SEYMOUR GREEN HOP CREAM ALE

[seymour]

I’ve grown my own hops for years, but I’ve always dried them before use. You guys have convinced me to change my ways. This is my first attempt at a green hop brew, so I selected a fairly neutral but authentically American base style to showcase my homegrown Cascade hops. Here's a link to the BJCP 6A. Cream Ale style guidelines, in case you're interested.

Just over a year ago, my family moved across town. I transplanted as many hops as I could (6 plants) into 5 gallon buckets, which are still awaiting their final spot in our garden. They’re surviving but not thriving, and it doesn’t look like I’m gonna harvest any hops this year. However, my neighbour back at the old house has been growing some of my Cascade divisions in her own garden and invited me back to pick all the hops. Granted, they weren’t all necessarily at their peak harvest timing, but I didn’t know when I’d be back in the area again. They had lots of bright yellow, aromatic resin though, so I’m confident they’ll be fine. And the beer itself smelled overwhelmingly hoppy, so the proof’s in the pudding…

Note: this is a small batch size, because I wanted to make the most of my 15-ounce green hop harvest.

SEYMOUR GREEN HOP CREAM ALE
all-grain recipe
brewed 8/24/2013

4 US Gallons = 3.3 Imperial Gallons = 15.1 Litres

FERMENTABLES:
60% = 4 lb = 1.81 kg, American Six-Row Pale Malt
20% = 1.6 lb = 726 g, Yellow Popcorn Kernels*
12.5% = 1 lb = 454 g, Dingemans Belgian Pilsener Malt
12.5% = 1 lb = 454 g, German Vienna Malt
2% = .16 lb = 73 g, American Crystal Malt 80°L
1.5% = .12 lb = 54 g, German Aciduated Malt
1.5% = .12 lb = 54 g, Steel-Cut Oats
Total weight: 8 lbs/3.63 kg

*I have a personal theory that popcorn, which must possess very specific properties in order to “pop”, is probably still the closest we have to pre-Columbian Native American corn/maize, and much less genetically modified than other commercial sweet corn varieties. I selected yellow instead of white because it contains more healthful beta-carotene.

STRIKED grainbed with 2.5 US gal/2.1 Imp gal/9.5L water ≈ 159°F/70.6°C to reach the first mash temp. Stirred-in a sprinkle of Calcium Carbonate. After an hour, I added .75 US gal/.62 Imp gal/2.8 L boiling water to reach next temperature rest.

MASHED at 148°F/64.4°C for 60 minutes, then 158°F/70°C for 30 minutes.

SPARGED ≈ 172°F/77.8°C to collect 6.5 US Gal/5.4 Imp Gal/24.6L pre-boil. This took about 40 minutes.

I moved my keggle to the propane burner, lit the flame, and it took 15 minutes to reach a full boil.

BOILED for 60 minutes, dropped-in Irish Moss and the immersion chiller at 15 minutes remaining.

HOPS: (bear in mind, these are green hops quantities, so the weights are around 5-6 times higher than a typical recipe for equivalent bitterness)

3 oz = 85 g, Green Cascade, First Wort Hops plus full 60 minutes
3 oz = 85 g, Green Cascade, 15 minutes
9 oz = 255 g, Green Cascade, 5 minutes then steep until cooled

We’ve been having a heat-wave for many days, so the ground water is warm. Even with the immersion chiller, it took about an hour to reduce the temperature to my target. Hopefully the steeping time gained me yet more hoppy aromas.

I drained the keggle into a bucket-style fermentor, and blasted it with my Ditch-Drill-Powered-Paint-Stirrer for insane aeration, then pitched the yeast.

YEAST:
Safale S-33/Edme, an historic English not Belgian strain, fermented at 68°F/20°C, cooler during lengthy secondary

STATS assuming an abysmal 61% mash efficiency but 77% yeast attenuation:
OG: 1044
FG: 1005
ABV: 5.1%
IBU: 37?
COLOUR: 6°SRM/12°EBC, slightly hazy light golden amber

My friend and fellow homebrew club member, Jason, came over to help/hang-out. He brought his own excellent Oktoberfest lager and Dark Amber ale. Timothy (another brewer friend and Jim’s member) showed-up later, bringing his dangerously drinkable Earthy IPA (>8% ABV!). I don’t have a rule against drinking while brewing, but geez I think they were trying to get me drunk!

In between steps, I measured and milled the grains, sorted the hops, and prepped the hot liquor tank for tomorrow’s brew: Seymour Dark Mild No.3. When I woke up 6 hours later, this fermentor was already burping away vigorously. I started heating the liquor, hosed-out the keggle, rinsed-off the immersion chiller, and got right back to brewing without much nuisance.


Most of the cones were normal-sized, but look at these freaky monsters!


The measured hops.


The grainbill, ready to grind.


The mash is begun.


This was another late-night brew, begun at 8:30 PM. Here's a blurry shot of my back-porch boil.


Safe and sound in the fermentor. Hurry-up and wait...


Here's a picture of the hydrometer sample the next morning. Even unfermented it tasted nice: very Cascade-y and thankfully not at all "corny".

I'll keep you posted on how my green hop experiment turns out.

Cheers,
-Seymour

[crafty john]

Looking good mate, my first gold are coming along nicely, I think a green hop pale is in order when I harvest

[Jeltz]

Alas my first gold went in too late for a crop this year but looking forward to next years harvest.

That looks a great brew Seymour and some massive cones there!

[crafty john]

Alas my first gold went in too late for a crop this year but looking forward to next years harvest.

That looks a great brew Seymour and some massive cones there!

