# Balter XPA clone assistance.



## xpostmanx

I am trying to put together a grain bill for this beer. However my palette is not refined enough to do so from the 1 can I thoroughly enjoyed. 

I plan on using citra, centennial and Amarillo to bitter to 30IBU and a dry hop of equal quantities of each. (I brew 1 gallon batches and was thinking 12gram of each dry hopped. 

I was thinking a very simple grain bill of 95 percent pale Malt, 5 percent light crystal. 

Anyone care to throw in their 2 cents?


----------



## AJS2154

Hi mate,

I have had that beer both from a can and on tap (at Coogee Bay Hotel). I really like it also, although 2-3 is my limit. It seems too sweet to me after those. Some other blokes I was with, in their early 50s like me, said it was way too sweet and only had one.

I am pretty sure that when I had the can they listed the hops in the product, which is a good start. I definitely remember the citra.

Just use a simple pale ale recipe and fiddle with the hops. In the meantime, hang on, the cavalry will be here soon to let you know the best hops and what proportion. Sorry mate, I can't be of more help than that.

See you, Anthony


----------



## xpostmanx

Hello All,

I have come up with this recipe:

Batch Size: 4.5l
.85kg Pale Malt (81%)
.2kg Wheat, Flaked (19%)
5g Centennial @ 15mins
5g Centennial @ 5 mins
5g Citra @ 5 mins
5g Amaraillo @ 5mins
4g Centennial Dry Hop 4days
4g Citra Dry Hop 4 days
4g Amarillo Dry Hop 4 days.
US05

According to my software, this gives 28.7IBU & 4.8%abv. to the 30IBU & 5% on the original.

Any suggestions before I put an order in for the grain bill?


----------



## Dan Pratt

To get the correct colour you will require 3-5% light crystal malt with your gran bill.

http://www.freethehops.com.au/single-post/2015/09/23/Balter-New-Brewery-on-the-Block


----------



## xpostmanx

Pratty1 said:


> To get the correct colour you will require 3-5% light crystal malt with your gran bill.
> 
> http://www.freethehops.com.au/single-post/2015/09/23/Balter-New-Brewery-on-the-Block


Cheers, 50 grams of 30L Crystal brings the ABV to 5.0%


----------



## Bob_Loblaw

I would swear there is Galaxy in that beer. Particularly considering Head Balter brewer came from S&W.


----------



## xpostmanx

Bob_Loblaw said:


> I would swear there is Galaxy in that beer. Particularly considering Head Balter brewer came from S&W.


That was my guess, but they replied to me on untappd and said not a galaxy in sight. Citra, Amarillo and Centential form the backbone.


----------



## Bax

Anybody want to have a whirl at turning this into an extract recipe?


----------



## xpostmanx

I didn't dry hop this, quite a nice beer, but a clone it is not. I have a couple of balter cans in the fridge, I'll try them and my beer back to back and see where it sits. Suspect the hop profile is off, but will report back next week.


----------



## dirtynidge

Just to chime in on this, I have a beer with a very close hop profile to Balter. I wasn't intending to replicate it, just stumbled across it.

I did a 'side by side' with mine and XPA the other week and despite the additional bitterness of my 60min hop additions, the flavour was very close despite having no Citra anywhere near it.

Removing the my 60min addition gives 35 IBU which is pretty close.
See below 21L ferment with a 10L boil:

14g Columbus @30min
14g Simcoe @30min
28g Centennial @Flameout
56g Simcoe @Flameout
28g Amarillo @Flameout
28g Centennial @Dry hop
28g Columbus @Dry hop
28g Amarillo @Dry hop

Being an extract brewer am going to pair this hop bill with a Dr Smurto's inspired grist (67.5% DME, 25% wheat extract, 7.5% caramalt), which I reckon will get me close.


----------



## fungrel

dirtynidge said:


> Just to chime in on this, I have a beer with a very close hop profile to Balter. I wasn't intending to replicate it, just stumbled across it.
> 
> I did a 'side by side' with mine and XPA the other week and despite the additional bitterness of my 60min hop additions, the flavour was very close despite having no Citra anywhere near it.
> 
> Removing the my 60min addition gives 35 IBU which is pretty close.
> See below 21L ferment with a 10L boil:
> 
> 14g Columbus @30min
> 14g Simcoe @30min
> 28g Centennial @Flameout
> 56g Simcoe @Flameout
> 28g Amarillo @Flameout
> 28g Centennial @Dry hop
> 28g Columbus @Dry hop
> 28g Amarillo @Dry hop
> 
> Being an extract brewer am going to pair this hop bill with a Dr Smurto's inspired grist (67.5% DME, 25% wheat extract, 7.5% caramalt), which I reckon will get me close.


