Tuesday, July 17, 2012

American Wheat Pale Ale


This time around I set out to brew a nice and dry, wheat based American Pale Ale.  I wanted to pack in as much orange and lemon zest notes that I could into a fairly easy drinking wheat based beer.  I toyed with the idea of adding some lemon and orange zest to one of the kegs, however once I tasted the finished beer I decided to pass on the citrus zest addition.  Between the Sorachi Ace and Amarillo hops this beer had all the citrus notes that I wanted from the hops alone.  I'm still not certain I love what the Sorachi Ace hops added to this beer.  Yes the lemon notes are there, however I do get hints of the dreaded "dill" that other brewers have noted with the use of Sorachi Ace. The next time around I may switch out he Sorachi Ace hops with some Citra hops.  I did like how the WLP320 - American Wheat yeast kept the yeast profile  of this beer fairly neutral and it certainly dried it out. My final gravity was closer to 1.005 and the oats helped the beer to maintain some body.  The keys to this beer is the use of the oats (at least 4%) and the heavey use of late addition hops and dry hops. The recipe is simple and I feel as though it makes one great hoppy summer beer.

11 gallon batch

Malt
13 lbs of Wheat Malt (54 %)
10 lbs of American Pale 2 Row (42%)
1 lb of Flaked Oats (4%)

1 lb of rice hulls

Hops
1.5 oz of Columbus at 60 Minutes
2 oz of Sorachi Ace at 10 Minutes
2 oz of Amarillo at KO

2 oz of Amarillo Dry – Pellets (7 Days)
1 oz of Sorachi Ace Dry – Pellets (7 Days)

Yeast
WLP320 – American Wheat

Targets
Pre-Boil Gravity – 1.049
OG – 1.057
FG – 1.008
ABV – 6.5%
IBU's - 40

Mash
7.5 gallons of mash water at 145-148 F
9 gallons of sparge water


Boil
60 Minute Boil

I plan to brew a Black IPA this weekend with my good friend Mike Ingrassia.  Once we see how that one turns out we will post the recipe here.