Patience is a virtue with hops, mine are 4 or 5 years old and I am only just getting a decent amount off them, I see you live near Bath, I used to live in bath many years ago, lovely part of the country. Is the hat & feather still open?

[seymour]

Oh my god, I can't even begin to describe how amazing this fermentation smells.

[timothy]

It was a pleasure hanging out again! Can't wait to try this one. You guys wouldn't believe the enduring, fine, mousse-like froth that the "paint-stirrer turned beer-aerator" whipped up.

[seymour]

It was a pleasure hanging out again! Can't wait to try this one. You guys wouldn't believe the enduring, fine, mousse-like froth that the "paint-stirrer turned beer-aerator" whipped up.

Well, the Disciples-of-Ditch know all about it, but yeah that was some crazy stuff.

[seymour]

Today I took a gravity reading of 1012, making it about 4.2% ABV, so I filled a mini-keg for the homebrew club meeting Thursday night, and racked the rest to a secondary fermentor in hopes that the final gravity will keep dropping a bit more, and become a bit clearer. I know this S-33/Edme yeast can take its sweet time, but I don't want to wait too long and sacrifice the precious green hop aromas.

I drank the hydrometer sample again, of course, and it tasted good. A true-to-style cream ale but hoppier, just what I was going for. I do hope the yeast attenuates a bit more because it would be better yet with a slightly lighter body and drier finish.

[oliver tate]

Hi,
This recipe looks awesome and I am going to follow it for my green hop ale.
Sorry to ask a daft question, but is the pop corn popped before adding to the mash? I added
two bags of popcorn maize to the weekly shopping list buy not sure whether to pop it first.

Thanks

[seymour]

This recipe looks awesome and I am going to follow it for my green hop ale.

Sorry to ask a daft question, but is the pop corn popped before adding to the mash? I added two bags of popcorn maize to the weekly shopping list buy not sure whether to pop it first.

Thanks, Mate, that's very kind. No, don't actually pop the popcorn. Just grind it and stir-in with the rest of the mash ingredients. I should've taken a picture of the dry grainbed, you could definitely discern the coarse corn meal in there. Obviously, you'll need access to a grainmill of some kind. If you can manage a lower strike temperature and lengthier multi-step mash than I did, I imagine that would give you a higher mash efficiency and a more fermentable wort as well. Feel free to give yourself a leisurely brewday. Also, if you have more hops than me, I would recommend a dry-hop addition. Another choice you can make is yeast selection. I know a lot of people love to hate S-33, but I kinda like it for stuff like this where some fruity esters and cloudiness are okay. All told, I'm happy with how mine is turning-out.

Cheers!

[seymour]

I shared a mini-cask of this at the homebrew guild meeting last night. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it (and the servers kept going back to the cask for more.) They said it was a very easy-drinking, light and crisp lawn-mower type of beer, much more complex than Genessee which is the top-selling brand. They were surprised it was less than two weeks old and had undergone zero cold-conditioning. Believe it or not, no one could tell it contained corn either, even though it comprised a full 20% of the grainbill! I consider that a success. Some people said there was more hop flavour than aroma, some people said there was more hop aroma than flavour. Most people agreed it was nicely balanced and true-to-style, but somewhat light on hops overall, especially if the point was to go overboard and show-off the green hop aspects. They discussed how smooth and noble the hops seemed, peppery and grassy, that these hops did not have the predictable resiny, grapefruity characterists we normally associate with Cascade. We didn't know whether to attribute that to the freshness, lack or drying, relatively low weighting of late aroma additions, harvested too early, Missouri climate conditions, or what?

So, if anyone wants a good cream ale recipe, here's one to consider. If you want to kick people in the face with green hops essence, use more than I did.

[TheMumbler]

That looks lovely Seymour, I wish I had the space to grow some hops to have a play with using green hops.

[seymour]

That looks lovely Seymour, I wish I had the space to grow some hops to have a play with using green hops.

Thanks, man. Might I recommend locating some wild hops to forage, or perhaps planting your own brewing hops surreptitiously in a public space somewhere?



So it's been a week in the bottle. Lightly carbonated, a pretty hazy golden colour, some yeast and hop matter in suspension. I'm sure it will clear more with lengthier bottle-conditioning. The S-33 yeast took the final gravity all the way down to 1005, which means it's much drier and more alcoholic than the mini-cask version I served when it was super-fresh, still very fruity, hoppier now that it's less malty-sweet. Really delicious. This is a 100% Cascade brew, but somehow I'm still not getting any of the typical grapefruit essence. I like it, much more of a grassy, noble, black-pepper spicy Saaz thing going on. I picked them a bit prematurely, perhaps those flavour compounds develop at the very end, just before harvest.

[Clibit]

Fascinating stuff, thanks for sharing the whole process, it's great for newcomers like me to see and read, really motivating and inspiring. My mate has just made his first brew for years, currently fermenting, and used S-33. You like it then? Another I've not used, though I have one in the frigo.

[seymour]

Thanks, glad you got something out of it.

Yeah, I enjoy S-33 for some nice fruity English ale esters. It was perfect for this Cream Ale recipe anyway. I've said it before, but I think the complaints people have about S-33 stem from a misunderstanding/false expectations. It's inexplicably advertised as a Belgian yeast, but it's really the historic Edme English ale strain, one of the original all-purpose commercial dry-yeast strains. Of course, if you crafted a complex Belgian ale recipe, spent all the time and money and energy brewing it and then pitched S-33, it would probably be a real let-down, since it isn't extremely high-attenuating and alcohol tolerant, nor does it produce lots of spicy phenols like a Trappist strain for instance...