Any reason you went for Columbus at 30min? I don't get any dank or resin from the original and thought that Simcoe would be a better fit.


----------



## dirtynidge

As I mentioned, I wasn't trying to clone Balter, I was just experimenting and it came close.
Funnily enough I was planning on putting Simcoe in dry hop but it was raining too hard for me to be bothered going back to house to get it.

It does have a pretty huge amount of Simcoe at flameout thought


----------



## dirtynidge

Sorry, I misread question and thought you were referring to Columbus in dry hop, not at 30min.

I have just rebrewed this again, starting instead with Centennial and Simcoe at 15min, everything else as per my post above. I will let you know in a few weeks if it is any good.


----------



## Bob_Loblaw

How did this turn out?


----------



## Elixir

Hi there. According to an article in "Froth" newsletter from Feb 2017 Scott says there is no crystal malt in the XPA. I also love this beer and might try a clone.


----------



## bassmfb

Hey Guys,

Using the information from the OP, I brewed the following and was quite happy with how it turned out. Very similar, except probably has a little more malt back bone - which is not a bad thing. Maybe as Elixir states, the Crystal removed might be the difference. 

4.44 kg Gladfield American Ale Malt (5.0 EBC) Grain 1 86.7 % 
0.38 kg Crystal, Medium (Simpsons) (137.9 EBC) Grain 2 7.4 % 
0.30 kg Caraamber (Weyermann) (70.9 EBC) Grain 3 5.9 % 
17.00 g Pilot [7.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 4 12.9 IBUs 
15.00 g Columbus (Tomahawk) [15.70 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 5 25.4 IBUs 
28.00 g Amarillo [9.20 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 5.0 min Hop 6 3.6 IBUs 
28.00 g Centennial [8.70 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 5.0 min Hop 7 3.4 IBUs 
28.00 g Amarillo [9.20 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 9 0.0 IBUs 
28.00 g Centennial [10.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 10 0.0 IBUs 
56.00 g Simcoe [13.00 %] - Dry Hop 0.0 Days Hop 12 0.0 IBUs 
28.00 g Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Keg Hops 7.0 Days Hop 11 0.0 IBUs 
1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) [50.28 ml] Yeast


----------



## Bob_Loblaw

Interestingly I recently tried to do a Stone & Wood Pacific Ale clone with Citra instead of Galaxy as my local shop was out. I ended up dry-hopping 77g of Citra in 20L and the result was VERY close to Balter XPA.

I used the normal Pacific Ale grain bill 60:40 Pale and Wheat and used about 20g of Citra in the cube and the rest in dry. The keg was on for about 2 weeks and kicked last night but the Citra aroma lasted very strongly until the very last drop.

I would suggest the dry-hop amounts for XPA are in the same region as Pacific Ale. ie a lot.


----------



## dirtynidge

Sorry for delay. Mine didn't turn out great due to some phelnolc flavours (damn chloromides).
They have disappeared enough now for me to tell that I was definitely in the right track but the batch isn't great. 
Will try to brew it again with a Campden tablet soon.


----------



## fletcher

bassmfb said:


> Hey Guys,
> 
> Using the information from the OP, I brewed the following and was quite happy with how it turned out. Very similar, except probably has a little more malt back bone - which is not a bad thing. Maybe as Elixir states, the Crystal removed might be the difference.


egads, yes, it would be the difference. 13% crystal is like sweet city.


