Bayou Beer

All about beer brewing and drinking in South Louisiana.

American Pale Ale With Decoction

September 3rd, 2016

So I’m out of pale ale! I’ve been happy with what I’ve been brewing but time for a few tweaks as an experiment. Bruce Baker is always talking about a small decoction being awesome with his so I’ll try it with mine. Also going to just move the bittering addition back as a first wort hop. Oh and finally I’m using BestMaltz because the homebrew shop was out of Weyermann which I’d been using.

Update 9/5/2016

Well this has been one of those brew days. Started pouring raining during the run off. Had to fix the pump when the mash started. Had the hardest time getting the wort to run clear during the mash. Lots of stuck lines due to the grain getting clogged.(I’m guessing I need better stainless washers for the Blichmann screen) Just a total pain in the ass. Skipped that decoction just because enough was already problematic. I think all this is a combination of me not brewing for several months due to life as well as the total disarray of my brew room and garage due to the great flood which had us taking on my inlaws. The gravity came out high at 1.050 which shouldn’t be a problem and will likely help with the bitterness dude to the first wort hopping with the centennial.

Update 9/14/2016

Fermented out fine. Added dry hops once it was mostly done. 2 ounces of Amarillo and 2 ounces of Centennial which I believe is different from the recipe. That stayed for about 7 days. Transferred and carbonating. One note on this batch from the brew day: I forgot to add the crystal until the mash was about 80% done.

Update 10/10/2016

This beer is just wonderful to drink. To me it could use a little more residual sweetness but to anyone who loves a west coast pale ale this is it. Big hop aroma and huge hop flavor. Very resinous. Lots of pineapple, passion fruit, various shades of citrus. Just enough maltiness to support. I sent it to Dixie Cup so maybe I’ll get lucky and win something in the pale ale gauntlet.

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
5.5 gal 60 min 44.3 IBUs 9.0 SRM 1.046 1.011 4.5 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
American Pale Ale 18 B 1.045 - 1.06 1.01 - 1.015 30 - 50 5 - 10 2.3 - 3 4.5 - 6.2 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Pilsen (BestMälz) 7 lbs 66.27
Munich (BestMälz) 3 lbs 28.4
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L 3 oz 1.78
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L 3 oz 1.78
Special B Malt 3 oz 1.78

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Centennial 1 oz 60 min First Wort Pellet 10
Amarillo 1 oz 1 min Boil Pellet 9.2
Centennial 1 oz 1 min Boil Pellet 10
Mosaic (HBC 369) 1 oz 1 min Boil Pellet 12.3
Citra 2 oz 0 min Dry Hop Pellet 12

Miscs

Name Amount Time Use Type
Lactic Acid 10.00 ml 60 min Mash Water Agent
Calcium Chloride 5.00 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 5.00 g 60 min Mash Water Agent

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Safale American (US-05) DCL/Fermentis 77% 59°F - 75°F

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Mash In 154°F 60 min

Notes

Doing a hop stand at 160ish for 15 minutes. Adding the bittering hops as a first wort hop addition.

May American IPA

May 24th, 2016

Brewing up a small IPA / Big pale ale. Hopefully going to be a great drinker. The last one I brewed with 50/50 munich/pilsner was decent but not great. Brew day went fine with around a 1.058 OG. Had a short boil so we’ll see if the whole DMS thing comes to fruition. I doubt it with this beer.

Update July 4, 2016
Although this beer came out great I didn’t get near the hop aroma I want out of an IPA. So research research research and I came upon an article from BYO on hop aroma. Well I realized I’d been creeping my dry hop additions up further because of an article I read in Zymurgy concerning Sierra Nevada adding dry hops during fermentation to get more fruitiness and less grassy. Pro brewer advice from a few notable breweries(Vinnie Cilurzo at Russian River) in the BYO article seem to indicate that you lose a lot of oil that way and can in fact hurt your aroma.

So the beer is half gone and I enjoy it. So I bottled a few and now I’ll be dropping some dry hop in to the keg. I figure 1 ounce of Citra for roughly 2.5 gallons should do fine. Using these tea balls I have hanging around should keep them from stopping up the out on the keg. Will update this again around July 15th!

The BYO article was “Advanced Dry Hopping”. Google it. I don’t link to outside sources because they tend to go away over time.

