallons of beer in the carboy, with a gravity of 1.048 (exactly where I was at for my last batch, too!). I’ll be fermenting it at 66°.
  • Within 12 hours after pitching the yeast, fermentation was well under way.
  • I brewed this beer on Saturday, April 11.

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.

Laurasia IPA Updates

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On February 16, I transferred the Laurasia IPA over to the secondary fermenter. At that time, the gravity was 1.029; the taste was clean, a faint fruity aroma before CO2 outgases, and a very mellow hoppiness. I was surprised at the relatively high gravity and the apparently slow fermentation–perhaps due to underoxygenation? Or maybe due to the yeast strain?

I sampled the beer again on February 25, to find the gravity at 1.020. This calculates out to 6.5% abv. In a few days, I will add the Simcoe hops for a few days of dry-hopping.