I was thinking my first all grain brew should be a variation of the APA I brewed last year for the LongShot Competition.

I made some adjustments and decided to post the new version of the American Pale Ale recipe.   These adjustments are based on not only to suit an all grain process, but also based on notes I received from the judges:

10 lbs American 2-row malt
2 oz. Special B Malt
5 oz. Honey Malt
5 oz. American Victory Malt
.5 oz Yakima Magnum Pellet Hops boiled 60 min.
.5 oz. Glacier Plugs boiled 60 min.
.5 oz. Glacier Plugs boiled 30 min.
.5 oz. Glacier Plugs boiled 15 min.
.5 oz. Glacier Plugs boiled 1 min.
Yeast: White Labs WLP001 California Ale

Mash at 152 degrees for 60 minutes. Make yeast starter. Ferment for 2 weeks.

Basically trying to improve on what I feel is a good recipe. Attempting to get a bit hoppier with this one. Staying with a clean yeast strain, but going back to the tried and true 001.

I have Mike on tap to document the first all grain. Should be something…

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Here is my original partial mash version of this recipe:

4 lbs. 4 oz. American 2-row
2 oz. American Caramel 60°L
4 oz. American Victory
3 oz. Honey Malt
3 oz. Special B Malt
3.5 lbs. Dry Extra Light Extract
.5 oz. Cluster (Pellets, 5.50 %AA) boiled 60 min.
.5 oz. Glacier (Plugs, 7.0 %AA) boiled 60 min.
.5 oz. Glacier (Plugs, 7.0 %AA) boiled 30 min.
.5 oz. Glacier (Plugs, 7.0 %AA) boiled 15 min.
.5 oz. Glacier (Plugs, 7.0 %AA) boiled 1 min.
Yeast: White Labs WLP051 California Ale V Yeast

Original Gravity: 1.054
Terminal Gravity: 1.012
Color: 8.51 °SRM
Bitterness: 37.5 IBU
Alcohol (%volume): 5.50%

If you look closely at the ingredients list, you will see that I have profiled many of them in recent posts. I may need to alter some of the ingredients if I can’t get them.

I will be following a partial mash procedure for this recipe. Here is my brew log for this beer:

American Pale Ale Preparations

Checking On The Hops

Checking On The Grains

APA Brew Day

As my contribution in teaching a friend to homebrew, I invited my friend Lyle over for the Brown Porter brew session.   With some passing showers in the morning and colder temperatures rolling through, it didn’t look like great homebrewing weather.  In the afternoon, the clouds broke a little bit and the winds were tolerable…so the brew was a go.

I read Chris Colby’s article in BYO about partial mashing dark beers and treating your water with baking soda to keep the pH in check for optimal mashing and brewing.  From what I read, the dark grain make the wort more acidic and it could affect your mash efficiency and mouthfeel.  So, I followed some of the tips in the article. 

I did not mash my dark grains.  I steeped them in my brew kettle while my lighter grains were mashing.

One thing that I am embarrassed to admit, but because we set out Brew-Dudes.com to be truthful and a place for learning I will admit, is the fact that you cannot mash a small amount of grain in a 5 gallon cooler.  I bought a 5 gallon cooler with the notion that I would be all-grain brewing soon enough.  The purchase was a mistake in terms of using it for partial mashes.  There is too much head space in a 5 gallon cooler to maintain mash temperatures.  I insulated my cooler this time with a really big blanket.  I still lost a lot of heat in the hour mash time….so please…learn from me:

• Use a 2 gallon cooler if you are going to follow a partial mash procedure in your homebrewing endeavors. 

I poured the liquor from my mash tun into my boiling pot.  We did have a bit of a boil over after the first edition of hops, but we pulled the heat down in time before a huge mess was made.  The rest of the boil was fine.  We drank Wachusett Black Shack Porters while we kept an eye on the pot.

The chill went well.  Visible cold break appeared and I was happy with that.

Here are some pictures:

So, I am hoping the brew comes out ok.  Lyle is getting half of it.  I hope it’s worth his time and effort.

The move to all grain is next.  I need to modify my cooler a bit and then I will take the plunge.

With Autumn on the way, I thought I would post a recipe for the season. This is a nice, smooth drinking, Brown Porter. I am following a partial mash procedure for this brew.

Ingredients:

3.5 lbs. English 2-row Pale
3 lbs. Dry Extra Light Extract
4 oz. British Black Patent
5 oz. English Chocolate Malt
2 oz. Crystal Malt 60°L
2 oz. Crystal Malt 120°L
0.6 oz. Northern Brewer Pellets boiled 60 min.
0.5 oz. Fuggles Pellets boiled 15 min.
0.5 oz. Fuggles Pellets boiled 1 min.

Yeast: White Labs WLP005 British Ale

Mash the grains at 152F for 60 minutes. Boil wort for 60 minutes, adding hops in at the times specified above. Add the extract with 15 minutes to go in the boil. Cool the wort to 68F and ferment for 2 weeks.

Original Gravity: 1.047
Final Gravity: 1.011 
Color: 23.99 °SRM 
Bitterness: 26.5 IBUs
Alcohol: (%volume) 4.8 %

Related Posts

Here are some other recipes for Fall:

Octoberfest Ale Recipe

Doppelbock Recipe

Maple Porter Recipe

Light and crisp; American Cream Ale is a great light, no-frills beer to make for the summer. Done right, it will rival all the American Lagers your swill drinking friends drink and you’ll be making yourself on the cheap. The best part of American Cream Ale is that it is an ale!!!! You don’t need to lager or cold ferment which takes a dedicated fridge to do it right.