Update 7/5/2016
So I went ahead and dropped a tea ball with one ounce of Citra in my Hippidy Hoppidy rebrew from a couple of months back. The beer was just meh on hops likely due to the same reasons posted above. Well give it roughly 24 hours and the beer is much better and now something I like to drink. The Citra is very pronounced in the aroma and the front of the flavor. It smooths out in to that hop flavor that was there from the late boil additions pretty nicely as a transition. That beer like this IPA exhibited little hop aroma despite getting a nice charge of dry hop and knockout hops. I’m currently convinced a post gelatin fining addition is necessary to produce maximum aroma and flavor. I added the one ounce to the Citra IPA and we’ll see what it’s like in a few days.

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
5.5 gal 30 min 57.1 IBUs 9.4 SRM 1.058 1.015 5.6 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
American IPA 21 A 1.056 - 1.07 1.008 - 1.014 40 - 70 6 - 14 2.4 - 2.9 5.5 - 7.5 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Pilsner (2 Row) Ger 7 lbs 58.95
Munich 10L (Briess) 3 lbs 25.26
Carapils (Briess) 8 oz 4.21
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L 2 oz 1.05
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L 2 oz 1.05
Special B Malt 2 oz 1.05
DME Golden Light (Briess) 1 lbs 8.42

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Galaxy 1 oz 30 min Boil Pellet 15.2
Centennial 2 oz 5 min Boil Pellet 10
Amarillo 2 oz 3 min Boil Pellet 9.2
Amarillo 2 oz 0 min Dry Hop Pellet 9.2
Centennial 2 oz 0 min Dry Hop Pellet 10
Simcoe 1 oz 0 min Dry Hop Pellet 13

Miscs

Name Amount Time Use Type
Lactic Acid 8.00 ml 60 min Mash Water Agent
Calcium Chloride 6.00 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 6.00 g 60 min Mash Water Agent

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Mash In 153°F 75 min

Hippidy Hoppidy Rebrew

May 1st, 2016

Floated the rest of the last keg I had. I really enjoyed the brew for Zapp’s so we’re brewing it again. Adding a tad more crystal 40 and made minor changes to the hop schedule. Basically a little less simcoe and more mosaic.

The brew day was April 30 and went fine. Beer came out around 1.048 original gravity. Pitched and was bubbling well within 24 hours.

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
5.5 gal 30 min 43.9 IBUs 8.5 SRM 1.048 1.010 4.9 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
American Pale Ale 10 A 1.045 - 1.06 1.01 - 1.015 30 - 45 5 - 14 2.3 - 2.8 4.5 - 6.2 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Munich Malt 5 lbs 45.45
Pilsner (2 Row) Ger 5 lbs 45.45
Cara-Pils/Dextrine 8 oz 4.55
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L 8 oz 4.55

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Galaxy 1 oz 30 min Boil Pellet 15.2
Centennial 1 oz 1 min Boil Pellet 10
Citra 1 oz 1 min Boil Pellet 12
Simcoe 1 oz 1 min Boil Pellet 13
Centennial 1 oz 0 min Aroma Pellet 10
Citra 1 oz 0 min Aroma Pellet 12
Mosaic (HBC 369) 2 oz 0 min Dry Hop Pellet 12.3

Miscs

Name Amount Time Use Type
Lactic Acid 11.00 ml 60 min Mash Water Agent
Calcium Chloride 8.00 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 6.00 g 60 min Mash Water Agent

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Safale American (US-05) DCL/Fermentis 77% 59°F - 75°F

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Mash In 152°F 60 min

Notes

Didn't have as much pilsner on hand as I thought I did. Luckily I had pilsner DME at the houes. Original plan was to use Magnum for bitter but ran out so used Columbus instead.

American Pale Ale With Challenger

January 2nd, 2016

So I have some challenger I’ve been needing to use and I’m running out of my American hop stockpile I’ve been working on for the past year. Before I can justify ordering a giant round of wholesale hops I need to burn through it. So try some things out. How about Simcoe and Challenger? We’ll see how it comes out. Going to try a little more crystal than I typically use because I’ve read that Challenger can be a little sharp. Simcoe can also be a bit aggressive to me so I think more sweetness won’t hurt. The brew day went well with the gravity being more like 1.048.

2/4/2016 Update
This beer ended up being ok at best. Ironically the BeerXML plugin for my site won’t show the recipe for some unknown reason. Probably because the plugin knows that the beer wasn’t great. The hop flavor and aroma just isn’t smooth. It’s pretty harsh and the bitter probably isn’t very pleasant either.(I have to speculate due to being mostly bitter insensitive) I drink it but don’t love it. May dump it if I run out of kegerator space soon. Currently have 5 full, 2 in the works and want to brew some more. So something has to go!

Bayou Beer

All about beer brewing and drinking in South Louisiana.

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