RECIPE PLANNING - Couple of new questions

[somethingspecial]

Afternoon chaps and chapettes,

Hot on the heels of my (so far) successful first dalliance into the brewing game I'm wanting to get my second one up and running before the end of the month.

My good buddy in Australia who's a fairly new extract brewer (and repeatedly telling me I'm doing things the hard way by going straight to AG) is visiting in June and I want to brew a bangin' summer ale that we can session on to prove that I got skills.

I most definitely like the idea of a beer being my own but I'm happy to lift techniques and ingredients from others and tinker here and there. So I'm wondering if the more experienced brewers and recipe planners out there could shed some light on what sort of malts and hops and hopping techniques make for a good summer session ale and then I'll take it from there...hopefully.

Happy brewing!

[IronBlue]

For me it means pale, dry, clean, hop-focussed rather than malty and not too strong - so I can drink a lot of them!

I think pale beers carry single hops really well, one of my favourite ever summer beers was a clone of Loch Fyne Jarl, which was just 95% base malt, 5% wheat, and lots of Citra with a dry hop too, dry and around 4% ABV. (1.038, 1.008, 40 IBU, Mash 67 with US05/WLP001) This would work equally well single-hopped with EKG, Mosaic, Cascade, Centennial, Celeia. The bittering hop should be a small amount and then a big hop drop over the last 10 or even 5 minutes. (Could bitter with Magnum if you want to save on the star hop.)

These styles may be very simple recipes, but they are difficult to do well as that clean flavour is what you want....

4% may be a bit to weedy, but you get the idea, 5% will be fine

[serum]

I'd agree that something dry and refreshing is in order although there's a lot you can do with that.

A Saison is a cracking summer beer and very simple to do. about 5kg of pilsner and a combination of bittering hops at 60 mins and aroma in the last 5 mins to get somewhere around 30-35 IBU. Kent Goldings, Bobek or Saaz work well.

Ferment with something like Wyeast French Saison or Danstar Belle Saison if you use dried yeast and bob's your uncle. These yeasts like the heat so they're good for brewing in the summer if you don't have temperature control and will attenuate incredibly low.

To tweak it you can replace up to a third of the pilsner malt with wheat, rye or spelt malt but throw a few handfuls of oat husks if you do this. Spelt is my personal favourite.

[orlando]

For me it means pale, dry, clean, hop-focussed rather than malty and not too strong - so I can drink a lot of them!

I think pale beers carry single hops really well, one of my favourite ever summer beers was a clone of Loch Fyne Jarl, which was just 95% base malt, 5% wheat, and lots of Citra with a dry hop too, dry and around 4% ABV. (1.038, 1.008, 40 IBU, Mash 67 with US05/WLP001) This would work equally well single-hopped with EKG, Mosaic, Cascade, Centennial, Celeia. The bittering hop should be a small amount and then a big hop drop over the last 10 or even 5 minutes. (Could bitter with Magnum if you want to save on the star hop.)

These styles may be very simple recipes, but they are difficult to do well as that clean flavour is what you want....

4% may be a bit to weedy, but you get the idea, 5% will be fine

Apart from the mash temp I'd agree with that but at 67 it might make it a little too malty, go for something more like 64-65, this should help dry and thin it out a little making it more of a thirst quencher. Ferment at about 18 to preserve that clean flavour. If you want it to be big on aroma go for a dry hop, means you can take the advice of using a high alpha for bittering to cut down on your "star" hop being used exclusively for the whole hopping schedule.

[IronBlue]

That mash temp is only to offset the high attenuation of US05/001 in that particular case. It was still giving a dry FG of 1.008, and a bit of body too....

[DeGarre]

For me it's the perfect English golden ale. OG1044-1049, pale, some munich, some caramalt, Saaz and EKG for aroma. OK, some sexy and trendy hops in the end just to lift the flavour - even Cascade, or Mosaic, Citra, etc.

[weetabixface]

That mash temp is only to offset the high attenuation of US05/001 in that particular case. It was still giving a dry FG of 1.008, and a bit of body too....

I agree, that malt bill @ 67 with US05 comes up very clean

I would go for that malt bill and as your pal is from Australia why not treat him to a taste of home and go with single hop galaxy

W

[somethingspecial]

Cheers for all the advice guys. This a great forum!

Will have a go at planning a recipe this weekend and might put it on here for advice on whether it's good, bad or absolutely horrendous.

Watch this space...

[somethingspecial]

Good, knowledge Brewers of JBK, how does this sound as a first foray into recipe planning (bearing in mind it's a 2.5 gallon batch due to equipment limitations):

2.1kg Golden Promise Pale Malt
0.15kg Wheat

7.5g CTZ @ 60
7.5g Cascade @ 30
7.5g Cascade @ 15
1/2 tbsp crushed coriander seeds @ 15
7.5g Cascade @ 7 days (dry hop)

Would appreciate some critiquing as I've just chucked number and cool sounding ingredients at an existing template and hoped for the best...

