Best way to showcase hops taste.

[simple one]

I am fomulating a recipie to showcase the hops in the beer.

I am going to do 3, 20 litre batches.
One with Styrians, one with EKG and one with Cascade. Looking to go for 8:10 IBU:OG with the remainder of the 100g chucked in at 80C. But with the same grain ingredients.

I have already.... sort of chosen the yeast. Safale SO5, although toying with SO4 just for a bit more roundness to the beer.

The question is.... All at a OG of 1048. Which grains: Straight Pale malt OR Pale plus 200g wheat malt OR Pale plus 200g Crystal OR Pale plus both Wheat and Crystal OR your idea! I am edging toward a bit of wheat and crystal because I dont want the beer to be too plain.

I am going to bottle it all! Which will be a bit of a task.

Advice please from someone with some experience please.

[arturobandini]

Brewed a single hop all pale with a touch of wheat 12 days ago. It's in secondary now and quick taste tests are very good. I used Nottingham for it's bland lack of yeast character so I could get a very clean crisp (Nottingham attenuates low) Golden Ale. First using Nottingham and despite it's bad reputation (incorrect usage in ales that don't suit probably) it's a hard working fast acting yeast. US-05 seems to be preferred and I've used that with success too but it's a very slow finisher so don't be brewing anything you want to get your hands on quickly.

[Whorst]

I don't find 05 slow at all. I find that it takes about 7 days to complete fermentation. What scares people is the swamp water you're left with after fermentation. Gelatin works fast and well. I have used both strains and prefer 05. It's neutral, but gives you a beautiful maltiness to go along with the hops.

[mysterio]

Sounds exactly like you know what you're doing. I don't think any of your malt choices will fail. Just remember that the darker the crystal and the more you have of it will tend to detract from the overall hop impression. I think I would tend to go 90% pale malt, 5% wheat and 5% Caramalt (very pale crystal).

[softlad]

I don't find 05 slow at all. I find that it takes about 7 days to complete fermentation. What scares people is the swamp water you're left with after fermentation. Gelatin works fast and well. I have used both strains and prefer 05. It's neutral, but gives you a beautiful maltiness to go along with the hops.

I've just used 05 for the first time and I'm impressed with the initial results. It did take 12 days to ferment a 1.053 beer.

[Whorst]

Were there signs of fermentation after 7 days? The last pale ale I brewed was done in 7 days. Went from 1.050 to 1.009.

[simple one]

Like the sound of caramalt and wheat. Mainly because I have heard a lot of good things on here about.

I think I'll go for SO5, because I had a bad experience with nottingham.

I'll make a really good starter for the first pitch of SO5. And once it has finished fermenting I'll bottle, and pour my wort on to the old yeast in the FV, and again for the third beer... (any dramas you can for see with this method?) Three brews, one yeast.

I think the key for this is to get all the wieghts, temperatures and timing exact, so as the only difference is the hops.

And then a lot of drinking.... 60 litres... maybe I should go a 45 litre beer and boil 3 seperate 15 litre batches, it would ensure accuracy....

My lady is not going to be happy with me on that day!

[softlad]

Were there signs of fermentation after 7 days? The last pale ale I brewed was done in 7 days. Went from 1.050 to 1.009.

At 7 days I had the big impressive krausen and I scooped this off with a sterilised paddle. When I removed this I still had a lot of CO2 activity and some strange yeasty lumps on the surface. It was around 1.012 at 7 days and went to 1.010 which I am happy with. Temperature was around 15 degrees C.

It has the makings of a good drink and I'm looking forward to trying it

[yashicamat]

US-05 all the way. I actually find it one of the most interesting yeasts to use, the variation in it's character during fermentation I find fascinating.

I'd personally step away from caramel malts and towards wheat malt or even vienna malt. I try not to cloud the hops with much and if you're adding 100g of hops to a 20 litre brew, there should be plenty of flavour there without it lacking something.