American Pale Wheat Take III

My new kegging setup has me very excited for  the prospects of trying many more hoppy beers.  I've purchased several popular varieties of American hops in bulk here in the last couple years and have been keeping them in my freezer.  This includes Citra and Amarillo which I used on my first hoppy beer:  A version of the Mad Fermentationist's beer made for San Diego Brewery Modern Times, Fortunate Islands.  I've decided to revisit that beer for a third time (read about the first and second).  These hops make a really lovely beer with bold citrus-like hop flavor.

This time around I'll be using a couple more hop varieties for flavoring in the kettle:  Columbus and Centennial.  My thought is this would add some complexity to the overall package.  I also hope to stretch my pound of Citra (which is fairly expensive and often sold out) into multiple beers.  I'll do a fairly sizable hop addition at the end of the boil (4 oz) and then hit the beer with 3 oz of dry hop in the fermenter and then another 3 oz in the keg - the dry hops will be comprised of Citra and Amarillo in similar ratio to the first beer.  I'm expecting a really bold hop flavor and aroma from this.

I'll be aiming for an ABV of around 4% for this batch to allow for worry free consumption of a third pint if I so desire.  The low alcohol was one of the wonderful things about my first Keg Beer (a Rye Pale Ale).

Finally, I'm trying out a new yeast variety, Imperial Yeast Juice, which is a strain used for New England IPA.  It is supposed to provide some more ester character than typical American Yeast that compliments American Hops.  Is also supposed to be a vigorous fermenter so I'll use a blowoff tube.  I'm going to try out a CO2 capture contraption for this batch which I hope will protect the beer a bit from Oxidation during cold crash and transfer by allowing it's own CO2 to be sucked back into the fermenter after pressure change.

I'll give the beer 2 weeks to ferment before adding the dry hops and then cold crashing and fining for a week.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 5 lb Wheat Malt
• 4 lb Pale Ale Malt
• Hops:
• 1 oz Columbus (Leaf, 14.6% AA) First Wort Hop
• 2 oz Columbus (Leaf, 14.6% AA) at 5 min
• 2 oz Centennial (Leaf, 10.1% AA) at 5 min
• 2 oz Citra (Leaf, 13.1% AA) Dry Hop
• 1 oz Amarillo (Leaf, 8.8% AA) Dry Hop
• 2 oz Citra (Leaf, 13.1% AA) Keg Hop
• 1 oz Amarillo (Leaf, 8.8% AA) Keg Hop
• Yeast:
• Imperial Yeast A38 Juice
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp CaCl
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 5.75 gal
• Mash:
• 158 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 60 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• Ambient Basement Temps (low 60s)
• Primary Duration:
• 3 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.040 (Target 1.040)
• Efficiency:
• 65% (Target 71%)
• FG:
• 1.013 (Target 1.012)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 67% (Target 69%)
• ABV:
• 3.54% (Target 3.7%)

Brewing Notes:

• 11/14/20 - Made a yeast starter with 100 g of malt extract and 1 L of water.  Set it up on the stir plate to propagate
• This was a very strong pitch of yeast.  Took off within a couple hrs.  I'm sure I didn't actually need a starter given it's strength.

• 11/15/20 - Brewday - 8:30 AM to 12:45 PM - Including Setup and Cleanup
• Brought 7 gal up to 190 F
• Milled my grain.  Added the gypsum and CaCl to the grain so I wont forget about it
• Added 5 gal of water to the mash tun and cycled through the RIMS until the temperature had settled to 168 F.  Stopped the RIMS
• Added the grain and stirred well to eliminate doughballs.  Let this settle for 10 min
• Cycled the RIMS at 158 F for 60 min
• Brough 5 more gal of water up to 185 for the sparge
• Slowly drained the mash tun until 4 gal had been collected.  Added water to the mash until that was done.
• Added the bittering hops during the draining
• Heated the kettle up to a boil
• Filled the mash tun back up for a second batch sparge.  Stirred the mash and then let it settle for 10 min.  Slowly drained the second batch sparge into the boil kettle - slow enough to keep the boil going.  Collected up to 8 gal
• Boiled for 60 min until I got down to about 6 gal
• Added Irish Moss with 15 min to go
• Added the worth chiller and flavoring hops with 5 min left and brought back to a boil to sanitize
• Chilled to 180 F and let the hops site for 30 min
• Chilled down to 70 F very slowly
• Transferred to the fermenter.  Let the beer fall a couple feet to aerate.  Pitched the yeast starter during this transfer

• Measured the gravity as 1.043.  Collected 5.25 gal.  This is both of34 gravity and under volume.  Decided to add half a gal of spring water which should bring it down to about 1.040.  Missed my efficiency target by 4%. The wort is bitter with some nice hop flavor

• Set the fermenter up in the basement with a blowoff tube fed into a couple jars which I'll use to capture CO2
• 11/16/20 - The fermenter is bubbling vigorously this morning
• 11/18/20 - Bubbling has stopped
• 11/27/20 - Added the dry hop in 3 muslin grain socks.  Weighted them down with stainless steel
• 11/30/20 - Moved to the chest freezer to chill down to 50 F
• 12/1/20 - My C02 storage jars seem to working okay - haven't started pulling liquid into the fermenter yet (hope that means that CO2 is being pulled in).  I'm going to drop the temperature down to 40 F to hopefully better clear the beer.
• Added gelatin this evening
• 12/3/20 - Kegged the beer today:
• First I filled the keg with starsan and then I pushed all the liquid out the tap with C02.  This is to reduce the O2 in the keg
• I put my 3 oz of keg hop into muslin bags (1 oz per bag) and tied them up with dental floss

• I then quickly opened the keg and put the hops in so they were dangling above the bottom
• I pressurized the keg to 2 psi
• I then setup a connection from the fermentation bucket output spigot to the keg out line to drain beer into the keg and a connection from the keg gas line to the fermenter via a drilled stopper and pipe to have the gas in the keg fed to the top of the fermenter (this is hop fully mostly C02 and will offer the beer a bit of protection from O2

• Drained to the keg.  I left the lid on so it was guess as to when the keg is full.  I could get some sense of the liquid level based on the temperature.  I think I ended up getting very close to the full amount in there
• Measured the gravity as 1.013.  The beer smells and tastes wonderfully hoppy.  It is a little murky but nowhere near the level of murk of a NEIPA
• Setup the keg at 12 psi.  I'll give it the weekend to settle and carb up a bit before I start drinking small amounts.  Really excited to see what additional effect the keg hops will have
• Saved the yeast in a couple jars for future re-use
• 12/20/20 - Tasting Notes - This has been a really lovely hoppy beer to drink.  The bold hop flavors were exactly what I was hoping kegging (and keg hopping) would provide.  This is a very light beer - very sessionable and easy drinking.  I think the level of bitterness is nice but it could have done with a bit more of a malt presence for balance.  When I brew this again I will maybe add a small amount of caramel malt to the mix. Additionally, I've noticed this beer drinks quite a bit better once it's warmed up from the 44 F I'm keeping the keg at - flavoring hops really come through better.  I'm going to work on increasing my serving temperature on the kegs based on this.
• 1/10/21 - Keg kicked today.  The beer retained its hoppy flavor right to the last pint.  Was delicious and I'm sad to see it gone.