El Dorado Pale Ale

I just kicked a keg of hoppy brown ale so it is time to brew up a new hoppy beer.  I've very much enjoyed brewing my own hoppy beers since taking up kegging not long ago.  I'd mostly given up bottling of these beers as they lost their aroma very quickly such that dry hopping seemed to be a waste of money.  I've been finding that the keg, with extra keg hops, keeps the beer tasting bold and flavorful for the entire couple months it takes to drink.

For this beer, I'll be using a fairly new variety, El Dorado, for dry hopping.  I picked up a 1 lb bag of the 2020 crop from Hops Direct.  I've never tried it before but have heard good things.  I've been trying to dial in my processes for Dry Hopping with my last few batches.  My last American Pale Wheat had 6 oz of dry hop, 50% fermenter and 50% in keg, which produced a really wonderful hop flavor.  Hops, when purchased in bulk like this, are inexpensive enough that a bit of excess in ingredient usage isn't a big problem.  I'm curious if moving up to 8 oz of dry hopping would give me even bolder flavors.  I plan to give this a shot - will also serve as a nice introduction to the contributions from El Dorado

4 oz Dry Hop

I'm trying out a new grain bill for this beer.  I settled on a recipe by Scott Janish, a famous homebrewer and owner/brewer of Sapwood Cellars in Maryland (along with the Mad Fermentationist).  The recipe leverages a small amount (8 oz each) of Golden Naked Oats as well as Crystal 40L and CaraPils in addition to pale malt.  It seems like a nice restrained recipe to mostly give the hops center stage but then also add a bit of interest.  The recipe calls for 2 row but I'm switching in Golden Promise instead (as that's what I have on hand).  I intend to bring this beer in at around 4% ABV so I'm targeting OG of 1.045 and FG around 1.012.

I'll be using a second pitch of the Imperial Juice yeast which is supposed to be the same strain as London Ale III.  So, a strain with some ester character to add complexity.  I'm going to allow this to ferment up to 68 F.

Finally, for kettle hops I'm going to leverage Columbus and Centennial hops.  I used this same kettle hop scheme in my last American Pale Wheat.  It creates a pretty firm bitterness which I enjoyed.  This will use 4 oz flameout/hop stand hops which is pretty agressive.  These flavors will be overwhelmed by the dry hop later but I expect they'll provide some additional flavors that carry through in the background of the beer (going to have to taste a sample post fermentation/pre-dry hop to confirm this)

This is not intended to be a hazy beer but, given the agressive dry hop, it very well could end up that way (which is no skin off my nose).

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 10 lb Golden Promise
• 8 oz CaraPils
• 8 oz Crystal 40L
• 8 oz Golden Naked Oats
• 2 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 1 oz Columbus (Leaf, 14.6% AA) at 60 min
• 2 oz Columbus (Leaf, 14.6% AA) at 5 min
• 2 oz Centennial (Leaf, 10.1% AA) at 5 min
• 4 oz El Dorado (Leaf, 14% AA) Dry Hop
• 4 oz El Dorado (Leaf, 14% AA) Dry Hop
• Yeast:
• Imperial Yeast A38 Juice (2nd Pitch)
• Water:
• 10 gal Spring Water
• 5 gal tap water
• 1 tsp CaCl
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal
• Mash:
• Low 150s for 60 min
• Boil:
• 60 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 68 F
• Primary Duration:
• 3 Weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.045 (Target 1.045)
• Efficiency:
• 65% (Target 64%)
• FG:
• 1.015 (Target 1.012)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 66% (Target 73%)
• ABV:
• 3.9% (Target 4.3%)

Brewing Notes:

• 2/19/21 - Made a starter using 1 L of water and 100g of DME.  Re-pitched my yeast from a pint jar I'd been keeping in the freezer the last couple months.  The starter was bubbling by next day.
• 2/20/21 - Brewday - 10:45 AM to 3 PM- Including setup and cleanup
• Brought 10 gal up to 185 F for the sparge
• Moved 6 gal of water to the mash tun and cycled through the RIMS until it settled at 165 F
• Milled my grain.  Added CaCl and gypsum to the grain

• Stopped the RIMS and added my grain.  Stirred in to eliminate dough balls.  Let this sit for 10 min to settle
• Restarted the RIMS and cycled at 155 F.  Found the RIMS wasn't heating properly and the beer dropped down to the mid-40s.  I added a couple gal of boiling water to heat the mash.  Was able to get it back to the low 150s.
• Mashed for 60 min total
• Added 5 gal of tap water to the HLT and heated my sparge water to 185 F
• Did a fly sparge until I'd collected about 6 gal.  Started heating this after 3 had been collected and had it to a boil shortly after the end of collection.  Added the bittering hops at this point

• Added more sparge water to the mash tun, stirred, and let this sit for 10 min
• Performed the second sparge - a fly sparge.  Drained into the boil kettle slowly to prevent the boil from being stopped.  Collected until I had 8 gal
• Boiled for 60 min
• Added irish moss at 15 min
• Added Wort Chiller at 5 min to sanitize.  Also added my flavoring hops at this point.