Fire up the brew kettles and give this Cream Ale a shot. I modified the recipe from Jamil’s “Brewing Classic Styles” to use Nobel Saaz hops. I wanted it to have a little more of that European lager like quality to confuse my light beer drinking friends and family (Oh you know who you are). The key to brewing a great cream ale is the neutral qualities of American Ale yeast. I use US-05 dry yeast from Fermentis, but I used it from a slurry off a previous beer. I love that yeast as a second pitch yeast. It is so clean. Much cleaner than I have ever gotten out of a White Labs WLP001 from a starter. (though I am sure that repitching WLP001 if you have it would be just as clean). Focus on a good pitch of super healthy yeast and your Cream ale will be so clean and crisp, you’ll probably brew it several times a year just to slake your thirst.

Mike’s All-grain American Cream Ale Recipe

BJCP Style 6A

Size: 6.0 gal
Efficiency: 70.0%
Attenuation: 80.0%
Original Gravity: 1.052
Terminal Gravity: 1.010
Color: 3.3
Alcohol: 5.5%
Bitterness: 17.85

Ingredients:
5 lbs Pilsner Malt
5 lbs 2-Row Brewers Malt
1 lbs Corn Flaked (Maize)
1 lbs White Table Sugar (Sucrose)
0.85 oz Saaz (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
0.5 oz Saaz (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 2 min
2 tsp Irish Moss - added during boil, boiled 15 min
1 ea Fermentis US-05
Mash In -152 °F

John’s Partial Mash Cream Ale Recipe

4 lbs. American 2-row Pale
0.25 lbs. American Caramel 10°L
3 lbs. Dry Extra Light Extract
0.50 lbs. Flaked Corn
0.5 oz. Cluster Pellets boiled 60 min.
0.5 oz. Cascade Pellets boiled 15 min.
WYeast 1056 American Ale

Check out the cream ale brewing notes on this partial mash recipe.

Here in the Northeast, specifically the Boston area, we have been locked in a heat wave. The past 4 days have been steamy with temps over 90 degrees. Sorry to those who experience hot weather on a regular basis…we just aren’t that used to this type of heat so soon in the year (it’s still technically spring!).

Thankfully, we have plenty of homebrewed beer around to refresh our dry palates and cool down a bit. These are my tasting notes of the American Pale Ale that I brewed up in March.

Appearance: Copper hued. I feel I hit the color of a pale ale spot on. The clarity needs a bit of work. I have some chill haze, so I am thinking I will need to use some finings to clear it up next time. Nice white creamy head with good lacing throughout.

Aroma: A present hop aroma but not strong. The glacier hops have a less citrusy aroma than the other American hops varieties, they are more earthy with some fruit notes. Some biscuit and malt tones too.

Taste: Pleasant hop bitterness. Not harsh at all or overwhelming but balanced with the malts which is now being dominated by the Victory malt profile with some hints of the Honey and Special B malts. Good carbonation with a clean finish.

Overall Impressions: I think this beer does the trick on a hot summer evening. I will append the competition notes to this post when I receive them. Maybe next time I will not use any Caramel malt (60L) and just rock the Honey and Special B.

Here is the American Pale Ale recipe.

Since I have only done one partial mash in the past, I thought I would brush up on the technique. Here are my top 10 points I can pass on to would be partial mashers:

1. Get your hands on the October 2006 issue of BYO magazine. It has a great article on countertop partial mashing.
2. I bought a picnic cooler to mash in. You don’t need one, but it helps to keep the temperature of your mash steady.
3. I haven’t modified the cooler to make it easy to separate the wort from the grain like a false bottom or a manifold, so I am just going to use a grain bag. I am going to keep the bag as loose as possible to ensure I get a good soak.
4. There are a few different ratios of hot water to grain out there. I am going to use Chris Colby’s 1.375 quarts to every pound of grain.
5. I know I should heat up more water than I need and I should heat it 11-15 degrees hotter than my mash temperature.
6. After mashing for an hour, I will open the spigot and let the wort drain into a large pitcher. Then I will pour it back over the grains to recirculate it since the first runnings are cloudy and probably full of husks.
7. Then, I will drain the cooler into my pitcher again until all the sweet, sweet wort has flowed out of the cooler
8. I will then pour the wort gently into my brew pot.
9. After draining the cooler, I will fill it up again with water that will settle to 170 F and I will let it sit there for 5 minutes and then drain it again.
10. Not sure how much water I will need to add to the wort to get to total of 6 gallons to brew (I will need 6 gallons for the boil to end up with 5 gallons in the fermenter), but that amount is what I will put in my kettle.

If I think of other partial mashing tips, I will post them. I probably will have a bunch after my brew sessions.

Getting a Better Bottle carboy would allow me to lager a beer. I have plans to brew a cream ale in February or March and lager it through the cold months using:

• A styrofoam box that I got from Mike…looks like it was used for Omaha steaks
• Snow and/or ice from the outside
• If there isn’t any snow or ice outside, I will freeze half liter water bottles and use them

I think that I can regulate temperature just enough without freezing the beer. Without a spare fridge, I am willing to give this makeshift ice box a try.