----------



## scotthbutler

bassmfb said:


> Hey Guys,
> 
> Using the information from the OP, I brewed the following and was quite happy with how it turned out. Very similar, except probably has a little more malt back bone - which is not a bad thing. Maybe as Elixir states, the Crystal removed might be the difference.
> 
> 4.44 kg Gladfield American Ale Malt (5.0 EBC) Grain 1 86.7 %
> 0.38 kg Crystal, Medium (Simpsons) (137.9 EBC) Grain 2 7.4 %
> 0.30 kg Caraamber (Weyermann) (70.9 EBC) Grain 3 5.9 %
> 17.00 g Pilot [7.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 4 12.9 IBUs
> 15.00 g Columbus (Tomahawk) [15.70 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 5 25.4 IBUs
> 28.00 g Amarillo [9.20 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 5.0 min Hop 6 3.6 IBUs
> 28.00 g Centennial [8.70 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 5.0 min Hop 7 3.4 IBUs
> 28.00 g Amarillo [9.20 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 9 0.0 IBUs
> 28.00 g Centennial [10.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 10 0.0 IBUs
> 56.00 g Simcoe [13.00 %] - Dry Hop 0.0 Days Hop 12 0.0 IBUs
> 28.00 g Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Keg Hops 7.0 Days Hop 11 0.0 IBUs
> 1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) [50.28 ml] Yeast


How big was your batch size for this brew? See in the original post the batch was 1 Gal, thats roughly 3.8L! should it be 10Gal?

cheers


----------



## Bob_Loblaw

I just tried the following on the weekend:

21L Batch
3kg BB Ale
1kg BB Wheat Malt
0.2kg Carahell

10g Centennial FWH
25g Centennial 5 min
25g Amarillo 5 min
25g Citra 5 min

OG - 1.046

Will dry hop with the following at the end of primary fermentation:

65g Centennial
75g Amarillo
75g Citra

I was going to no-chill this beer but instead I tried something I've wanted to do for a while. Instead of putting the 5 min hops in the cube, I added them as per the recipe and then at flameout I waited a few minutes before dumping the ~90deg wort into the cube, sealing it up and placing it on the first step of my pool - effectively chilling it. It got down to "warm" quite quickly so I'm actually impressed with the method as it chilled the wort but used no water. Might try it again.

I have a Simcoe Pale Ale that has just started fermenting tying up my fridge so this will have to wait a week or two before going down. Initial thoughts are that the colour is a little light against the original, but will save all judgement for a proper side by side once on tap.


----------



## Coldspace

Bob_Loblaw said:


> I just tried the following on the weekend:
> 
> 21L Batch
> 3kg BB Ale
> 1kg BB Wheat Malt
> 0.2kg Carahell
> 
> 10g Centennial FWH
> 25g Centennial 5 min
> 25g Amarillo 5 min
> 25g Citra 5 min
> 
> OG - 1.046
> 
> Will dry hop with the following at the end of primary fermentation:
> 
> 65g Centennial
> 75g Amarillo
> 75g Citra
> 
> I was going to no-chill this beer but instead I tried something I've wanted to do for a while. Instead of putting the 5 min hops in the cube, I added them as per the recipe and then at flameout I waited a few minutes before dumping the ~90deg wort into the cube, sealing it up and placing it on the first step of my pool - effectively chilling it. It got down to "warm" quite quickly so I'm actually impressed with the method as it chilled the wort but used no water. Might try it again.
> 
> I have a Simcoe Pale Ale that has just started fermenting tying up my fridge so this will have to wait a week or two before going down. Initial thoughts are that the colour is a little light against the original, but will save all judgement for a proper side by side once on tap.


Keen to here your feed back


----------



## Bob_Loblaw

Coldspace said:


> Keen to here your feed back



Just pitched the yeast on it yesterday so will have some feedback very soon.


----------



## Coldspace

Bob_Loblaw said:


> Just pitched the yeast on it yesterday so will have some feedback very soon.


Awesome mate... Good luck, hope you get close it's one tasty beer.


----------



## hopnotic

How did this turn out? I love this beer so I'm keen to have a go.


----------



## sluggerdog

@Bob_Loblaw I'd be keen to hear how this went also, from a hop perspective at least.

For the malt bill, I've been working with 10% wheat, 45% ale and 45% Vienna. It may be a little light, I haven't compared the two though. 