• Chilled the beer down to 180 F very slowly and then turned the burner on low and stopped the cooling water to hold at 180 F.  Held this for 20 min for a hop stand.  It fell to 170 F in this period
• Chilled down to 70 F.  While chilling, I pulled out the hop sacks and squeezed out as much wort as I could.
• Drained into my fermenter.  Let the wort fall a couple feet to aerate

• Collected 5.5 gal of beer and measured the gravity as 1.050.  Topped up with 0.5 gal of spring water to get to the desired 1.045 and 6 gal
• Pitched the yeast - decided to just use 800 mL of my 1600 mL starter
• Moved the beer to the fermentation chamber set to 68 F.  The basement is 60 F so it may not actually get that warm.  Setup the fermenter with a couple jars to capture the fermentation CO2 and (hopefully offer some protection from oxygen if air is pulled back to the fermenter as the beer cools)
• 2/21/21 - The beer is bubbling aggressively this morning.  No blowoff which was concern with the fermenter so full.  The beer is sitting at 65 F
• 2/22/21 - Still bubbling away.  The beer is at 67 F this morning.
• 3/2/21 - It has been 10 days since brew day.  Took a sample of the beer to get a sense of hop character pre-dry hop (sample taken from the brew bucket spigot at the bottom so it is a pretty yeasty sample).  It has a fairly nice fruity aroma (some citrus maybe) along with floral and spicy character.  Some of this is likely fruit ester but a lot is likely hops.  Actually pretty bold on the aroma pre-dry hop.  The flavor is piney, floral and fruity and has a medium bitterness.  Pretty bold hop flavor as well.  Flavor and aroma aren't really as bright and bold as a dry hop would bring but the hops certainly carried through and are making a meaningful contribution  
• 3/3/21 - Added my 4 oz of dry hops today.  Bagged them (1 oz in each bag) and weighed down with stainless steel.  Had the lid open as short a time as possible. Was surprised to see the beer still has a layer of krausen on the surface - it stopped bubbling a couple days ago and has been sitting at 60 F.  Started bubbling again after adding the hops - this could be good if it's pushing out/scavenging oxygen that I let in.  I'll give the dry hops a week or so to sit.
• 3/6/21 - Cold crashed the beer down to 40 F
• 3/7/21 - Added gelatin dissolved in hot water to fine the beer
• 3/8/21 - Transferred the beer to a keg today with 4 oz of keg hop.  I first filled the keg with star san and pressure transferred out with CO2.  I then opened the keg and added the hops (bagged and weighed down) as quickly as I could.  I then purged it a few times at 2 psi.  To drain into the keg I put the "in" connection into the airlock port and hooked up the fermenter output spigot to the keg "out" connection.  This pressurized the fermenter with the 1-2 lbs of pressure from the keg and drained the beer into the keg in a way that hopefully limits the oxygen exposure.  I judged the fullness of the keg by weight (empty keg is 10 lbs and full keg is 51 lbs).  Measured the gravity of the beer as 1.015.  It has a really nice prominent citrus/orange aroma and flavor after the first half of the dry hop.  Very nice!  I'm excited for this keg to be ready - I'll give it a week before my first tasting

• 3/27/21 - Tasting notes:
• This beer was initially very hoppy but I found that, at my default keg temp (45 F to 50 F) the beer was starting to taste more bitter than it had initially and the hop character was faded considerably.  The beer was better once it warmed - so I raised the temperature to 50-55 F prior to my tasting.  This helped a lot
• I really enjoy the flavors in this beer - nice bold and pleasing fruit character.  Has a good level of complexity as well.  The balance is all toward the hop but the hop flavor and bitterness sort of provide a balance in and of themselves.  It is amazing to me how much a difference it makes serving this beer in the low to mid 50s.  With this beer on tap it is hard to get myself to drink anything else
• 4/1/21 - Keg kicked today.  Went too quickly.