Basic Pale Recipe

[manaen]

Can someone please give me some guidance on what other ingredients (if any) I should use for a basic english style pale ale.

So far I have a starter of S04 going, 4kg of cracked australian ale malt, 100g of Fuggles, 1.7kg pale liquid malt.

Will this taste any good? any ideas of hopping schedule? should I add some crystal?

 

[pint of lager]

Basic English pale, og 1.045, IBU 25, with preferably an English ale yeast.

Saf 04 will do the job.

A bit of crystal too, say 200 gms.

Mash your pale and crystal at 66 deg.

Sparge, measure final volume and sg, then use your LME to make the sg up to 1.040. When you boil, there will be some evaporation, the wort will concentrate and your final og will lift to around 1.045.

Bitter to 25 IBU's. Add 15 gms 10 minutes from the end and 15 gms at strikeout.

A sachet of saf 04 has enough yeast in it to pitch straight to a brew. Making a starter is counterproductive, you have a huge amount of viable yeast all competing for limited nutrients. Also, you add an extra layer of complexity where infections may occur.

A starter is used to build yeast numbers from a very small amount into a quantity suitable for pitching. A yeast sachet of o4 already has these numbers. One of the joys of using a sachet of yeast is less mucking around.

If you want to have a go at making starters, try culturing the dregs out of a bottle of coopers.

All the best with your brew, if you need more info post again.

 

[Duff]

Try and get crystal around 145EBC, the Thomas Fawcett crystal goes well in English Ales. With 4kg of grain and the crystal, depending on your efficiency, you may not need the liquid malt at all. I find dry hopping as well with 25 - 30gm in secondary gives good results, Fuggle is a nice hop to do this with.

Cheers.

 

[Airgead]

Can someone please give me some guidance on what other ingredients (if any) I should use for a basic english style pale ale.

So far I have a starter of S04 going, 4kg of cracked australian ale malt, 100g of Fuggles, 1.7kg pale liquid malt.

Will this taste any good? any ideas of hopping schedule? should I add some crystal?

[post="101030"][/post]​

I don't have my recipe with me at work but my current pale was something like -

4kg JW ale
500g Wheat malt
100g crystal
Fuggles to 30IBU with about 10g as flavour hops.
I seem to recall mashing at 66.
Fermented with yeast cultured from a bottle of coopers.

Cheers
Dave

 

[Sean]

All good suggestions. A touch of crystal is a must.

I wouldn't just use fuggles - I don't think it's a great hop for a single variatial beer (certainly not a pale one), and most "basic" english beers use a blend of hops. Replace some of it somewhere with another good english hop - perhaps Challenger or Northdown if available.

 

[tangent]

you're so close to an AG recipe, why bother with a tin of extract?
Airgead's recipe looks pretty damn good.

 

[T.D.]

I'm a huge fan of challenger hops. In fact when I finish off my current lot of goldings, I think I'll use challenger as my main english hop variety. Challenger for English ales and Amarillo for American ales. Can hardly go wrong with that I reckon!

For my english pales I usually work of the rule of thumb for my grain bill of 95% ale malt and 5% crystal (or 97% ale and 3% dark crystal). The hops side of things is a very personal matter - I usually bitter in the 30-35 IBU range and add 1-2g/L at around 15mins and another 1-2g/L at flameout. Dry hopping is a good option too though - I'm just lazy and usually settle for aroma via just a flameout addition.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

EKG works good with Fuggles for aroma and flavour

 

[Airgead]

All good suggestions. A touch of crystal is a must.

I wouldn't just use fuggles - I don't think it's a great hop for a single variatial beer (certainly not a pale one), and most "basic" english beers use a blend of hops. Replace some of it somewhere with another good english hop - perhaps Challenger or Northdown if available.

[post="101054"][/post]​

I checked my recipe last night. I was going to use fuggles and some of the EKG I was sure I had in the freezer...

Ended up all fuggles and not bad at all.

Cheers
Dave