AG #10 - Summer Ale

Sun 27th July 2012

Hot on the heels of my last brew comes a hastily slung together recipe, which I've decided to give the imaginative working title "Summer Ale". This is actually being brewed for a special occasion coming along in late August. Some friends are tying the knot so we decided to give them something different, personal in a way, and definitely unique - no two brews ever turn out the same!

So, bearing in mind the insurance write-off  that was my last brew, I went back to basics and made sure I had my checklist to hand and followed it pretty much to the letter. I also had an idea of what I would be brewing but I only knocked the recipe up after I'd put the water on to heat for the mash :) Being a big fan of the APAs like Sierra Nevada, and having already brewed something similar with success, I decided to stick with a simple and effective cascade based hop-fest.

You put those hops in yet .. ?

I was assisted today by my apprentice brew-monkey, my usual monkey being otherwise engaged. New monkey saved me literally 30 seconds by putting the right lids on the right containers for my hops. A valuable service rendered - she is very proud and now positioning herself to become main brew monkey should and "accident" befall her sister ... I'll have to keep an eye on this. Usual monkey returned to label the containers, and reassert herself as chief brew-monkey.

Also making several cameo appearances was Aragog (or Shelob, depending on your age and fantasy adventure preferences). Aragog is the name I gave to a not insubstantial spider, who spent the day popping in and out of the crack in the shed ceiling keeping a weather eye on things.

Hastily scribbled recipe

Recipe 

Summer Ale
Style         American Pale Ale
Batch         19.00 L
All Grain

Characteristics

Recipe Gravity         1.045 OG       
Estimated FG         1.011 FG
Recipe Bitterness         38 IBU       
Alcohol by Volume         4.4%
Recipe Color         10° SRM       

Grains

0.20 kg         Amber Malt         Grain         Mashed
3.50 kg         Maris Otter Malt         Grain         Mashed


Aiming for a light, amber coloured ale which will be American in character. Having no crystal malt I decided to just go with amber to give it a distinct flavour and the sort of colour I'm after.

Hops
30.00 g         Cascade         60 minutes
30.00 g         Cascade         15 minutes
30.00 g         Cascade         0 minutes

I am a big fan of Cascade hops. They are rich enough in alpha acid to provide bittering when used in enough quantities, citrusy in flavour when used at the end of a brew and give a floral aroma when used to dry hop, which I shall be doing for the first time during fermentation with this one. I did think about using other hops in there too but nothing I have in the house would really add to it, and there's some I have that I don't know what would do to it, so I kept it simple in my "back to basics" frame of mind.


Mash

Grain filter. Where it should be.

90 minute mash. I took extra care to put the filter in the bottom of the mash tun today. 1-2'C lost over the 90 minutes across the mash tun this time for some reason. Not a huge problem I guess but it looks like the insulation isn't enough on the mash tun these days. May be time to insulate the lid, which is where most of the heat would be lost, with polystyrene or something. A lot of people use the hard trying spray polyurethane that's used in insulating cavity walls and the like. I'll give this a go at some point.


It's amazing the job that filter does. It's really very simple yet I've not had a stuck mash whilst using it so it does the job perfectly. I know there are copper manifold fancy affairs you can buy or make, so squeeze the extra litre or so from the bottom and improve efficiency, but while this one works I'll keep using it. Maybe I'm just over enthusing about it because I remembered to use it this time and saved myself a real PITA :)

Boil

Hop filter. Where it should be.

Hot break (or gypsy tart?)

I went for a 60 minute boil today to cut back on bittering, both from the cascades and  the amber malt which can add bitterness (apparently ?!), to lose less wort to evaporation, and to save a little time. Loads of hot break boil foam in this one, took about 10 minutes to calm down and get on with the rolling boil. A couple of blasts from the host and all was well. Aragog was lucky to escape a blast from the hose when he ventured too close to my head for comfort.




Sparge

Complex design

Straight forward sparge thankfully. I employed all of my engineering expertise and fashioned a device capable of controlling the flow of sparge water from the HLT (left). I'm thinking of going to market with it.

First signs are that the colour will be the sort of shade that I had in mind, quite similar to Sierra Nevada.






Yeast

I've gone with the cheap but always reliable Safale US-05 in keeping with the APA character. I pitched it at around 22'C and measure 1043 on the hydrometer which is close enough to what QBrew said it would be (1045). This should ferment down to 1011 or so to give an end ABV of 4.4%, which would be perfect. Even if the yeast goes nuts, like the S-04 did a couple of brews back, it shouldn't end up being too strong. Perfect for a summer ale!

The weather was reasonably well behaved today on the whole, and this coupled with the extra attention to detail meant the brew went pretty well and was infinitely better than the last debacle. There's ALWAYS the chance that the fermentation could be fouled by bacteria or something so I won't count those particular chickens yet, but on the whole a good day and a promising ale in the vat.

More to follow ...