Baby steps pale ale

It was finally time for the first brew day since our baby boy was born. It took some planning and persuation to squeeze it into the schedule, but it worked out fine in the end. My focus for this batch was again process improvements. Since I don’t brew very often, I don’t have the patience to adjust one parameter at a time, even though that would probably be more educational. Instead I incorporated a number of improvements this brew day:

• Insulated kettle for a more stable mash temperature, to get a beer with more body
• Water treatment to bring out more hop character
• Full volume proper BIAB mash as per the profiles in Beer Smith (no more sparging)
• No squeezing of the bag once the mash is done
• A whole bag of fresh hops, no more cleaning out the fridge

I was simply aiming to do things as normally and by the book as possible. If nothing else, it would hopefully make it easier for others to point out any mistakes I was making. I chose a single hop recipe to be able to use a 100g bag of hops without leaving anything behind. Successfully brewing simple recipes is the way forward.

Brew day

I tried to keep this a really tidy, which worked great until I decided to fill my BIAB bag with malt before lowering it into the hot strike water. Bad idea. I got massive dough balls that took forever to dissolve. I raised the temperature twice to get back to where I planned to be, but it wasn’t the stable mash I had hoped for. I’ll go back to pouring the malt into the bag once it’s in the water the next time.

The mash produced 15,6 liters of 1,050 wort, and a mash efficiency of 92%. This is really good, especially considering I didn’t squeeze the bag at all. I just hope the high conversion won’t lead to a really thin beer.

I had a much higher boil-off than I’m used to, and got a more concentrated wort as a result. About 0,5-0,7 liters less than I planned for, but with an OG of 1,060 instead of 1,054. I didn’t bother to dillute the wort, so this will probably result in a beer with an ABV of around 6,1-6,2% as opposed to 5,6% which I was shooting for.

All in all a good brew day, a bit messy at mash in and after cooling, I’ll try to improve things there next time. Fingers crossed for a decicious fruity American pale ale!

Bottling

The beer landed at 1,015, meaning an ABV of around 5,9%. It was very hazy upon bottling, and gave me a strong hop burn when I tasted it. I don’t mind the haze, but I really hope the hop burn goes away with some bottle conditioning.

Tasting

This beer turned out to be pretty successful. Not perfect, but definitely enjoyable. The first bottle I tried slightly resembled mineral water, with a salty/minerally flavor. I first blamed this on my water treatment, but it seems to have faded away with every passing day. I’ve read yeast in suspensions can have the same effect and hope that’s the reason. The bad hop burn I got from the hydrometer sample has luckily gone away.

The beer isn’t as fruity as I had expected, and while drinking it I started wondering wether adjusting the water towards a bitter/crisp profile was really the right way to go. I’ve realized my subcontious goal for this beer was much softer, more like a NEIPA, and I’m tempted to brew it again with a different water profile. Another adjustment I’d like to make is to pair the El Dorado with another hop variety. I’ve heard Azacca is a good match.

All in all I’m happy with this beer, especially with a few more or less failed batches behind me. It will be interesting to see how it develops in the coming weeks!