American Pale Ale help please

[Chris Tel]

Completely addicted to making SNPA (thanks to Rob at Maltmiller) but now want to venture into making some more APAs with varying flavours/hops. Seen a few recipes posted on the forum using Pale Malt as the base malt but I was wandering if anyone has a cracking APA recipe that uses Lager Malt and or Pilsner Malt.
Help....PLEASE?

[louiscowdroy]

Hi buddy,

I'm Louis pleased to meet you. I have already asked this one a couple of weeks ago. Please see link:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=55766

Regards Louis

Completely addicted to making SNPA (thanks to Rob at Maltmiller) but now want to venture into making some more APAs with varying flavours/hops. Seen a few recipes posted on the forum using Pale Malt as the base malt but I was wandering if anyone has a cracking APA recipe that uses Lager Malt and or Pilsner Malt.
Help....PLEASE?

[Manx Guy]

Hi
That link would help, and for what it's worth I recently brewed a APA with 30% lager malt and 65% MO e remaining being light crystal.

Good luck and happy brewing!

Guy

[seymour]

No, but here's a good American Amber Ale recipe. Many of the techniques and ingredients will be familiar to readers of my posts.

SEYMOUR-CHRIS-TEL AMERICAN AMBER ALE

You're gonna love this caramelly ale. I'm gonna share a couple tricks, so it'll be a fun skill-building exercise, too. You need some crystal malt but don't buy it. Measure out a kilo of your base malt, cracked or uncracked, add some extra to compensate for evaporation, place it in a bowl, dampen it with some hot water, swirl it all around with your fingers for even absorption. After awhile, spread it out on a couple cookie sheets, then bake it in a medium-hot oven until it looks golden, maybe some browner edges, with some darker spots. It won't look perfectly consistent like professionally-kilned crystal malt. It'll cook unevenly, which is to your benefit. With this single addition, you'll achieve complex results of a whole spectrum of specialty grains. When the whole room smells nice and biscuity, remove from the oven and allow to cool. Don't stress out about it, this is an art not a science. While you're pacing around the kitchen anyway, swipe some molasses or dark brown cane sugar from your cabinet, and while you're at it, grab some breakfast oats, too.

If you want it super-caramelly--which these hops can certainly handle, think Arrogant Bastard--lauter some of the first-runnings into a clean sauce-pan, stir-in the brown sugar, and boil hard til it starts darkening and thickening into a syrup. If you add a drop of lemon juice, it'll become "invert syrup" which is even more fermentable. Now the room smells even yummier. I have no idea how, but these crazy-cool aromas will survive all the way to your pint glass weeks/months from now, which is virtually impossible with store-bought specialty malts. When the time comes, add this syrup into your main boil. In the full boil, add a pinch of gypsum to make the hops pop. Add Irish moss near end for clarity.

I love the idea of reusing your Kölsch yeast. My second choice (totally different) would be Wyeast 1728, the delicious McEwans strain from Scotland.

I want you to spend a little extra time and effort on a two-step mash, which is possible even in a cooler box. I don't care what anyone says, it's beneficial to your mash extract rate, especially when using potentially inefficient lager/pilsner malt and unevenly baked malts as we are here.

Some advanced steps, I know, but worth it. This baby's gonna be a reddish copper colour with huge, fluffy, long-lasting beige foam and lace, lots of grapefruity, earthy, and pine resin aromas of American hops, but with a strong true-to-style English Bitter backbone underneath: sweet malts, husky whole-grain bread, biscuits, crackers, toast, nuts, caramel, plum syrup, figgy pudding, fruit-cake, toffee. Some creamy, vanilla, butterscotch notes from the pils malt. Lighter than expected body due to the simple sugar addition. Awesome appearance and creamy, silky mouthfeel from the oats. The pride-of-ownership you'll get pouring this one will be second-to-none.

all-grain recipe
23 Litres = 5.1 Imperial gallons = 6.1 US gallons

FERMENTABLES:
50% = 5.75 lb = 2.6 kg, English two-row lager malt
20% = 2.3 lb = 1 kg, Pilsner malt
20% = 2.3 lb = 1 kg, Home-roasted malt (≈ 50-60°L)
6% = .69 lb = 313 g, Dark brown cane sugar (added to boil)
4% = .46 lb = 209 g, Oats (flaked, quick, steel-cut, porridge, pin-head, Scottish, etc)

HOPS:
.42 oz = 12 g, Centennial, 90 minutes
.42 oz = 12 g, Chinook, 90 minutes

.42 oz = 12 g, Centennial, 10 minutes
.42 oz = 12 g, Chinook, 10 minutes

.42 oz = 12 g, Centennial, dry hops added to secondary fermentor
.42 oz = 12 g, Chinook, dry hops added to secondary fermentor

MASH at 122°F/50°C for 30 minutes then raise to 152°F/67°C, 90-120 minutes total.

