Summer Pale Ale using Whitbread Yeast (WLP23)

[Manx Guy]

Hi all!

I'm planning on brewing a nice English style Pale Ale for my next (overdue) brewday...

I have settled on a recipe (Below for reference) and have plumbed on Whitbread (Buton Ale Yeast ) WLP 023 for its ester profile (some fruityness and tartness) and fairly high attenuation...

If I want saome fruityness (ooer missus) should I use a ferment temp in the 20-21C range... The advice on the white labs site suggests that a cool ferment will give a clean flavour, but I want a little character from the yeast (or Id use notts! lol)

My recipe:

Pale Malt 90.5%
Wheat Malt 9.5%

Northdown to 28 IBU 90 mins
Golding to 2IBU @ 5mins
Golding 30g at flame out

I look forward to your comments/ suggestions!

Cheers!

Guy

[RichardG]

What's the purpose of the wheat malt?

[Manx Guy]

The purpose of the wheat malt is to add a little head retention while keeping the final colour as light as possible...
Brew day is now scheduled for April the 1st....



Guy

[notassuch]

Looking good, Manx.

The 30g Goldings at flame-out, do you let that steep for any length of time or do you start chilling straight away? And what sort of aroma are you expecting from it, a big hit or something more subtle?

[Manx Guy]

Hi
I usually turn off the power (I'm electric or my boiler is...) wait for the rolling boil to subside then pitch in the hops...

I then run off to the out house where the submersible pump switch is located and flick that on, which starts the cooling (I recycle water from 2 x 220 litre water 'butts')
So no real steeping time at a set temprature, but they get atleast 30 minutes before I stop cooling and start the run off
I usually get a noticable yet reasonably subtle hop aroma/flavour when I employ this method...

I have thought about baging up half the hops and fishing them out before starting the run off, storing the bagged hops in the fridge and lobing in them into the FV after 3-4 days...
an idea I got from a poster on here by the name of pantsmachine...

If I dont get any advice on the yeast I may just ferment at 20C as its the middle of the range and see how that turns out

Cheers!

Guy

[RichardG]

I've used wheat malt for head retention etc as well; if that's what you want it for you probably only need max 5%, though it's entirely up to you of course.

[Manx Guy]

Hi,

I think I got my answer by doing a more thorough search of this forum!


Richard I am hoping the extra % age of wheat will lighten the colour and also give a slightly drier finish to the beer. The percentage is pretty much experimental, so watch this space!



Cheers

Guy