Focused on brewing light colored part of my dream brewery which I’m currently calling Grid. In my mind it is broken out into light and dark colored along with malty,hoppy and intensely hoppy beers for each. This is the first of a run of three different light colored beers. I would normally start with the Blonde then American Pale Ale and then IPA repitching along the way but I was missing one of the grains for the Blonde so I’m starting with the APA.
I love Sierra Nevada Pale Ale so my goal is something along those lines but with a different hop profile. I’ve recently read Scott Janish’s “The New IPA” and using some of his ideas to see how they play out. One of those is using Chit Malt rather than Carapils for excellent head and retention. The other is targeting specific hops for whirlpool vs dry hop. I love classic citrus hops but I also like a bit more dank and stone fruit then you find in SN Pale Ale but his research shows that Cascade does better in whirlpool and Centennial does better as a dry hop but Simcoe does well in both.
The beer turned out OK but definitely not what I want. The things that worked well:
- I really like Great Westerns 2 row. Great flavor and works great in the brewery (mills well, mashes in well, no dough balls, great conversion)
- Chit malt seems to work really well. After the beer got to full carb and about a week on draft the head and retention is fantastic. I would say it could be the dry hopping but the Blonde has really good head and retention as well with no dry hopping. Not quite the thick belgian lacing of the APA but really good.
What didn’t work well
- I don’t like the Crystal 40. Too much sweet caramel. I like a bit more of the dark caramel notes but not raisiny. I think I’m going to go with a mid-English crystal for the next go round. Likely Simpsons Medium since I love it so!
- This beer and the IPA at the end both had serious hop creep and this APA had not crazy but noticeable and not at all desirable diacetyl. The Scott Janish book has a whole section on hop creep but I can’t say I agree with his logic or approach. His recommendation is to dry hop at a lower temp (58-60F) since this will keep the enzyme on the hops in check. The problem with that approach is if you dry hop after terminal than the yeast are already tired and by dropping the temp you are slowing them down even more so any AAL that is generated will be slower to convert to diacetyl and the yeast will be too tired to clean it up. So, for my next round I’m going to try doing 10% of the dry hopping day 1 or 2 to get the hop enzymes in the mix early. They will be done converting whatever long chain to short chain by the end of fermentation so by the time I dry hop there will be no more hop creep fermentation (hopefully). I also plan on doing half the dry hop at 80-90% to terminal and then the other half at terminal (3-4 days after first dry hop if terminal has been reached) and then letting those sit for 4 days. then doing diacetyl test and once that is negative cold crashing.
Recipe Info
Recipe: apa grid v1_0
Style: American Pale Ale 18B BJCP 2015
Date: 09-20-2019
| Recipe | Guideline Min | Guideline Max | |
|---|---|---|---|
| OG | 1.058 | 1.045 | 1.060 |
| FG | 1.013 | 1.010 | 1.015 |
| Color | 6.4 | 5.0 | 10.0 |
| ABV | 6.0 | 4.5 | 6.2 |
| IBU | 55.0 | 30.0 | 50.0 |
Brewery Info
Efficiency: 72 %
Attenuation: 78 %
Mash Info
Weight: 21.0 Lbs
Thickness: 1.25 Qt per Lb
Deadspace: 2.0 G
Strikewater: 8.56 G
Volume: 10.24 G
Temp: 32.0 F
Boil Info
Kettle Gravity: 1.050
Predicted Mash Run-off: 6.68 G
Target Starting Boil Volume: 11.0 G
Boil Duration: 60 min
Evaporation Rate: 1.5 G per Hour
Final Boil Volume: 9.5 G
Fermentables
| Weight | % by Weight | Name | Yield | SRM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19.000 Lb | 90.0 % | Brewer’s Malt, 2-Row, Premium (Great Western) | 80.0 | 2.0 |
