I'm planning a brew for later this week and wanted some feedback. I'm am shooting for a sessionable (sub-5%) beer with a flavorful, biscuity backbone and some good hop presence. I chose the Wyeast 1968 London ESB strain for its quick fermentation and high flocculation (want to have this done pretty quick). I will mash low (148 or so) for 90 minutes to try to keep this from being too sweet, and I plan to ferment at 64-65 for the first few days and then ramp up to 70 for the last few days for a diacetyl rest. I'm going with Citra and Amarillo because that's what I have on hand. I guess this might be an American take on an English Bitter? An English Pale with American hops? Not sure exactly how to classify it. Boil Size: 8.41 gal Post Boil Volume: 7.28 gal Batch Size (fermenter): 6.00 gal Estimated OG: 1.044 SG Estimated Color: 7.1 SRM Estimated IBU: 39.8 IBUs Boil Time: 60 Minutes Ingredients: ------------ 9 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) 8.0 oz Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) 8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L 0.75 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min 0.25 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min 0.75 oz Citra [11.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min 0.25 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min 0.75 oz Citra [11.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min 0.25 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min 1.00 oz Citra [11.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min 1.0 pkg London ESB Ale (Wyeast Labs #1968) 2.0 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Dry Hop in the keg
Looks like an American Pale Ale and a damn tasty one at that. My only thought is that citra can be a very strong (flavor and aroma) hop and you may be overusing it a bit here, especially in conjunction with amarillo (another strong flavor and aroma profile). I personally would never use more than 2 oz. citra for dry hopping in an (even an) IPA, with this and 1 ounce at flameout will create quite the aroma that may overpower everything else your trying to do here.
Check the date, if it is fresh your probably fine. I like making starters to ensure viability, but with a 1.044 OG you're probably fine.
I agree with mnstorm99 in that Citra is an EXTREMELY potent hop. I used a total of 3.5 ounces of Citra for late additions (15 minutes of boil time or less plus dry hopping) in an all Citra hopped IPA and that beer was too intense; I had to age that beer for a number of weeks to permit the hops to ‘mellow out’ before I could really enjoy drinking that beer. The present recipe has 4.5 ounces of Citra; that is too much even for an IPA. I would recommend that you seriously ‘tone down’ the Citra hops you are using. Below is a suggestion for your late hopping (more consistent with APA hopping levels): 0.25 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min 0.25 oz Citra [11.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min 0.25 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min 0.25 oz Citra [11.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min 0.25 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min 0.5 oz Citra [11.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min 1.0 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Dry Hop in the keg As regards whether you need a starter for an OG = 1.044, I suggest that you don’t need a starter for a beer of this lower gravity. Good luck with your APA! Cheers!
I agree, it looks heavy on the late hops. What I would do with this recipe is to keep it as is and just cut the dry hops, but the above suggestions sound good too. Where's marquis saying that many English pales are often brewed with American hops?
Thanks for the feedback. They didn't have Biscuit Malt at the LHBS, so I subbed .5# of Victory. Also going to heed the hops warning and pare those additions down some. Thinking about this to get it around 35 IBUs: .5 oz Amarillo FWH .5 oz each of Amarillo and Citra at 15, 10, 5 .75 oz of each Amarillo and Citry dry hop I understand that Citra is a potent hop, but it's one I enjoy. Checked my schedule against the Zombie Dust clone that is considered to be probably the best over on HBT, and ZD has 7.75 ounces of Citra, with 4oz coming in the last 15 minutes and 3oz of dry hops. That is obviously a bigger beer (OG in the 1.065 neighborhood), but it's one of my favorites, so I think that scaling mine down to to 2.25oz Citra and 2.75oz Amarillo isn't going to leave me with a beer too potent to enjoy. Got my smack pack of 1968 smacked and will make a starter here in a bit.
“I think that scaling mine down to to 2.25oz Citra and 2.75oz Amarillo isn't going to leave me with a beer too potent to enjoy.” That is certainly a step in the right direction. Just remember that if for some reason this beer initially is too intense after the beer is carbonated a few more weeks of ‘aging’ in the bottle will help the hops mellow out. Cheers!
Love that yeast strain! Although usually when I brew a low alcohol beer I tend to up the mash temp a little bit to give it a little thicker mouth feel.
This is something I've gone back and forth on, and I was hoping somebody would chime in. I figured that my 10% specialty grains would lend some mouthfeel to the brew, and I was hesitant to mash higher for fear of having too sweet a beer and too high a FG (1968 isn't the best attenuator, right?). The idea behind the lower mash temp (I think I have 148 for 75 minutes plugged in) was to hunt for some extra fermentability. I guess I don't know the best balance to strike w/r/t mash temps for a beer that is well-attenuated but not too thin. I believe I have some oats in the brew shed that I could toss in to the grist to achieve some more body but avoid too much residual sweetness.
I agree with Beejay. With a 44 point OG, you can dry that beer out (and take away alot of character) very quickly. I brew alot of session beers, and will usually mash around 154°. But taking your 10% specialty malt into consideration I think 152° would be a good place to start with this beer.
Had a good brewday. I found some biscuit malt and some carapils, so I added that and decided to bump target OG up to 1.048. I ended up mashing at 153.5, held it for an hour, and I hit over 80% mash efficiency, so my gravity was around 1.049-1.050. You guys got me worried about drying this guy out too much. I also ended up moving my flameout hop addition to 5 minutes, and I will decided when I keg it whether or not I want to dry hop. Only issue that I ran into was that I forgot to get ice for chilling. I recirculate through a CFC back into my kettle and switch from hose water to ice water recirculating with a pond pump once the wort hits about 100 (groundwater is too warm here during the summer). Well, this was my first brew since it's gotten warm, so I had to go with what little ice I had in the freezer to chill and even ended up trying to submerge a 5-pound bag of frozen alligator meat to cool my water down. I couldn't get below 75, so I pitched at that and put it in the ferm chamber about 2 hours ago. So far, it's come down 2 degrees. I think I'm going to go buy a bag of ice and prop it up against the ale pail to help the minifridge get temps down a little quicker. Thanks for the tips for this first foray into a sub-5% beer.
