American Pale Wheat Take II

I've decided to do a re-brew of one of the best beers I've made up to this point:  American Pale Wheat.  Like last time, I will be using one of the Mad Fermentationist's recipes developed for the Modern Times brewery in San Diego which became Fortunate Islands.

I was amazed by the intensity of the hop character of the beer back when I brewed in 2014.  I have been able to try the Modern Times beer a few times since, both fairly fresh and not so fresh, and it turned out the real deal didn't hold a candle to what I'd remembered from the homebrew.  I think the freshness factor that you get from homebrew can never be touched by the pro's

I'll be sticking with roughly equal hopping rates for this batch provided at fairly similar intervals.  I expect this will get me similar levels of hop character to what I achieved last time.  The original recipe called for a lot of Citra and Amarillo in a support role.  This provided a really striking and lovely citrus flavor to the beer.  This time I'll be using Citra along with Galaxy which is an Australian hop which I haven't used before.  It is reported to provide citrus flavors similarly to Citra.  I'm excited to be using it.

This batch will have 9 oz of hops.  I imagine this will cost me quite a bit of efficiency due to absorption.  I'll be experimenting with putting my hops in muslin sacks for this batch to see if that cuts down a bit on losses.

I'm sticking with roughly the same grainbill as last time with roughly 50% wheat malt.  Also staying with the neutral Chico yeast strain for this batch.

Right before the start of brewday I discovered that the false bottom of my mash tun has gone missing.  I had to use a brew in the bag sack to perform the mash.  I had just placed an order for a new stainless steel mash tun the day before so this will be my final brewday with my cooler mash tun - it's served me well but has become too annoying to deal with.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 5 lb and 8 oz White Wheat
• 5 lb Pilsner
• 12 oz Crystal 20L
• 3 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 0.75 oz Citra (Pellet, 13.2% AA) at 60 min
• 0.5 oz Galaxy (Pellet, 15.5% AA) at 10 min
• 0.5 oz Citra (Pellet, 15.5% AA) at 10 min
• 0.5 oz Galaxy (Pellet, 15.5% AA) at 0 min
• 0.75 oz Citra (Pellet, 13.2% AA) at 0 min
• 1 oz Galaxy (Pellet, 15.5% AA) added once temp is down to 180 F (stand for 30 min)
• 1 oz Citra (Pellet, 13.2% AA) added once temp is down to 180 F (stand for 30 min)
• 2 oz Galaxy (Pellet, 15.5% AA) Dry Hop after 7 days for 7 days
• 2 oz Citra (Pellet, 13.2% AA) Dry Hop after 7 days for 7 days
• Yeast:
• US-05
• Water:
• 11.5 gal spring water
• 1 oz CaCl
• 1 oz Gypsum
• 1 oz Irish Moss at 15 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 5.5 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 155 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 60 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 65 F
• Primary Duration:
• 2 Weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• N/A

Results:

• OG:
• 1.048 (Target 1.048)
• Efficiency:
• 61% (Target 67%)
• FG:
• 1.010  (Target 1.010)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 79% (Target 79%)
• ABV:
• 4.99% (Target 4.99%)

Brewing Notes:

• 9/10/17 - Brewday - 1:00 PM to TBD - Including Setup and Cleanup
• Heated 11.5 gal of spring water in the HLT.  Cycled through the system until everything had settled out to 165 F.  1:16 to 2:00
• Ended up with 6.5 gal in the system
• Milled my grain

• Added CaCl and Gypsum to the mash tun
• Added my grain and stirred well to eliminate doughballs
• Mashed for 60 min.  Stirred at 15, 30 and 45 min. 2:06 to 3:06

• While waiting I measured out the hops for each addition.  Added them to muslin hop bags.
• Heated 4 gal of sparge water to 185 F
• Fly-sparged 3:06 to 3:48
• Started heating the wort after collecting 4 gal.  Had it near a boil by the end of the sparge
• Collected 8.5 gal of wort
• Boiled for 60 min.  3:55 to 4:55 
• Added the bittering hops once the hot break cleared.  Quite a bit of the hop matter got out of the bags in the process

• Added Irish Moss at 15 min
• Added the 10 min hops
• Added the wort chiller to sanitize with 5 min left in the boil
• Added 0 min hops and killed the burner
• Chilled down to 180 F - had the chilling water go to my boil kettle this time
• Moved the wort chiller to the boil kettle and heated this up to close to boiling for sterilization
• Added the "whirlpool" hops.  Stirred the beer to form a whirlpool.  Let it sit for 30 min with the lid on. 5:03 to 5:33
• Rehydrated my dry yeast in 100 F water
• After 30 min I added the chiller back to the boil kettle and chilled down to 80 F - 5:33 to 5:50
• Transferred to the fermenter - wort dropped a couple feet or so to aerate.  Pitched the yeast during the transfer.  Lost a quart or so from the hops even with the bags.

• Collected 5.5 gal of wort.  Measured gravity as 1.048.
• Moved to the chest freezer set to ferment at 65 F.  This will be an open ferment (as I don't have an airlock to spare currently.
• 9/11/17 - Fermentation was going pretty strong the next day
• 9/18/17 - Added the 4 oz of dry hops in 2 bags weighed down by stainless steel nuts.
• 9/22/17 - Cold crashed the beer down to 35 F
• 9/24/17 - Fined with gelatin
• 9/25/17 - Bottled with 4 oz of priming sugar.  Ended up with 5.5 gal which got me 50 bottles of beer.  The gravity ended up at 1.010 (right on target).  The beer has a really nice fruity hop character.  Can't wait until this is carb'd up.  Will give it about a week.
• 9/28/17 - Cracked open the first beer - was nicely carbonated already.  The hop character is very nice as I assumed it would be.
• 10/14/17 - Tasting Notes - A really flavorful hoppy beer with a light but pleasing bitterness.  I'm happy with how the large amount of hops used for this beer present themselves.  I think this is a really nice recipe - the malt bill provides a great base for a hoppy beer.

Lessons Learned:

1. The hop sacks held the late hops pretty well but the boil hops were jostled around for so long that most of them worked their way out of the bad.  I think I'll skip bagging the bittering hops next time but will continue for late hops.