| 1.000 Lb | 5.0 % | Crystal 40, 2-Row, (Great Western) | 70.0 | 40.0 |
| 1.000 Lb | 5.0 % | chit malt (BestMälz) | 78.3 | 1.4 |
Hops
| Weight | Name | AAU | Time | Use | IBUs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0 Oz | Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus (CTZ) | 15.5 | 60 mins | Boil | 31.0 |
| 2.0 Oz | Cascade | 6.2 | 20 mins | Aroma | 7.0 |
| 2.0 Oz | Simcoe | 14.1 | 20 mins | Aroma | 17.0 |
| 2.0 Oz | Centennial | 10.0 | 6.0 days | Dry Hop | 0.0 |
| 2.0 Oz | Simcoe | 14.1 | 6.0 days | Dry Hop | 0.0 |
Yeast
| Amount | Name |
|---|---|
| 0.200 L | Flagship Imperial A07 |
Misc
| Amount | Name | Time | Use |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.000 tablet | Whirlfloc Tablet | 15 mins | Boil |
| 1.000 tsp | Yeast Nutrient (Wyeast) | 10 mins | Boil |
Water
Predicted Mash Ph: 5.49
| Ca | Mg | Na | Cl | So | Bicarbonate | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Water | 7 | 3 | 21 | 30 | 24 | 30 |
| Mash | 55 | 3 | 21 | 90 | 59 | 30 |
| Sparge | 70 | 3 | 21 | 108 | 69 | 30 |
| Final | 98 | 5 | 33 | 155 | 100 | 47 |
| Target | 75 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Mash Water
Total Water Treated: 32.176 G
Percent RO / Distlled: 0 %
Water Used: 8.500 G
Mash Water Adjustments
Gypsum: 2.0 g
Calcium Chloride: 4.0 g
Lactic Acid: 4.0 ml @ 88.000 %
Sparge Water
Leftover Mash Water Used: Yes
Total Water Treated: 6.500 G
Percent RO / Distlled: 0 %
Water Used: 6.500 G
Sparge Water Adjustments
Gypsum: 2.0 g
Calcium Chloride: 4.0 g
Notes
Ferment two weeks at 68f
Two dry hops 3 days each
normal 3 vessel concical brewday. only off part was imperial yeast pitch wasn’t great. i didn’t shake it enough which left a lot of yeast in the pouch so pitch was small. also, elsinore software on my hosehead died so I had to rebuild it from scratch so i just went ahead and installed craftbeerpi 3.0 which installed easily and works great. no going back to elsinore.
10-14-19 @ 5pm pitched 1 imperial yeast flagship A07
10-15-19 @ 8:30 am slow steady bubbling
@5pm strong bubbling
10-16-19 strong steady bubbling. bumped from 67F to 68F
10-17-19 slow steady bubbling (my guess is day three is 90% to terminal so when first dry hop should go in)
10-18-19 ~12 sec
10-19-19 “
10-20-19 ~31 sec
10-21-19 ~39 sec
10-27-19 FG 1.014
nice beer. no diacetyl. really nice hop character. dropped to 50F
10-31-19 harvested a really nice pitch of yeast. much better than the whitbread strain. almost 700mL of slurry. accidentily did the whole dry hop at once. will blow back in suspension day 2 and cold crash day 4 so its not too grassy.
11-2-19 10 psi blast on bottom of cone to get hops back in suspension
11-5-19 cold crashed
11-8-19 dropped cone
11-9-19 racked to keg. 30psi force carb. FG 1.014. nice beer.
tasting notes 12-4-19 – on draft almost a month
first couple of weeks there was some hop astringency but that is now gone
aroma – malty sweet w/ toffee candy notes. orange, grapefruit, peach and a hint of guava. clean except for a low level of butter / diacetyl
appearance – deep gold. too light in color. would like it more copper colored. nice 1/2″ head w/ really super lacing and retention
maybe caramel 60 or something else. victory or british med crystal?
flavor – malty sweet, sweet caramel notes
citrus, grapefruit, lime, orange, a little bit of earthy dankness which i like
low grade butter / diacetyl. maybe dry hop earlier so hop creep finish out earlier while yeast is healthier. maybe don’t drop yeast?
mouthfeel – dry. a slight hint of chalkiness on the teeth but that is a good quality. solid carb. maybe 2.6. 14 psi @ 38F on kegerator. slightly astringent. body is good.
overall impression – a good beer but diacetyl is a major problem and distracting. a bit astringent and malt profile needs work.