WWYD - (What Would You Do?)

[ssashton]

I've got some bits to use up but I've never had much luck with my own recipes.

So this is WWYD?

I've got:

Extra Pale Malt 5Kg
Flaked Malted Oats 1Kg
Pale Wheat Malt 1Kg
Caramalt 500g

Citra Pellets 100g
Cascade Pellets 100g
Citra, Nelson, Cascade Aroma Oil

Gervin Yeast
NBS Ale Yeast

 

[Pennine]

I would brew all of the malt, bitter with a bit of cascade, say 20g and then dump half of the remaining hops in the whirlpool and half in the dry hop, and use the oils in as a dry hop addition.
Skip the gervin yeast.

 

[ssashton]

Thanks!

Can you explain your reasons for what you'd do, so I can learn?

I don't think I can mash more than about 5.5Kg though.

P.S. What don't you like about gervin?

 

[Zephyr259]

You've essentially got a pale ale / IPA there. My grain bill for 23L would be 350g of either the oats or wheat (I use flaked barley) and 250g of the Caramalt then base malt until you hit an OG your happy with. I generally range from 1.040 to 1.050. This is a ratio I used in a bitter, and I've tweaked it by varying the colour of the crystal malt and adding in munich and it's done me well for bitters and pales.

For late hops I've been liking the schedule @foxbat uses which is 1 g/L at 15 min, 1.4 g/L at 10 min and 2 g/l at 5 min. In a 23L batch this nicely works out to be 100g of hops. Then add enough hops at 60 mins to hit 75% of your OG in IBUs which makes it a smoother pale ale style, I have done IBU = OG in a 1.046 beer when I rebrewed a version for a friend and he liked it better that way. Could go all Citra late and Cascade for bittering, or split the late additions between the 2 hops and stick with cascade for bittering.

The rest of the hops could be thrown in as a dry hop, which is also something I've never yet done.

I've never used hop oils so no experience to share there.

 

[ssashton]

Why do you both lean towards Cascade for bittering, rather than Citra? Something wrong with Citra here?

In general I thought high alpha acid hops were preferred for bittering and low alpha acid for aroma?

 

[Zephyr259]

Citra is an excellent flavour and aroma hop and it's also more expensive than cascade so it's a bit "wasted" as a bittering addition.

Quality of bitterness varies with cohumulone content of the hop I believe, not sure how that applies to these two but I know from experience that using galaxy as a bittering hop is a bad plan, very harsh.

 

[ssashton]

That is great info thanks!

 

[ssashton]

For late hops I've been liking the schedule @foxbat uses which is 1 g/L at 15 min, 1.4 g/L at 10 min and 2 g/l at 5 min. In a 23L batch this nicely works out to be 100g of hops.

Sorry one more question. Maybe @foxbat can answer?

a 5-min hop addition means 5-min before you switch off the heat, right? I use hop socks for pellets, so do I remove the hop sock at 0-minutes, or just switch off the heat and leave it in the kettle during cooling?

The time taken for cooling must matter too. How quickly do you cool the wort, Foxbat? I I use an immersion coil with tap water running through it. Takes about 30minutes to reach 30c.

Since I learned about hop stands I might be tempted to do that instead of the 5-min addition, or pointless if doing a dry hop? What do you think?

Thanks!

 

[Zephyr259]

You are correct, 15, 10 and 5 mins before turning the heat off. I use a grainfather so after the heat goes off I whirlpool to get everything spinning then let the hops and break settle for 15 mins so the pump doesn't get clogged. Then it's a counterflow chiller so the hops are still in the hot wort for another 15 - 20 mins while I transfer to the FV.

5 min additions are easy, chilling to 80c then adding hops then waiting some more is hassle I can't be bothered with, especially since that type of chilling isn't very efficient when you have a CFC, your immersion chiller is much more suited to it.