BOIL 90 minutes

YEAST: Kölsch strain, or Wyeast 1728, or US-05/Chico if you must.

STATS assume 77% mash efficiency and 75% yeast attenuation:
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.013
ABV: 5.3%
IBU: 36
COLOUR: 13° SRM/26° EBC (will vary depending on the shade of your home-roasted malt)

Best of luck, and keep me posted!
-Seymour

[Zephiacus]

Don't worry about substituting Lager Malt for Pale malt, will just add a tad less colour. (Crisp Maltings actually brands it's Lager Malt as 'Extra Pale Malt', it's the same stuff, British brewery's just don't want to have 'Lager Malt' kicking about it seems...).

[Chris Tel]

thanks to all for the wealth of advice and especially to Seymour for his detailed response. Suffice to say that I'm taking Friday off in preparation for brewing Seymours recipe. Can't wait. Who needs Xmas presents, just some time on my own with my brewing kit please!!!!!!

[louiscowdroy]

Keep us posted and put ome pictures up....Hahahaha, be good to see your creation being brewed its like Beer Porn....lol

Louis ))

thanks to all for the wealth of advice and especially to Seymour for his detailed response. Suffice to say that I'm taking Friday off in preparation for brewing Seymours recipe. Can't wait. Who needs Xmas presents, just some time on my own with my brewing kit please!!!!!!

[Chris Tel]

In the end went swimmingly well though did make a couple of minor changes to the schedule. Most notably I added an 150 grms of crystal as I wasn't sure how good my home made might be. In hindsight a stupid thing to do as the home roasted seemed far better than the shop bought! I also only dry hopped for three days rather than the week. More bacause I coudln't wait to get this in the barrel and tasted. Anyway I've (tried) to attach some photos below and a picture of the beer straight out the fermenter following dry hopping. I couldn't help myself but to taste it and I was blown away. Loads of background caramel sweetness with a good balance of hop flavour and aroma. I'm sure this will only get better. The fg was a bit off 1015 rather than 1013 but then I'm happy with that.


The wetted malt


Straight out the oven



Looking good!


Ready for the mash


The first runnings with some dark brown sugar turnign into something sweet!


Impressive Krausen though did decide to go with WLP028 Edinburgh yeast in the end


Not too far off the predicted FG


Straight out the fermenter, not looking too bad. Love the colour and aroma is something else.

All that remains is for me to thank everyone in particularly Seymour for all his help with the recipe and inspiring me. THANK U!

[Chris Tel]

Sorry it appears that the photos are coming up on the above post..admin help?

[tazuk]

seymore wot other hops could i use i have

hops citra weight ok others may be lower in weight

100g citra
60g tettnang
84g perle
48g hellertau
86g goldings
70g pilgrim
90g progress
44g centennal
44g northern
80g columbus
48g wgv
50g bram cross
36g amarillo
26g cascade
40g target
46g ????? may be tetang

[seymour]

seymore wot other hops could i use...

Many, many, good options there, and you could go lots of fun directions, but here's what I would do. See how I used two hops and split the same amounts three different times? Keep the grainbill and technique the same but...

1. You could make a great American version using Centennial and Amarillo (just take what you have of each and divide it into three equal piles), using the US05/Chico yeast...

2. Or a great English version using Progress and Bramling Cross (stick closer to my original recipe 12g each, each time), using your favorite English ale yeast...

3. Or a great German version using Tettnang and Hallertau (perhaps slightly increasing each addition to 15g each, each time), using a true Kolsch or Alt yeast...

Have fun with it; I look forward to hearing what you decide!
-Seymour

[Andy]

Sorry it appears that the photos are coming up on the above post..admin help?

You got a PM

[Chris Tel]

thanks -incredibly kind to show me the ropes!

Here is the final product albeit only a few days conditioning. Tastes out of this world!!!!

[seymour]

Looks like an amber ale to me. Nice work!

[tazuk]

i think its got to be usa version saturday brew day

seymore wot other hops could i use...

Many, many, good options there, and you could go lots of fun directions, but here's what I would do. See how I used two hops and split the same amounts three different times? Keep the grainbill and technique the same but...

1. You could make a great American version using Centennial and Amarillo (just take what you have of each and divide it into three equal piles), using the US05/Chico yeast...

2. Or a great English version using Progress and Bramling Cross (stick closer to my original recipe 12g each, each time), using your favorite English ale yeast...

3. Or a great German version using Tettnang and Hallertau (perhaps slightly increasing each addition to 15g each, each time), using a true Kolsch or Alt yeast...

Have fun with it; I look forward to hearing what you decide!
-Seymour