Simple Extract/partial Apa

[cfresh]

A little while ago I saw a very simple extract/partial recipe for an APA - be stuffed if I can find it now! (searched a while too)
I thought I might give it a go after doing a Golden Ale K&K with a bit of crystal steeped in - yet to taste.
At the moment Im looking to not over-complicate but I can steep or mash some grains with the 15L Esky and Grain bag that I got, thanks to Buttersd70 talking me into it like a subliminal message at the movies!
So if anyone can help I would be grateful - thanks....

 

[buttersd70]

How big a pot do you have available for the boil, cfresh?

 

[cfresh]

How big a pot do you have available for the boil, cfresh?

Man you're quick!

I think its about 10 - 12 litres

 

[Gavo]

If you can boil say 9 liters here is one I have done as an extract and have replaced some of the LDME for Ale malt. To be a true APA you would need to up the IBU some more by upping the amounts of hops, I would up the cascade. I just did a 1.9 Kg of grain partial last night on equipment the size that you have stated with no problem.

Ingredients
1.60 kg Light Dry Extract (15.8 EBC) Dry Extract 43.84 %
1.60 kg BB Ale Malt (6.3 EBC) Grain 43.84%
0.15 kg Pale Crystal (110.0 EBC) Grain 6.85 %
0.20 kg Caramunich Malt (110.3 EBC) Grain 5.48 %
14.00 gm Nelson Sauvin [10.30 %] (60 min) Hops 20.5 IBU
14.00 gm Nelson Sauvin [10.30 %] (10 min) Hops 4.1 IBU
15.00 gm Cascade [6.30 %] (5 min) Hops 2.2 IBU
15.00 gm Cascade [6.30 %] Dry Hopped in primary
SafAle US05 Yeast.

This was a combination of two recipies from the DB.

Cheers
Gavo

 

[Gavo]

but I can steep or mash some grains with the 15L Esky and Grain bag that I got, thanks to Buttersd70 talking me into it like a subliminal message at the movies!

Beware of the Butters, he has a way of doing that. :lol:

 

[buttersd70]

Gavos recipe looks good, but if the golden ale k&K was smurtos, you might like this...my interpretation of his AG Golden Ale as a partial.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 20.00 L
Boil Size: 10.00 L
Estimated OG: 1.047 SG
Estimated Color: 14.4 EBC
Estimated IBU: 31.3 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
1.50 kg Wheat Liquid Extract (15.8 EBC) Extract 40.0 %
2.00 kg Pale Malt, Traditional Ale (Joe White) (5.9Grain 53.3 %
0.25 kg Caramalt (Joe White) (49.3 EBC) Grain 6.7 %
20.00 gm Amarillo Gold [8.90%] (60 min) Hops 20.6 IBU
15.00 gm Amarillo Gold [8.90%] (15 min) Hops 7.6 IBU
15.00 gm Amarillo Gold [8.90%] (5 min) Hops 3.1 IBU
15.00 gm Amarillo Gold [8.90%] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
1 Pkgs SafAle American Ale (DCL Yeast #US05) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body
Total Grain Weight: 2.25 kg
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temp Step Time
Mash In Add 6.00 L of water at 72.2 C 66.0 C 75 min

sparge with 6.25L to 78C (approx 90C water required).

I've not actually tried this as a partial, this is basically a combo of his AG/kit version. (I've either done or helped with this several times. A very forgiving recipe)

The extract is added at the very end of the boil.

 

[cfresh]

Thanks for the replies Gavo and Buttersd70.

Yes the Golden Ale was Smurto's (god bless him) and I made 2 kegs worth last brew day, so im looking for a little change which was why I was looking for an APA. Ive never tried Cascade hops that a lot of people here seem to love and from what ive seen there are a lot of recipes with it.
I recently bought a bunch of grain (Buttersd70's fault again! ) so I could experiment with partial and wonder if I can substitute the recipe above with any of the following:
500g FM Maris Otter
500g Carapils (EBC 3-5)
250g Galaxy Pils (EBC 3-4)
1Kg Crystal Pale

Ive also managed to stockpile a bunch of hops:
90g Glacier
25g Liberty
90g First Gold (love this in my darker ales)
~40g Amarillo

I will order some Cascade from Ross tomorrow but if can substitute any for what ive got the Mrs wont get too suspicious.

Also when I did Smurto's GA I boiled the 1kg Liquid Wheat Malt and the Crystal steepings together for 30 mins - should I not have boiled the Wheat Malt?

