Home Brew Forum

Been meaning to do a nice grapefruity APA for a while now so decided to go ahead with this recipe:

25 litres

3762g low-colour MO (95%)
198g wheat malt (5%)

16g Chinook 11.1% AA pellets FWH + 60 mins boil
30g Chinook 11.1% AA pellets 15 mins boil
30g Cascade 5.4% whole hops 15 mins boil

Total IBUs: 45
Est. OG: 1045
Recorded OG: 1045
Est. FG: 1010
Est. Alcohol by volume: 4.5%

Yeast: 1 pkt Nottingham Ale Yeast

I didn't bother taking any photos until I started the sparge though.

FWH hops i with the first runnings (16g of pellets doesn't look very much at all . . .):



Sparge complete and showing a preboil gravity of 1038 (my hydrometer reads 3 points high):



A much more convincing pile of aroma hops and a protofloc:



Aroma hops in:



Cooling - looking nice and clear:



Now the real test of my hopstopper . . . will it handle all those pellets . . . ?





Of course it does. I was very impressed with the run off. As usual it has pulled a bit of trub through, but I'm not especially worried about it.

Measured OG of 1045 (adjusted). Spot on what was predicted.



Boiler drained:



An excellent brewday. Not a bad time either, didn't start until nearly 12 (Thornbridge's Kipling was far too moreish in the pub last night . . . ). First time I've actually hit my target gravity spot on too! I'm hoping this will be ready in 3 weeks for when some friends are coming around.

That is amazing looking beer.

That's a great looking hop-stopper! I gave up on mine (the edges were crimped rather than edged properly like yours) - I found I couldn't really get the thing clean and always had a load of old crud in there for the next brew Yours looks much better.

coatesg wrote:That's a great looking hop-stopper! I gave up on mine (the edges were crimped rather than edged properly like yours) - I found I couldn't really get the thing clean and always had a load of old crud in there for the next brew Yours looks much better.

Well that was exactly what I thought would end up being the case, hence why I set about trying to find an alternative. My solution is quite bulky, but it does work very well. I think on reflection I'd use slightly finer mesh if I made it again though to try and stop a bit more trub. Mind you though, as it is, it is quite easy to blast clean with a hose. I've not had to take it apart yet in 3 brews as it's came up clean each time. There were a few hop petals in there (from less careful cleaning last time which had made their way into the hopstrainer from the pipe) at the start of the brewday this morning, but I just put some water into the boiler and opened the tap and it sucked them straight out.

Nice looking wort there Rob, and a nice smooth brewday.

That low colour MO seems to do exactly what it says on the sack.

That should be a cracker.

adm wrote:Nice looking wort there Rob, and a nice smooth brewday.

That low colour MO seems to do exactly what it says on the sack.

That should be a cracker.

Yeah, well I wanted to get a paler beer than when using normal pale malt so decided to give this a try. I've not tried a beer yet of mine from this malt, although my Weasely Gold (brewed last weekend) is nearly ready for kegging. Just waiting for a corny to empty!

ahh good work yashicamat, i brewed my first pale ale last monday, going to bottle it either tomorrow or tuesday, yea anyway..carry on

One thing I've learned with the hop stopper is not to fill the boiler through the outlet tap

40# mesh is probably better for pellets . . . although 60# is available I suspect that would be too fine.

Nice to see your hopstopper in action . . . I must convert mine as I have to take them apart to get all the crud out of them

Aleman wrote:One thing I've learned with the hop stopper is not to fill the boiler through the outlet tap

40# mesh is probably better for pellets . . . although 60# is available I suspect that would be too fine.

Nice to see your hopstopper in action . . . I must convert mine as I have to take them apart to get all the crud out of them

My boiler is filled from the inside rather than through the tap so I don't have that problem. It seems to be working excellently and keeping remarkably clean inside too, a good blast with the hose seems to shift any small matter that gets anywhere. I don't think it'll need dismantling for some time yet to be honest.

Yeah, on reflection I think #40 mesh would have been better, although this does work just fine and because it's still quite coarse, I can see easily if anything is trapped in there or not.

First tastings are excellent. Pint is crystal clear and nice and fruity. I think perhaps lacking bitterness a bit (only slightly) but otherwise is bursting with flavour. I am wondering if I am actually missing the slightly more aggressive bitterness that "normal" bitter hopping achieves relative to FWH though?

Excellent post yash', how would you improve this one, would you increase the hops on the 60 mins addition?

Redbloke wrote:Excellent post yash', how would you improve this one, would you increase the hops on the 60 mins addition?

I think I'd add maybe 15% more for the FWH. I also would like to maybe add a similar increase at the late hops stage, although the hops may yet come out of this beer more yet as I have noticed an improvement over the last week.

Here's the finished beer (slightly blurred photo):



Really pleased with this one, although I think the bitterness just needs pumping up a bit.

... looks perfect to me

Certanily does look spot on! Nice work fella.