This is the write up from my brewday from Sunday gone. It’s an American Pale Ale that will serve two purposes; my entry for the Revolutions Brewing Co. competition (AG#26) and my test brew for the Northern Craft Brewers event in April (AG#25). As this is an American Pale I wanted to use US hops, opting for trusty Galena for bittering and then Cluster as the main copper hops. I chose Cluster hops having decided to try a new variety and was happy with my choice. During the boil I was reading a little more about Cluster hops and stumbled upon this by Beervana;
By the turn of the 20th century nearly every hop grown in the country was Cluster (96%). After Prohibition, Clusters continued to dominate; in 1935, they occupied 90% of the market – Beervana
From a quick read of Beervana’s blog post you learn that Cluster hops were gradually overlooked over the years, and in their place came the ‘C’ hops we enjoy in many of the beers we enjoy today. Despite all of this I started focusing on one of the comments made at the bottom of the blog;
If you see any brewers talking about them, the phrase they generally use is “catty,” or “cat piss.” They aren’t being catty themselves, cluster literally smells like a litterbox – Daniel Warner
I was 20 minutes into the boil when I read this and started doubting whether Cluster were the right hop for this brew….I had in mind an easy-going, fruity APA (nothing wrong with a bit of cat piss aroma right!). I Tweeted my dilemma and with 10 minutes to spare before needing to make the hop addition, the ever-friendly Jay Krause (Quantum Brewing Co.) tweeted some sense into me and I stuck with my original plan.
Original Gravity (OG): 1.052
Final Gravity (FG): 1.010
Alcohol (ABV): 5.6%
Colour (SRM): 9.3 (EBC): 18.3
Bitterness (IBU): 40.0 (Average)
Brew length: 21.0L
3.000 kg (82%) Pale Ale Malt (Dingemans)
1.500 kg (10%) Golden Promise Pale Malt
0.600 kg (6%) Crystal 40
0.200 kg (2%) Pale Wheat Malt
14g Galena (12% Alpha) @60 minutes from the end (boil)
20g Cluster (8.1% Alpha) @30 minutes from the end (Boil)
50g Cluster (8.1% Alpha) @5 minutes from the end (Boil)
10g Cascade (7.8% Alpha) @5 minutes from the end (Boil)
25g Cascade (7.8% Alpha) in secondary for 3-4 days (dry hop)
Water treatments: Campden tablet (HLT), 1 tsp gypsum (mash). My weighing scales aren’t great and I only need 3-4g, which is a tsp (approx). Same rule for the epsom salts in the boil.
Strike temp of 75C, 13.2L liquor for 5.300kg grain. Mashed in at 67C, a degree higher than my target as my mash tun loses a bit of heat (single step infusion). Mashed for 60 minutes and temp dropped to 66C. Sparged at strike temp of 87C, to sparge at 78C, 18L liquor. The boil was scheduled for 60 minutes. All went to plan, Galena in at 60 minutes (from the end of the boil), followed by additions of Cluster at 30 minutes and Cluster and Cascade at 5 minutes.
I collected 21L of wort post boil with SG of 1.052 and ran this off into two FVs:
- Pitched US-05 at 18C into FV2 (10L) and liquored back 1.8L (total 11.8L) to achieve an OG of 1.044. I’ve also tweaked this batch with another ingredient, but more about that once the judging has taken place.
- Pitched WLP090 at 18C into FV3 (11L) leaving the OG at 1.052, I’ll be dry hopping both batches Cascade (in primary FV).
Updated 23/01/13
Interesting to see the progress of the different yeast strains. The only real difference being the OG. US-05 had taken the SG in FV2 to 1.012 in 3 days, whereas WLP090 (the highly flocculant San Diego Super Yeast) had only managed 12 points in the same time, SG 1.040. I’ll take another reading today, but here’s how they look (and by the way, no cat piss yet, just lovely fruity hop smells):
broadfordbrewer 