I'll probably try something like this in the near future


Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size (fermenter): 20.00 l 
Estimated OG: 1.049 SG
Estimated Color: 8.9 EBC
Estimated IBU: 29.5 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 67.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 81.7 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------ 
2115 g Gladfield Ale Malt (6.0 EBC) Grain 7 45.0 % 
2115 g Gladfield Vienna Malt (6.8 EBC) Grain 8 45.0 % 
470 g Gladfield Wheat Malt (4.2 EBC) Grain 9 10.0 % 

15 g Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 25.0 min Hop 10 13.1 IBUs 
25 g Amarillo [9.20 %] - Whirlpool 10 min Hop 12 4.7 IBUs 
25 g Centennial [10.00 %] - Whirlpool 10 min Hop 13 5.1 IBUs 
25 g Citra [12.70 %] - Whirlpool10 min Hop 14 6.5 IBUs 

1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) Yeast 15 - 

75 g Amarillo [9.20 %] - Dry Hop 4.0 Days Hop 16 0.0 IBUs 
75 g Citra [12.70 %] - Dry Hop 4.0 Days Hop 17 0.0 IBUs 
60 g Centennial [10.00 %] - Dry Hop 4.0 Days Hop 18 0.0 IBUs


----------



## Bob_Loblaw

sluggerdog said:


> @Bob_Loblaw I'd be keen to hear how this went also, from a hop perspective at least.
> 
> For the malt bill, I've been working with 10% wheat, 45% ale and 45% Vienna. It may be a little light, I haven't compared the two though.
> 
> I'll probably try something like this in the near future
> 
> 
> Recipe Specifications
> --------------------------
> Batch Size (fermenter): 20.00 l
> Estimated OG: 1.049 SG
> Estimated Color: 8.9 EBC
> Estimated IBU: 29.5 IBUs
> Brewhouse Efficiency: 67.00 %
> Est Mash Efficiency: 81.7 %
> Boil Time: 90 Minutes
> 
> Ingredients:
> ------------
> 2115 g Gladfield Ale Malt (6.0 EBC) Grain 7 45.0 %
> 2115 g Gladfield Vienna Malt (6.8 EBC) Grain 8 45.0 %
> 470 g Gladfield Wheat Malt (4.2 EBC) Grain 9 10.0 %
> 
> 15 g Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 25.0 min Hop 10 13.1 IBUs
> 25 g Amarillo [9.20 %] - Whirlpool 10 min Hop 12 4.7 IBUs
> 25 g Centennial [10.00 %] - Whirlpool 10 min Hop 13 5.1 IBUs
> 25 g Citra [12.70 %] - Whirlpool10 min Hop 14 6.5 IBUs
> 
> 1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) Yeast 15 -
> 
> 75 g Amarillo [9.20 %] - Dry Hop 4.0 Days Hop 16 0.0 IBUs
> 75 g Citra [12.70 %] - Dry Hop 4.0 Days Hop 17 0.0 IBUs
> 60 g Centennial [10.00 %] - Dry Hop 4.0 Days Hop 18 0.0 IBUs




Unfortunately something went wrong in my dry-hopping stage and NONE of the flavour came through. My fault as I used hop balls that were just too small for the amount of hops going in. When I pulled them out to keg the beer there was a lot of dry, powdery hop matter in the middle. I terms grain bill I thnk I did pretty well to the original. I did salvage the beer by keg-hopping with a bunch of Fortnight and Nelson hops, but obviously no Balter XPA.


----------



## bassmfb

scotthbutler said:


> How big was your batch size for this brew? See in the original post the batch was 1 Gal, thats roughly 3.8L! should it be 10Gal?
> 
> cheers



Good point, this batch was a 19L / 5gal.


----------



## Coodgee

I had a schooner of this yesterday at the local, it's like they have out-pacific aled Stone and Wood. I had a Stone & Wood PA straight after and it just tasted thin, watery and had much less hop flavour than the Balter XPA. The XPA is more like what many are calling a NEIPA these days.


----------



## goatchop41

Coodgee said:


> I had a schooner of this yesterday at the local, it's like they have out-pacific aled Stone and Wood. I had a Stone & Wood PA straight after and it just tasted thin, watery and had much less hop flavour than the Balter XPA. The XPA is more like what many are calling a NEIPA these days.



You must not have had any good NEIPAs...
Balter XPA is a fantastic beer, but it is not even close to being an NEIPA style-wise


----------



## scotthbutler

Coodgee said:


> I had a schooner of this yesterday at the local, it's like they have out-pacific aled Stone and Wood. I had a Stone & Wood PA straight after and it just tasted thin, watery and had much less hop flavour than the Balter XPA. The XPA is more like what many are calling a NEIPA these days.



