Pale Ale

Classification: pale ale, all-grain

Source: Jim Busch (busch@daacdev1.stx.com), HBD Issue #1237, 9/30/93

Notes: Since this is the time of year that I run out of whole hops (mostly cascade and centennial), I was using up some inventory of Perle (good kettle hop) and goldings (great flavor hop). A brewer friend of mine had a 5oz pack of saazer plugs that he asked me to use (tough situation), so I brewed up the above recipe. I had just made an IPA of 1.060 gravity, so when this batch ended up at 1.063, I decided to continue my experiments with pre ferment dilution. I had already convinced myself prior to this that I could water down a batch considerably with no great impact on flavor, so I went for it here. I am using a counterflow pipeline to run my wort from the brewery to the conditioning room, so I merely hooked up the hot liquor tank to the counterflow pipeline and let 170F water enter the pipeline, chilling and rinsing the line somewhat. After topping up the fermenter, I added O2 and yeast.
Tasting: A good amber color, almost no detectable biscuit character, but this may change with more yeast dropping out. The goldings flavor comes through real well but not too strong. The finish of saazer and goldings adds a bit of complexity to the otherwise dominant saazer dry hopping. I had never dry hopped with saaz before, and it is a great change from the norm.

Malt notes: Despite the well known limitations of american 2 row malt, I use it without difficulty. The key is to tailor your recipe so that there are abundant flavoring malts/caramel malts to give the body/dextrins/color desired. By adjusting the munich and caramel malts, a very full bodied beer can be brewed with a terminal gravity as low as 1.008.

Ingredients:

2 row american *breiss* base malt, target OG 1.063 (total)
CaraVienna (DeWolf-Cosyns) 12% of grist
Munich (DeWolf-Cosyns) 6% of grist
Aromatic (DeWolf-Cosyns) 4% of grist
Biscuit (DeWolf-Cosyns) <1% of grist
Gypsum in mash
US Whole Perle, ~8% alpha in Kettle-60 min
Goldings Pellets ~5% 30 min
Goldings Pellets 10 and 2 min
Saazer Whole Plugs ~3% 2 min
Saazer Whole Plugs ~3% dry hopped
Dominion ale yeast

Procedure:

Add ~1 qt per lb hot water, gypsum and malt. Hold 20 min at 144F. Raise to 152-154, hold 45-60 min, raise to 172, lauter. Boil, hop..... Counter flow chill, add ~10% boiled water to dilute to ~1.050 force oxygen, pitch thick Dominion Ale Yeast

Specifics:

O.G.: 1.050
F.G.: 1.008