 

[Gavo]

Well if using the hop schedule I listed, sub the NS for Amarillo just use more Amarillo depending on what bitterness level you want. This will be one of my future ventures (too many flavors, too little time ). As far as the grain is concerned I know to little about this to comment about the different flavors. However I did use 300 grams of medium crystal and 200 grams of carapils in an amber ale and that is going down well also.

Butters seems to get the blame for a lot of things around here. Just those subliminal messages, but you already wanted to to it anyway. Using more grain that is.

Cheers
Gavo

 

[buttersd70]

You realise that American is waaaaay out of my comfort zone.....and why the hell do I get all the blame? Muckey blames me for high efficiency, then bitches when I drink out of his keg....its only to balance out that extra high efficiency, I tells ya! Honest!

 

[Gavo]

why the hell do I get all the blame? Muckey blames me for high efficiency, then bitches when I drink out of his keg....its only to balance out that extra high efficiency, I tells ya! Honest!

Sounds like denial to me. :lol:

Looking at the grain that you have got cfresh I would tend to lean toward an extract steeping grain unless you want to order more base grain. the FM MO seems more suited to an English ale going by its description although you could use it to add some extra flavor and see how it turns out.
So you could use a Malt/Grian bill like this.

2.50 kg Light Dry Extract
0.25 kg Pale Crystal
0.25 kg Carapils

This would give you an ABV of around 4.9%.

Cheers
Gavo

 

[cfresh]

Sounds like denial to me. :lol:

Looking at the grain that you have got cfresh I would tend to lean toward an extract steeping grain unless you want to order more base grain. the FM MO seems more suited to an English ale going by its description although you could use it to add some extra flavor and see how it turns out.
So you could use a Malt/Grian bill like this.

2.50 kg Light Dry Extract
0.25 kg Pale Crystal
0.25 kg Carapils

This would give you an ABV of around 4.9%.

Cheers
Gavo

Ok... So I think this is what I need to do as it matches my criteria for basic

2.50 kg Light Dry Extract
0.25 kg Pale Crystal
0.25 kg Carapils

14.00 gm Nelson Sauvin [10.30 %] (60 min) Hops 20.5 IBU
14.00 gm Nelson Sauvin [10.30 %] (10 min) Hops 4.1 IBU
15.00 gm Cascade [6.30 %] (5 min) Hops 2.2 IBU
15.00 gm Cascade [6.30 %] Dry Hopped in primary
SafAle US05 Yeast.

Name Description Step Temp Step Time
Mash In Add 6.00 L of water at 72.2 C 66.0 C 75 min

I take the above to mean start with 72.2c water and mash at 66c for 75 mins?

sparge with 6.25L to 78C (approx 90C water required).

That would give me 12.25L to boil? Im not sure if my pot will take that - can I use less water without stuffing things up?
I plan on getting a bigger pot later once ive proved to myself I can do the grain thing but at this point im still a little scared of it, but not scared enough that I bought a spiral ring burner the other day. I was standing in the brew shop and I had a voice inside my head saying Buttersd70 would buy it so why dont you.

 

[cfresh]

You realise that American is waaaaay out of my comfort zone.....and why the hell do I get all the blame? Muckey blames me for high efficiency, then bitches when I drink out of his keg....its only to balance out that extra high efficiency, I tells ya! Honest!

Sorry Buttersd70 you get the blame cause you write articles that inspire noobs like me to move to the next step.

Oh if you see an angry woman with a knife in a brew shop that looks like she is looking for someone do me (and yourself) a favour and dont mention your name.

 

[Gavo]

Ok... So I think this is what I need to do as it matches my criteria for basic


Name Description Step Temp Step Time
Mash In Add 6.00 L of water at 72.2 C 66.0 C 75 min

I take the above to mean start with 72.2c water and mash at 66c for 75 mins?

sparge with 6.25L to 78C (approx 90C water required).

I gets more simple than that. Carapils and Pale Crystal need only to be steeped, so for this you can steep the cracked grain in 2 - 3 litres of water at 65 - 70 degrees for 30 min to extract the fermentable sugars and sparge with enough water to make up your boil volume.
A few points here.

• For extracts you don't need to do full boils.
• The boil volume for an extract can be any volume that you feel comfortable with (although a larger boil say at least 7 litres is better than a smaller one).
• You will need to add enough LDME to make the preboil gravity around the same as the full volume OG in order to get the best/most predictable hop utilization.
• Add the remainder of the LDME at the end of the boil.
• Add top up water required for the batch size to the fermenter with the boiled wort.

I have just checked the recipe again and what you have listed will suit a 20 litre batch.

I hope this helps

Cheers
Gavo.

