Crackenback (snowy Mountains Brewery) Clone

[Thirsty Boy]

Guys,

My sister is getting married and has requested a beer. They like Crackenback from Snowy Mountains. So I am looking for a little feedback on my first cut recipe attempt. I did a bit of research and Snowy Mountains has decent info on their site.

OG - 11.75 plato
BU - 30
abv 4.9
Malts - Pale 2 row and Crystal
Bittered with Chinook, Flavour/aroma Amarillo and Cascade.

I seem to recall the beer being ( I will taste it again before I brew) light amber/dark gold, fairly fruity with the mandarin flavour from the amarillo upfront and a little spice and general citrus from the cascade .. maybe a little pine from the chinook?? Fairly dry and light/medium body, mid/high carbonation. Not a lot of malt flavour, decent but not really high hop flavour ... medium low bitterness for an APA. Clean and crisp finishing. Basically an easy drinking crossover APA.

So I have come up with the following recipe

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23.2L post boil volume @ 75% efficiency into the kettle

Mashing with a moderate sulphate water - approx 1:2 chloride to sulphate ratio at about 150ppm sulphate

Malt

BB Pale Malt - 4.5kg
JWM Amber Malt - 0.075 kg
JWM Crystal - 0.150kg
JWM Dark Crystal - 0.050kg

Should give me 11.76plato @ 14.2EBC

Hops

60min - Chinook to 25IBU
Cube hop - 10g Amarillo
Cube Hop - 10g Cascade
Dry Hop - 10g Amarillo
Dry Hop - 10g Cascade

Which should give me somewhere around 30IBUs (I will tweak for the actual AA% of the hops I buy)

Ferment with Wyeast 1272 Am ale II @ 19 - filter and carbonate to about 2.5 volmes
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Any feedback would be appreciated and I'd love to hear from anyone who has had ago at cloning this one

Cheers

TB

 

[DJR]

Looks good, amber malt is OK but for a "crossover" APA that is easy drinking i'd be subbing the Crystal for some Caramalt. I know people will scoff but the Caramalt adds a sweet background whereas the crystal can get a bit cloying/toffee/sweet/roast, especially the dark.

I've made a few ales that i wouldn't call APAs, more Blonde Ales, that have used Caramalt and for let's say "undiscerned palates" it always rates well

 

[razz]

I use caramalt in all my pale ales, never gets sweet. I do keep the mash temp down, US05 and lately 1272. Very happy with the 1272.

 

[gibbocore]

Their website lists all the ingredients they use.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Looks good, amber malt is OK but for a "crossover" APA that is easy drinking i'd be subbing the Crystal for some Caramalt. I know people will scoff but the Caramalt adds a sweet background whereas the crystal can get a bit cloying/toffee/sweet/roast, especially the dark.

I've made a few ales that i wouldn't call APAs, more Blonde Ales, that have used Caramalt and for let's say "undiscerned palates" it always rates well

Yeah - the amber malt is a standard inclusion of mine. I use malt I get from work. Very pale mega brewer malt, lacking in much kilned character. Much tasting of congress worts has lead me to the conclusion that the difference between my malt and a genuine pale ale malt... is the flavour that's contained in amber malt (Bairds specifically, but JWM is close enough) so I always add amber malt equivalent to about 1-2% of the weight of base malt. This brings me back into stock pale ale flavour territory. It can virtually be skipped when considering my ingredients.. I should just leave it out and let people assume that I am using "normal" pale ale malt like everyone else.

The crystal - well as gibbocore said, they list the ingredients on their site and specify crystal malt. In another beer they specify caramalt .. so I'm guessing that they actually differentiate between the two and are using "crystal" so I will too. Some of the tasting notes I have read have talked about a mild toffee character.. ergo the small amount of dark crystal. I'm just gonna have to go out and buy a bottle of the stuff I guess.

Thanks for you help guys

TB

 

[Fents]

looks about on the money. i e-mailed the brewer about 3 years ago and he gave up most of the recipe but unfortuantly have reformatted my PC since. Its def Amarillo and Cascade just cant remember about the chinook.

 

[Fourstar]

I'd have to say your recipe looks almost spot on Thirsty. Understanding your reasons for the Amber/kilned incusion due to your base malt i recon you are probabaly on the money. From memory the crystal sweetness in this beer is not very prominent, rather subdued and the hops take center stage. It might not hurt to keep the light crystal low. Say 50g and then up the dark crystal to around 100-150 or until you get the correct colour. From memory it was gold to light amber when i had it last.

Also another thaught, this beer is produced under contract by AIB (from memory). Can we assume they are using anything better than macro malt? Maybe you dont need the amber after all.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Thanks guys,

I'll give it a punt and see if I kick a goal or put it out on the full.

Appreciate the help

TB

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Brewed this today -a (unusually for me) double batch. Recipe as written above.

Good brew day apart from missing my numbers little - I changed to a two run-off batch sparge for this brew. I usually no-sparge and get about 75% efficiency. I thought with all that grain in my tun, I would get about the same with a double run-off.... wrong. Got 83-84% and ended up with a few extra litres and a few extra gravity points. So its going to be a 1.052@29 IBU beer instead.

So the inlaws will get a little drunker at the sister's wedding. Oh well.

Its in two cubes - one with about 25L in and another with 18. I'll do a staggered pitch tomorrow and the day after - my 2L starter into the 18L just before bedtime, then the next morning that goes into the my 60L fermenter with the 25L before fermentation starts. 19C for the duration.

I'll let you know how it turns out - hell I'll have a keg of it, come round and have a sample.

TB

 

[beerDingo]

Yo Thirsty,

How'd this brew go? Was it at all close to the Crackenback?

Dingo

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Yo Thirsty,

How'd this brew go? Was it at all close to the Crackenback?

Dingo

It did work - My efficiency was a litle high and I decided not to dilute any more.. so it a chunk stronger than crackenback... and the boozyness comes through. It also attenuated a little to far, adding to the problem.

But - subtract the alcohol notes.. and it hits all the crackenback buttons. My sister and her new husband liked the beer and it met the request for a crackenback like beer.

So - not crackenback, but pretty close and all in all good beer.

 

[Phrak]

Good to hear it worked out for you.
Did you stick with the Wyeast 1272?

Try and stick it the recipe up the the Recipe DB please mate?