Trough Lolly's Sierra Nevada Pale Ale Clone

[sathid]

hmmm...I was going to do a moonshine ale with all willamette and marris otter...

[sathid]

Ok, I was thinking of doing a 15L batch, and thus making up 38L (to fill two kegs).

This is what I was looking at using:

1.5kg marris otter

1kg munich II

0.5kg golden promise

0.3kg caramalt medium (145ebc)

0.2kg pale wheat

20g simcoe (11.9) (60 mins - full boil)

16g cascade (6.8%) (15 mins)

15g amarillo (8.9%) (flameout)

15g simcoe (11.9%) (flamout)

And pitching it onto the yeast bed from the previous batch. (wyeast am ale II)


I was wondering about maybe changing the caramalt to something like caraaroma or cara munich, to darken the beer. What would the flavour profile be like?

Beersmith tells me the recipe posted will give me an OG of 1.055, FG of 1.014, colour of 24.2, and 45.6 IBU's.

Thoughts?

[sathid]

Mixed a sample with my previous pale ale yesterday.

Interesting...

The flavours clashed a little bit I think.

[Trough Lolly]

Yep, the flavour clash is to be expected. You've got one beer that wants to demonstrate a clean well hopped finish and another darker beer that has a more robust grain profile.

But that's the beauty of experimentation with our obsession!

Cheers,
TL

[sathid]

I've decided to let sleeping dogs lie. I've dry hopped my latest beer with simcoe and cascade (16g of each) in attempt to give a better aroma.

I'm going to use the yeast cake to brew an english ale.

[Trough Lolly]

Lashed out and brewed another batch of this beer last night...
I swapped the Munich I and Crystal with equal quantities of Vienna and Bairds Amber malt respectively.
Looking forward to tasting it soon! Despite the decent amber addition, it's lighter than I thought it would be....

Cheers,
TL

[Kevnlis]

The amber malt is very sweet in my experience. Did you add any extra hops to counter that?

[Trough Lolly]

Indeed I did vary the hop schedule:

18g Chinook 60mins
18g Amarillo 20mins (instead of 15mins)
24g Cascade Dry hop

Cheers,
TL

[Neil]

G'day TL
Probably an ignorant question but I'll ask it anyway. When you just referred to the Cascade pellets being dry hopped did you add them to the fermenter with the wort, or did you add them to the mash? I'm going to have a crack at your clone a bit later on when ambient temps. here lift a bit (i.e. a long time from now!). On a slightly different topic, I cracked my first ever all-grainer last night after 6 weeks in the bottle (I know, what stoicism in the face of temptation ) and it is simply the best beer I have ever made. An APA with first wort hopping (yes, with the ubiquitous Cascade) - even the wife was after another bottle!

I admit it, I'm stuffed! I have the bug and it won't let me go

Cheers (and thanks for the encouragement you people).

Neil

[Trough Lolly]

Hi Neil,
Dry hopping usually refers to an addition of hops into the fermenter, after you've added the chilled wort. Cascade is a variety of hop that may give off grassy notes when you dry hop substantial quantities (eg, 20+g) but regardless, it does help add a lot to the overall aroma of the beer when you dry hop with it. You certainly can add hops to the mashtun if you want to. You can also have hops in the kettle and then pour the wort from the mashtun onto the hops - that's usually referred to a first wort hopping. The thing to remember is the hop oils are volatile and will be knocked out during a boil, so first wort hopping will give a smoother flavour profile, but if you want aroma, you need to add hops when there's less chance of the aroma compounds being pushed out of the beer...

So, yes, you can add the hops to the fermenter (and lose quite an amount of the aroma as the yeast pushes the CO2 through the airlock) or you can dry hop the beer if and when you rack the beer into a secondary fermenter to further condition and clarify.

The choice of whether you dry hop in primary or secondary is yours.

Cheers,
TL

[Neil]

Thanks for that clarification, Trough Lolly - excellent advice as usual. That tallies with my tasting of the APA I made: it's not over the top with aroma (that is there but quite understated) whereas I am getting quite a smooth combination of citrus and honey on the flavour profile. That will all probably change over time I guess. I love this beer but I couldn't drink a lot of it in one sitting (no bad thing) and it makes me think that I'd be pretty careful with using Amarillo dry-hopped too. Just a personal taste thing I guess.

Regards

Neil

[Trough Lolly]

You'll soon develop a list of hops that you like to dry or late hop with - Some people swear by Amarillo for flavouring and not aroma, other's like using it at any time before, during or after the boil! Have fun putting the list together - brew on and enjoy!