 

[cfresh]

Thanks Gavo,

I will need to check OG of the pre-boil and add LDME until its what the full OG should be - I think?
My beers OG usually always come in around 1.040 so I will shoot for that and naturally provide feedback once its done

Thanks Gavo and Buttersd70 for your help!

 

[cfresh]

OK it took a while but I finally made it with the following:

250g Carapils
250g Pale Crystal
Steeped in 3.5l of water in esky @ ~67c for 30 mins.
Sparged with another 3.5l of ~65c water.

Added 500g of LDME to wort until I got roughly 1042 OG then boiled for 60 mins.

Added 13g Nelson Sauvin @ 60 mins
Added 13g Nelson Sauvin @ 10 mins
Added 16g Cascade @ 5 mins

Added rest of the (2kg) LDME @ 0 mins

Added all into the fermenter and topped up to 20l - Chucked 16g Cascade in a tea ball in the fermenter.
Pitched US56 at 24c

Its nearly ready to keg and I have tasted some out of the fermenter which im pretty impressed with so far, however, I had some real mingers out of the fermenter turn out nice and vice versa so we will have to see.

The original gravity was 1046 so im curious about the effect of the hop additions that were made with the boil starting at 1042 - how will this affect the bitterness?


Oh and cheers to gavo and Buttersd70 for their input :icon_cheers:

 

[buttersd70]

The original gravity was 1046 so im curious about the effect of the hop additions that were made with the boil starting at 1042 - how will this affect the bitterness?

I take it from your question that it comes with an underlying question....'what gravity should I make my boil?' Theres no real right or wrong in this (in extract brewing), imo. Short answer is, low enough within reason to give good utilisation. So many go to ~1030-1040 ish for the boil, but many make the BG the same as the target OG cos that can be easy to work out (which is my preferred method. 1/3 of the total water, 1/3 of the total extract. Don't need to be a mathematician to work it out. The BG will be the same as my target OG.)

The boil gravity effects the utilisation of the hops. Higher boil gravity gives lower hop utilisation, extracting less bitterness. Lower boil gravity gives higher utilisation, extracting more bitterness. Regardless, your brewing software (or hop calculator, whatever you used) will take into account what the gravity was in the boil when working out the extraction.

In AG brewing, because all the water has been in contact with the grain, it all goes into the boil. So the boil volume will be the batch size to fermenter, plus any losses to evaporation and the kettle....so as an example, you might start with 30L on the boil and end up with 23L at the end of the boil. So a result of this is that the Boil gravity will be lower than the OG when it goes to the fermenter, because it is reducing and concentrating during the boil. With extract brewing, this isn't usually the case...you're only boiling some of the volume, and making the gravity in the kettle up to what you want it to be. The rest of the water and extract is added at the end (so your basically adding back what was lost to evaporation, adn how ever much extra water is required to reach your volume. So what you lose on the swings, you make up on the roundabouts). So the main role that the BG makes is to allow for decent utilisation for the hops, and to (let your software or calculator) calculate your bitterness extraction for you.

 

[Gavo]

Good to see that it all went well. Butters has filled in all the gaps quite well, an invaluable wealth of information that man. I usually aim for the pre-boil gravity to be the same as the OG as it gives me the possibility of having repeatable results, or a baseline to work from for the next time. Also when I shift to AG ( I am doing a 16 lt AG as we speak, first one) I will have a base of recipes with a known bitterness level.

It will taste even better in the glass, I found that the hops mellowed after about 3 weeks. Mine ran out pretty quick, I am waiting for a partail version of my APA to condition ATM, should be ready by friday.

Cheers
Gavo.

 

[cfresh]

I tried my first glass off tap of this brew and im sorry to say it has barely any flavour.
If anything its tastes like very weak orange cordial.

I suspect it might have something to do with the tea ball [topic="29677"]Tea Ball hop utilisation[/topic] as per the link.

Is there any sense in taking it off tap and adding some boiled hops? I have quite a few varieties on hand.

I think I will order a hop sock asap if im to do any more of this...

 

[Gavo]

I tried my first glass off tap of this brew and im sorry to say it has barely any flavour.
If anything its tastes like very weak orange cordial.

I suspect it might have something to do with the tea ball [topic="29677"]Tea Ball hop utilisation[/topic] as per the link.

I remember the thread well. That would most likely be the problem. You aren't getting everything out of the hops. I had the same problem using stockings once and now I use the hops loose. Anyway it's done now and something to think about for next time.

Is there any sense in taking it off tap and adding some boiled hops? I have quite a few varieties on hand.

Quite a few people have done or suggested this when in your situaton. I believe they have just boiled the hops in water and added it to the keg. I have no experience doing this though and others here should be able to help with this.

Cheers
Gavo.