Critique My Pale Ale Please

Batch size? At 5 gallons, looks a little high gravity wise; at 6 gallons, looks a little low bitterness wise. Neither of these are bad outcomes if that's the way you want the beer.

 

OK. I got 1.063 on beersmith. It's just numbers. The ingredients look right. The proportions look right. The yeast is...? I'll assume US05/1056/001 unless you say otherwise, but any number of yeasts might do well here.

 

Id cut the crystal a little bit but thats just preference there, you are certainly within style with your amounts. I would push the 45 and 25 min additions to 10 or so. If you have the ability I am much more of a fan of DME over LME (even though I hate how DME sticks to everything!!! /rant) and would recommend using DME instead.

 

if you are looking for more hop flavor move some of your late additions to 20 or 15 minutes to flameout. i would do something like this...

.5oz Chinook @ 60 min
.75oz Cascade @ 15 min
.25oz Simcoe @ 15 min
1oz Cascade and .25oz Chinook Dry Hop 7-10 days

 

I prefer my pales to have a lighter body and be more hop focused. As I had noted regarding the crystal, it is all personal preference there, I also believe that DME (not sure about the LME) contains carapils in it as well.

Its not so much the bitterness that I am worried about there but moreso the fact that you really wont get much flavor especially from the 45 min addition. As I was saying before, I prefer my balance to move towards hop flavor in my pales which you will get much more flavor out of later additions than you will out of the early additions.

Are you not doing a full boil due to boil pot size or another restriction? If possible, it is optimal to do a full wort boil but I definitely understand it isnt always possible.

 

I personally slightly prefer pale ales like Stone Pale Ale or Dale's, a bit thicker (and presumably with more crystal malt). But it's close. I usually use about a pound of crystal in some form or another in many of my beers.

A turkey fryer will get you the burner and pot you need to do full boils for 5 gallon batches. I got mine on sale at home depot for $50. I typically get 5-6 beers out of a tank of propane, so that's not a huge expense.

 

I usually use two pounds of crystal in my APA's, but I also bring some munich to the party to get a little more malt flavor. I still use extract and prefer to use lme. I get better results with fresh lme and it's cheaper than dme at the lhbs. If you have the ability to do a mini mash I would try onr. Steeping with extract is okay, but you get more out of your grains with a mini mash.

Now that's out of the way, I like to see a good bittering hop at the beginning of the boil, and save your aromas for later. Using the cascade so early seems like a waste of cascade with the other hops you've got going on there. maybe bring the cascade up to the later additions and add a little more chinook at 60, or better yet pick up some magnum or warrior and save the chinook. For later additions as well. But that's just one man's opinion.

 

TWO pounds? I'll have to try that. I love munich malt too! Actually my first mini mash/extract blonde ale had 1.5 lbs crystal and it came out great. Sometimes I think this forum tends to fear the crystal too much.

On the whole magnum/warrior verses "other" bittering hops thing, if they're close to the same price, what's the difference which you use for bittering? I realize there could be some additional flavor contributions beyond the "clean" bittering of magnum/warrior, but is it really very much? I can't see that it would be any kind of waste to use chinook instead of magnum if they're close to the same price. Is there another reason I'm not considering here?

I do understand it would be sort of a "waste" to use citra or amarillo for bittering, due to their rarity and higher cost, and extreme late flavor/dry hopping potential.

 

Can't make West Coast DIPA Whales with crystal, brah!

 

Personally I don't like that much crystal in an APA, I usually go for about .5lb for a 5 gallon batch, but YMMV.

Also, I would bitter with the half oz. of chinook, then add the rest of the hops @ 10 mins or less.

 

Yes.

 

Al, by using cascade, a lower AA hop than say magnum, you would have to use more to bitter the same. Cascade is a delicate little hop compared to the chinook or simcoe, so I would imagine throwing the cascade in early would just be a waste. Even if some flavors make it I would think the bigger hops would just cover it up at that point.
Now if we were talking centenial instead of cascade it would be a whole other story.

 

I've tasted plenty of IPAs that are less IPA-y than Dale's. Definitely some overlap there.