I think it was developed by the same brewer, he moved from stone and wood to balter


----------



## Schikitar

Bob_Loblaw said:


> I was going to no-chill this beer but instead I tried something I've wanted to do for a while. Instead of putting the 5 min hops in the cube, I added them as per the recipe and then at flameout I waited a few minutes before dumping the ~90deg wort into the cube, sealing it up and placing it on the first step of my pool



I've been thinking about doing the exact same thing and I know others here have also done so. I have some remote temp probes so I'm going to chart the pool water temp and against the cube wort temp and see how long it takes to cool, especially getting from ~90 degrees down to below 79 degrees - I don't have steps as mine is walled, just got to get the seating height right so it doesn't submerge the lid..

Also, thanks for the recipe ideas, my brother is a massive Balter XPA fan so I might take stab at this once I've done my SIPA..


----------



## Coodgee

slightly off topic but still relevant... how are people doing these big dry hops? Are you adding them straight into primary? In a hop bag or loose? at ale fermentation temps? I find sometimes that a big hop addition straight into primary can form a bit of a hop "crust" on top of the beer, where the top of the crust is not really in the beer, it's sitting on top of other hops that are floating in the beer. Anyone else have this problem?


----------



## Schikitar

Coodgee said:


> how are people doing these big dry hops?



I've been using weighted bags but I've noticed that I haven't been getting as much aroma in doing so even when using large amounts. Have been thinking about adding a french press hop tea to the bottling bucket either instead of or in addition to dry hopping. I also wonder if dry hopping really needs more than a couple days.. anyway, I'm also getting off topic, soz!


----------



## Dan Pratt

Schikitar said:


> so I'm going to chart the pool water temp and against the cube wort temp and see how long it takes to cool, especially getting from ~90 degrees down to below 79 degrees



This I would like to see data for!!

When I use my CFC its always on beers with alot of hops after the boil. Usually I do a 20min whirlpool, then a 10min settling phase followed by a 40mins transfer to the FV using the CFC to get temps below 30c ( the fridge does the rest / ground water ~ 25c )

That being said I have the wort at 95c +/- 3c for a total of 70mins post boil and my beers achieve the desired flavour, hop character and bitterness. 

Ive tried the same recipe's with same hops into no chill cube and fkn bitterness was about triple due to the LONG coll down phase. 

Ive even tried to use the Immersion Chiller to drop temps to 75c then transfer to No Chill cube, still got much more bitterness than planned and wasn't as hoppy, it was again more bitter as the cube still felt warm 12hrs later. 

Getting an idea of the temp from 90c ish into the cube and how long that takes to get below 40c or to equalise with the pool water would be great. 

I dont have a pool, but a 44Gal drum with water is going to be similar with heat transfer.


----------



## Leyther

Coodgee said:


> slightly off topic but still relevant... how are people doing these big dry hops? Are you adding them straight into primary? In a hop bag or loose? at ale fermentation temps? I find sometimes that a big hop addition straight into primary can form a bit of a hop "crust" on top of the beer, where the top of the crust is not really in the beer, it's sitting on top of other hops that are floating in the beer. Anyone else have this problem?



Yes, I have the same issue, couple of days ago I added some additional dry hops to a previously dry hopped brew and there was already a blanket of hops sat on top of the wort, it did also make me wonder if I'm going to get the full benefits from it due to this, however I don't like the idea of using a hop bag for the same reason.

I am cold crashing at the moment so I guess they will fall out then and time will tell but from early sampling its not as hoppy as I wanted.


----------



## Dan Pratt

Leyther said:


> Yes, I have the same issue, couple of days ago I added some additional dry hops to a previously dry hopped brew and there was already a blanket of hops sat on top of the wort, it did also make me wonder if I'm going to get the full benefits from it due to this, however I don't like the idea of using a hop bag for the same reason.
> 
> I am cold crashing at the moment so I guess they will fall out then and time will tell but from early sampling its not as hoppy as I wanted.



why dont you just bang the side of the FV with your hand?? it creates a vibration and the hops start to fall through the beer. I used to do this every morning and afternoon on workdays and every couple of hours on weekends to get the hops into solution. 

Now i just rack to a separate keg for dry hopping and after 6hrs flip the keg over and do so every 12hrs for 3days which keeps the hops in suspension and creates heaps more contact time with the beer results in much better aroma and flavour contributions to the beer


----------



## Gloveski

I’ve had the Balter XPA in Tassie before but it seems to taste so much nicer here on the Gold Coast while on holidays


----------

