Summer & Ella hops

[soneil8]

Hi all,

Scratching my head a lot, thinking what to do with these hops. Any ideas?
I prefer beers below 5%, open to ideas for any style of beer

looking forward to some ideas!

[seymour]

I've recently fallen in love with Ella/Stella hops after brewing my Australian Sparkling Ale. I didn't know what to think of it at first, but it matured beautifully and became one of my most popular beers yet.

SEYMOUR AUSTRALIAN SPARKLING ALE

6 US gallons = 5 Imperial gallons = 22.7 Litres

GRAINBILL
88% = 9.86 lbs = 4472 g, Joe White Maltings Traditional Pale (Australia)
2.5% = .28 lb = 127 g, Thomas Fawcett Crystal Malt II 62-68L (England)
2.5% = .28 lb = 127 g, Aromatic Malt (Belgium)
7% = .78 lb = 354 g, Raw Cane Sugar Invert Syrup (homemade)
TOTAL: 11.2 lbs/5.08 kg

I struck the grains with 3.25 US gal/2.7 Imp gal/12.3 L water at 165°F/74°C which brought the mash to 149°F/65°C for 70 min, then I drained-off ≈2 US gal/1.7 Imp gal/7.6 L wort, which I brought to boil, then stirred back in to reach 170°F/76.7°C, rested 10 min, around 90 min total. I’m pretty sure the Coopers Brewery only mashes around 45 minutes.

In the meantime, I made some invert syrup using the raw cane sugar and some first-runnings, brought to boil with my little backpacking stove, added a few drops of lime juice and stirred frequently. I eventually added this to the big boil kettle.

I batch sparged a couple times, vorlaufing each time, to collect 7.5 US gal/6.2 Imp gal/28.4 L pre-boil.

I boiled 90 min, adding sugar syrup and a pinch of gypsum at the beginning.

HOPS
.35 oz = 10 g, Ella/Stella, first wort addition
.7 oz = 20 g, Ella/Stella, 15 minutes remaining

I chilled, racked to fermentor, aerated using Ditch’s drill-powered paint stirrer, then pitched yeast.

YEAST
Historic Coopers brewery strain, available as White Labs WLP009 “Australian Ale.”

STATS (approximately 73% brewhouse efficiency, 77% apparent attenuation)
OG: 1051
FG: 1012
ABV: 5.0%
IBU: ≈30
COLOUR: hazy light orange amber with white foam

[seymour]

Summer hops, on the other hand, I haven't been very impressed with. They're not bad, just nothing special or unique. Like Cascade but less grapefruit and black currant. Like Challenger but less earth and orange marmalade. A little like Northern Brewer but less cedar and mint. See what I mean? Just kinda blah, but fine.

A local brewery uses Summer hops exclusively for a nice malty red ale, one of their most popular flagship brands, but it's not a very hoppy brew. The brewer admits he uses them because they're cheaper than Cascade. Since you already own them, I'd use them for generic bittering additions for the IBU heavy-lifting, then finish with more interesting aroma hops late in the boil.

Your mileage may vary, though, I'd love it if you proved me wrong.

[pantsmachine]

While i agree with Seymour in his flavour impressions i would not use Summer only for Bittering as they are quite nice as a dry hop, think i used a 1/2 kg across 15 gallon along with a touch of Cascade. Turned out very nice with the Summer being quite a gentle addition instead opf the usual BANG! monsters. 3.8% lightly carb'd pale ale if memory remains. 15 gallon seemed to evaporate. Would buy again but not to use in a big Piney monster!

Gaia melons is my memory.

[seymour]

That's great to know, thanks for sharing. I have not used them for dry-hopping (yet). Cheers!

[soneil8]

Thanks guys, I'll have a play and post some feedback.

Ta