Cheers.

[IronBlue]

I would swap your 30 and 15 minute additions to 5 and 0, you will lose most of the aroma/flavour properties boiling for that long. (For the zero addition I would cool to 80C then add the hops, stir, and leave for 20 to 30 minutes.) I believe you want to double the amount of hops you are using for that style, this isn't excessive. The following is your recipe at your volume (11.5L?) with those changes (US05 should get you to a dry gravity of 1.008 from 1.044 at 66C mash):

Batch Size (fermenter): 11.50 l
Estimated OG: 1.044 SG
Estimated FG: 1.008
Target ABV: 4.7%
Estimated Color: 7.7 EBC
Estimated IBU: 38.5 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
2.10 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (5.9 EBC) Grain 1 93.3 %
0.15 kg Wheat Malt (3.0 EBC) Grain 2 6.7 %
9.00 g Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus (CTZ) [18.10 %] - Hop 3 33.3 IBUs
15.00 g Cascade [8.60 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 4 5.3 IBUs
20.00 g Cascade [8.60 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 0.0 Hop 5 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg California Ale (White Labs #WLP001 or US05) [35. Yeast 6 -
20.00 g Cascade [8.60 %] - Dry Hop 3.0 Days Hop 7 0.0 IBUs

Mash 66.0 C

(Whoops, I forgot the coriander )

[orlando]

I would swap your 30 and 15 minute additions to 5 and 0, you will lose most of the aroma/flavour properties boiling for that long. (For the zero addition I would cool to 80C then add the hops, stir, and leave for 20 to 30 minutes.) I believe you want to double the amount of hops you are using for that style, this isn't excessive. The following is your recipe at your volume (11.5L?) with those changes (US05 should get you to a dry gravity of 1.008 from 1.044 at 66C mash):

Batch Size (fermenter): 11.50 l
Estimated OG: 1.044 SG
Estimated FG: 1.008
Target ABV: 4.7%
Estimated Color: 7.7 EBC
Estimated IBU: 38.5 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
2.10 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (5.9 EBC) Grain 1 93.3 %
0.15 kg Wheat Malt (3.0 EBC) Grain 2 6.7 %
9.00 g Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus (CTZ) [18.10 %] - Hop 3 33.3 IBUs
15.00 g Cascade [8.60 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 4 5.3 IBUs
20.00 g Cascade [8.60 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 0.0 Hop 5 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg California Ale (White Labs #WLP001 or US05) [35. Yeast 6 -
20.00 g Cascade [8.60 %] - Dry Hop 3.0 Days Hop 7 0.0 IBUs

Mash 66.0 C

(Whoops, I forgot the coriander )

So would I.

[somethingspecial]

I would swap your 30 and 15 minute additions to 5 and 0, you will lose most of the aroma/flavour properties boiling for that long. (For the zero addition I would cool to 80C then add the hops, stir, and leave for 20 to 30 minutes.) I believe you want to double the amount of hops you are using for that style, this isn't excessive. The following is your recipe at your volume (11.5L?) with those changes (US05 should get you to a dry gravity of 1.008 from 1.044 at 66C mash):

Batch Size (fermenter): 11.50 l
Estimated OG: 1.044 SG
Estimated FG: 1.008
Target ABV: 4.7%
Estimated Color: 7.7 EBC
Estimated IBU: 38.5 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
2.10 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (5.9 EBC) Grain 1 93.3 %
0.15 kg Wheat Malt (3.0 EBC) Grain 2 6.7 %
9.00 g Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus (CTZ) [18.10 %] - Hop 3 33.3 IBUs
15.00 g Cascade [8.60 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 4 5.3 IBUs
20.00 g Cascade [8.60 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 0.0 Hop 5 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg California Ale (White Labs #WLP001 or US05) [35. Yeast 6 -
20.00 g Cascade [8.60 %] - Dry Hop 3.0 Days Hop 7 0.0 IBUs

Mash 66.0 C

(Whoops, I forgot the coriander )

Thanks very much mate! Really appreciated.

Any reason why you ditched the coriander? Just wondering...

[orlando]

Any reason why you ditched the coriander? Just wondering...

Just a matter of taste to me. Adding coriander is a Continental thing, not an English Golden Ale anymore. Try it, you might like it, but I would buy a beer with it in first if you haven't already experienced it.

[IronBlue]

I have never used spices in a beer so can't really comment, but I think the super clean flavour of a summer ale is part of the appeal, cascade is a perfect choice and it won't be short of character for the style. I perhaps would consider spicing a darker stronger winter ale if anything....

[somethingspecial]

After two very busy months of non-brewing stuff (weddings and stags) I finally got round to giving this a go.

I got 13l in the fermenting bucket with an OG of 1.040.

When looking at my brewing manual from last time the 11.5l I talked about was bottling yield. It came from a 13l post-boil yield so my measurements might be a little off from IronBlue's estimations.

Fingers crossed it works out...