Cheers,
TL

[Neil]

Hi again TL

A question this time about malts rather than hops. I notice somewhere in this thread that you specifically recommend making this beer with ale malt rather than pilsener malt. The only reason I raise this is because we only seem to be able to get JW pilsener malt up here (Armidale) in bulk, and not ale malt (don't ask me why). I've had people here say that it doesn't really matter - you just need to add some specialty malts to colour up and flavour the pilsener malt according to the ale style you are trying to make. So, I was very interested to see your comment on this - I think I'll be ordering the real McCoy!

Cheers

Neil

[Trough Lolly]

In essence, your friends are right - they're both malted barley and yes, some kilned or roasted malts will help adjust the flavour and colour profile of the wort. That said, there are noticeable differences between, say, Bairds Mariss Otter floor malted barley and Weyermann Pilsener Malt. I've made "ales" with "lager" malt and some "lager" malts leave a residual sweetness in the beer which can be addressed by adding darker malts and/or different or additional hops.

One point that your friends may not be aware of is the impact that an ale brewed with lager malt (such as Weyermann Pilsener Malt) may have on the DMS levels (Dimethyl Sulphide - often picked up as a sweetcorn flavour) in the final product. Ale malts, especially british ale malts such as Bairds are well known for having low DMS levels 10-20ppb compared to German Lagers 50-175ppb ( source ). If you're using 3kg of lager malt, I'd add 250g of Caramunich II to darken the beer accordingly.

Cheers,
TL

[Neil]

Thanks for that TL. I think I'd prefer to buy right malt for the job but I guess if one got stuck and had to use pilsener malt for an ale you should just make sure that primary and secondary fermentation occurs at the temp. throughout in order to prevent the likelihood of DMS? A very good point and one that I wouldn't have thought of.
I'm actually writing this from Prince George in BC, Canada. Not exactly in the heartland of SNPA, though I'm hopeful that a boozer here may have a six-pack

Best,

Neil

[Timmsy]

Just bumping this.
TL - could you do me a massive favour and post your latest suggested extract recipe instructions AND partial/mini-mash instructions based on any adjustments you have made since you first posted this recipe?
((snip))

G'day Danzar - sorry it took so long to find the recipe, but here's my latest variant on this beer, doing a partial mash:

Trough Lolly's SNPA - Partial Mash - Recipe

Batch size 21L
Boil size 12L
SG1.055 FG1.013 (Alc 5.4% by volume)

Grist
1 x 1.7kg Coopers Pale Ale (or Australian Draught) kit
1.8kg Pale Ale malt
300g Weyermann Carapils
300g Pale Munich Malt
200g Pale Crystal malt
200g Pale Wheat malt

Crack and mash the grains at a ratio of 2.3L of mash water per kilo of grains for 1 hour at 66C, stirring every 15 mins. I can (just) fit this amount of grain into one of those 6-pack eskies. Slowly sparge the mash to yield at least 12L of wort in a large stock pot.
Boil the 12L of wort for an hour with the following hop additions:

20g Chinook Pellets 12.4% A/A 60 mins
20g Amarillo Pellets 8.9% A/A 15 mins
16g Cascade Pellets 6.3% A/A at flameout/end of boil
*Adjust all the hop additions pro rata if you have different strength hops. Also note that despite the lower quantity of hops in a concentrated boil, you need to take into account that the kit already has bittering, flavour and aroma hops in it.*

Add Coopers kit to kettle at the end of boil - gently stir through to mix (don't make bubbles or you'll oxidise the boiling hot wort and chill the boil in an ice bath. Rack to fermenter when you get below 24C and add pre-boiled / chilled water (use 2L PET bottles) until you get to the starting gravity (around 1.055). Pitch yeast at no higher than 22 degrees C. US-56 is the best dry yeast for this and seal...

This should give you around 21L of very nice beer...It will make 23L of fine beer, but you lose a bit of malty complexity if you over dilute the wort.

Cheers,
TL

Giving this a whirl this weekend proberlly sunday. I have orderd the malt etc just gota go pick it up and i have the liquid yeast happen. Just hope im not to buggerd from my mates bucks show on sat night. I brought a bottle of absinth for it.

[James L]

HA.. that ol chestnut... There has been many a sunday where i have been too hungover to move, let alone brew... take the last 2 for example.. especially last weekend...

[Trough Lolly]

You're right Neil - you're much better off trying out different types of ale malt rather than having to make do with lager/pilsener malt!

All the best Timmsy, let us know how you go, if you do the brew...

Cheers,
TL

[Timmsy]

Put the brew down last night. Smelt real good. Ill rack it in a week. Mit dry hop it?? Would it be worth it? Use Cascade?

I was abit seedy but after the second ale i had i felt real good. Hair of the dog does wonders.

[Trough Lolly]

Fresh Cascade pellets dry hopped when you rack the beer would be good. I've also had some good results with Simcoe dry hopped. I suppose Willamette or Cluster, dry hopped wouldn't be out of style either....have fun experimenting!

Cheers,
TL