AG - Single Hop Pale test.

[Cozzyb]

So,

Almost a Smash beer, but I added 150g of Torrified wheat so not quite. This beer was mostly a test for my new in line water filter (I tasted the water, and it didn't taste chemically like my tap water does) and doing Salt addition chemistry properly thanks to some help from a local Brewery I emailed.

So here are the brews, I did one big mash for 14ltr of Wort,
3kg Pale
150g Torrifed Wheat (for head retention)

I was going for a mash temp of about 64c - 66c and mash water was to be 8ltr, I missed by temp by an abbismal amount, due to yet again forgetting to account for warming the mash tun so had to add the total water to get a 65c mash. Temp held pretty well considering how much liquid there was compared to grain.

Somehow managed to naff up my run off and only got 12ltr so ended up having to sparge with another litre to get the rest of the water out (i.e. why sparging is needed). I think I may need a new mash tun down the line, this one has its copper manifold too high up and loses at least a litre everytime.

So the important bit HOPS. Taking some insperation from the before mentioned brewery, I decided to for a pretty hoppy pale.

55-60 IBUs from a FWH of Pacific Gem
then additions at 15,10,5,0 of 7g of the hop used (Dr Rudi for brew one, Citra for Brew 2) and when you consider these are 5ltr brews, thats a lot of hops. That would be 4oz in the last 15 mins for a 20ltr batch.

So all went pretty well after that, moved from my plastic kettle to my big pot on the hop as the kettle doesn't handle small brews well, boils them off way too quickly etc.
Will post some piccies up if I remember, and some notes in a few weeks, also if I remember.

[seymour]

Awesome experiment. Can't wait to hear your results.

You probably could still call it a SMASH. Since the torrified wheat isn't malted, you technically only used "a single malt". I don't know if that's exactly transparent, but I'm pretty sure lots of breweries do stuff like that.

[Cozzyb]

Very good point about the wheat, so yes I guess it is a Smash afterall, although I did do the cheeky single hop trick most of us do of using a different high alpha for bittering.
I am debating if to dry hop this or not, I kind of want to, but I also don't as I want to see if you can make a good hoppy ale without dry hopping, also its a ballache to wash the yeast if I dry hop without a bag etc.

[Skittlebrau]

Citra certainly makes an excellent hoppy pale with a hope schedule like yours. Enjoy!

[Matt12398]

You used the Dr Rudi then? Watching with anticipation as I've not used mine yet. What did they smell like? Please let us know how it ends up.

[Cozzyb]

I'm really bad at smelling hops and describing them tbh, but I can taste hops fairly well, so I will have a sample out of fv once fermentation is done and give an idea what Dr rudi added. used brewlabs f40 yeast so should come off really clean and hop forward.

[Matt12398]

Me too to be honest but was interested to see if they struck you as different.

What does the F40 correspond to with regards to white labs or Wyeast equivalent?

[Cozzyb]

No idea tbh, Brewlabs don't seem to like to compare to other things, you just ask for a Brewery style yeast or a Style yeast, and you get great quality yeast, most of the time from the brewery itself. I asked for a super clean yeast for hoppy beers and they sent me f40, but if you wanted to try it, its cheaper from them then it is from Whitelabs etc anyway, £5 a pop. Got a Dubbel yeast on the way at the min.

[Matt12398]

I know they don't like to compare specifically but I have a WLP028 Edinburgh Ale equivalent that my brother was able to specifically ask for from Brewlabs. It may or may not be the McEwan's strain but I'm hoping it's similar.

[Cozzyb]

Okay just tried these for first time today, cleared beautifully in the bottles despite less then a week in them, needs a little longer to carb, but enough for a quick taste.

Dr Rudi, The only description for this if funky bitterness, totally a no go for a flavour hop imo, it is totally not nice, will be binning the lot of them.

Citra, Much better, remember this is same recipe but different hops, I would likely make it less bitter next time as it feels more like an IPA then a APA, but the hoppyness is lovely, the beer isn't exactly balanced, i.e. not malty at all, but that is what I was going for, but this brew has confirmed my suspicions. The only thing wrong with my beer was the water, I used filtered water via inline filter for this beer and it tastes good enough to sell as a IPA honestly, it is like a good IPA, and I am very glad as it now means I can go ahead and get some brews going now I know the issue I was having before is gone.

So current plan,

Make a nice bitter.
Make a pale ale that is less bitter and using Amarillo

And hopefully taste my Dubbel in a couple of weeks, and I intend to make a Duvel (Blonde belgian beer) on top of the yeast cake from this also

So for Matt, I would use the Dr Rudi purely as a bittering hop as IMO it is not a nice flavour.