Brew 18 - Screaming Carrot Demon (American Pale Ale)

Brew 18 - Screaming Carrot Demon (American Pale Ale)

Brew Day: 17/02/2021

Bottle Day: 03/03/2021

One of the big problems I find with with brewing is the constant worry that you are going to run out of good tasting beer. My cupboard is full and I have 5 different brews still in stock but still, I find that I want something else to drink. Flicking through Chris Coleby's Homebrew Bible and I'm drawn to something sessionable, perhaps another IPA or even better, an American Pale Ale.

Chris has provided an excellent recipe for an APA on pg 126 (Stellar's Jay PA) where he suggests playing around with the hop bill to suit your flavour desire. His recipe uses Magnum and Cascade to give a citrusy profile. I don't mind citrus but I actually prefer a piney/resinous profile. I swap the Magnum bittering hops for Chinnock and trade the Cascade hop 5mins from the end with Simcoe. I'm keeping the Cascade hop at gas off and will be using it to dry hop on day 4. 

Brew day was smooth, I'm getting more confident with the new kit and find that I'm getting better at extracting more from my grain bill. 

Mash as follows: 

  • 23 litres strike water heated to 73 deg C
  • Remembered to close the drainage hole this time! 
  • Boiling water into mash tun to preheat.  
  • Malt in its bag into warm mash tun to bring up to temp. 
  • 90min mash @ 66-67 deg C (Cool box wrapped in sleeping bag and it held temp really well)

I drained the wort into the stock pot and then added 8L of water @77 deg C to attempt a sparge (not hugely successful but I was able to pour a few litres into the kettle once I was certain that gravity was above target - topping up the wort back to about 20L with 15mins to go). In hindsight this reduced my efficiency - I was at almost 65% pre boil and ended up at 56% but will give me a few more bottles to enjoy. I'm not aiming for a high ABV this time. 

Pre Boil Gravity comes out at 1.047 (against a target of 1.052 - this is good). 

Boil goes nicely to plan - using 2 hobs this time (back left and front left) - got a good rolling boil.

Hop bill as follows:

  • 21g Cascade boiled for 60mins
  • 1/2 Protafloc Tab boiled for 15mins
  • 28g Simcoe boiled for 5mins
  • 14g Cascade at at flame out

I cooled the kettle in the sink with Ice + 2Ltr Plastic Ice Bottle. I left all of the hop bags in for 30mins to infuse with regular whirlpool. I then decided to Siphon the wort into FV, this doesn't always work well as the filter gets clogged but as I'd left the wort to settle for 30mins most of the trub had fallen to the bottom of the kettle. The filter remained clear and I managed to leave behind a lot of trub (hoping this helps clarity). 

I then squeezed the hop bags out to strain all the tasty oils into the wort. 

I put the FV outside to cool @ 8 Deg C and then added the yeast once cooled to 20 deg C. 

I measured Original Gravity at 1.054 (against target of 1.052!), rigged the airlock and left it to ferment. I've set my immersion heater to around 20 Deg C but so far the brew has maintained it's own temperature without any fluctuation. It helps that we are heating the house at night as we are trying to get the baby to sleep on her own upstairs (she feels the cold!) so the heating is kicking in to keep the house at 20 deg C. 

I'm planning on racking to a secondary fermentor (pressure barrel) on Day 4 (Sun 21st) and adding 43g of Cascade as a dry hop. The benefit of the pressure barrel is that I can sample the brew over the next 10 days and it saves a job on bottling day!



In other news, I've started using social media to develop a brand following (who knows where this might lead...) and have asked for name ideas. So we have: 

  • Orange Julius 
  • Screaming Carrot Demon
  • Tangerine Tornado
  • Nadine (?) 
  • Lady Librewty





Racked to secondary on Sun 21/02/21 and added dry hop into pressure barrel. Noted that the ferm temp has remained at around 20 deg C (well controlled).

Bottling day - Beer was seriously carbed in pressure barrel and tasted amazing. Added 90g sugar to 200ml boiling water, decided against using all of it as to not over carb. Bottling was smooth once the beer calmed down.

Mini keg used to store the bottom of the barrel - around 3 litres. The pressure valve fitted perfectly and was easy to fit. Interesting to see how this turns out.

Update: This beer is everything and more. Absolutely nailed the APA flavour profile and it drinks so easy. Piney with a slight citrus bitter-sweetness. Very much a session beer and hits the nail on the head in terms of what I wanted from it. Very much my favourite style of beer at present. Will have to brew this on again. Beer Score: 4.75/5. 

On a sad note, the 5L mini keg was a bit of a fail. Too much gas and the beer frothed up big time kicking up the sediment with it. The beer was still drinkable but not as nice as the bottle version. I think if I do the mini keg again, I need to fill it to the top. Live and learn. 


Notes

Malts: Maris Otter, Caramunich Type 1

Hops: Chinnock, Simcoe and Cascade

OG = 1.054

Gravity on 24/02/21 = 1.010

Final Gravity = 1.007

ABV = 6.2%

Batch size = 18x500ml, 5x330ml plus 3litres in Mini Keg (Approx 13.5 Litres)






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