Skip to main content

Christopher's (Manny's) Pale Ale v3.0

My first attempt at cloning Georgetown Brewing's Manny's Pale Ale was a dismal failure. It was a drinkable beer, but not pale in color and nothing like a pale ale in flavor. The second version was more like a pale ale in flavor, but still a touch dark in its color. The family member who loves the real beer says this version is too "malty" (which I'm interpreting as the beer having too much Caramel malt or too dark of a Caramel malt). In this version, I'm switching from Caramel 60L to Caramel 40L and decreasing the proportion of the Caramel malt in the recipe.

Ingredients

2 pounds 2-row Pale Ale Malt
2 pounds 13 ounces 2-row Brewer's Malt
5 ounces Crystal 40L Malt
0.25 ounces of Summit hops pellets @ 17.5% AA (30 min.)
0.35 ounces of Cascade hops pellets @ 6.9% AA (20 min.)
0.45 ounces of Cascade hops pellets @ 6.9% AA (10 min.)
0.45 ounces of Cascade hops pellets @ 6.9% AA (5 min.)
1/4 tsp. Yeast Nutrient
1/2 tsp. Irish Moss
1 packet Wyeast 1275 Thames Valley Ale Yeast

Mash Schedule:

  • Dough In at 102F for 20 minutes
  • Mash Step 1 at 152F for 30 minutes
  • Mash Step 2 at 154F for 60 minutes
  • Mash Out at 175F for 10 minutes
Boil Schedule: 
  • 30 minutes: Summit hops pellets
  • 20 minutes: Cascade hops pellets
  • 10 minutes: Cascade hops pellets, Irish Moss, and Yeast Nutrient
  • 5 minutes: Cascade hops pellets

Recipe Notes:

  • The PicoBrew recipe editor misunderstood the 30-minute hop addition as indicating that I wanted only a 30-minute boil. I didn't catch this until the Zymatic began flooding the Summit compartment. (I see this as a bug, but it's been part of the Zymatic design and has never been fixed as near as I can tell. You have to remember to specify a 30-minute pre-hop boil if you do a 30-minute addition and no 60-minute addition.)
  • I didn't have as much Pale Ale malt as I thought, so I substituted 2-row Brewer's Malt to fill in the missing amount. I've no idea how this will impact the finished flavor.
  • My packet of yeast was almost six months old at the time I pitched it, so I'm concerned that it may not have enough viable cells to ferment the beer. If not, I'll pitch some Safale US-05 to do the job. Hopefully it will be close enough if I need to use it.
The PicoBrew recipe crafter estimates that the beer will have the following characteristics:
  • Original Gravity: 1.056 SG (actual was 1.055 SG)
  • Final Gravity: 1.015 SG
  • IBUs: 39
  • SRM: 6
  • ABV: 5.3%
  • Starting Water: 3 gallons, 16 ounces
  • Batch Size: 2.5 gallons (actual was about 2 gallons)
Post-Brew Notes

07/04/2018: The brew went fairly smoothly, although I did notice the temperature differential between the wort and the heat loop getting above 30F apart. That's fairly close to the 50F limit where the machine will shut down. I suspect that there may still be a blockage in the system that hasn't fully cleared yet. The volume produced and the gravity were lower than expected, either because of the initial issues with the mash temperature or the swapping of 2-row Brewer's Malt for 2-row Pale Ale Malt. Regardless, the resulting beer was close enough to the expected gravity. At the time the Tilt began logging (12:44am on July 5) it registered a temperature of 77F and gravity of 1.055 SG.

07/05/2018: There is no sign of yeast activity, so I pitched a packet of WLP001 California Ale Yeast into the fermenter to see if it would jump-start fermentation.

07/06/2018: The WLP001 also showed no activity after 12 hours, so I pitched a packet of Safale US-05 which I knew would take off. The gravity registered as high as 1.060 SG overnight but is down to 1.050 this morning.

07/07/2018: Gravity is down to 1.024 and the temperature is up to 74F. That's 55.9% attenuation and 4.3% ABV.

07/08/2018: Gravity has dropped to 1.010 SG and temperature down to 69F.

07/09/2018: Gravity has stabilized at 1.010 SG and the temperature has dropped to 68F.

07/10/2018: Gravity is still 1.010 SG and temperature remains at 68F. That's three days at the same gravity, so the beer can be bottled any time now. Since the original Manny's Pale Ale isn't clear, I'm thinking I may bottle this tonight or tomorrow night.

07/11/2018: Gravity has continued to hold at 1.010 SG.

07/12/2018: Gravity is reading as 1.009 SG today and 68F for the temperature.

07/15/2018: The beer was bottled today with three small carbonation tablets per bottle. Yield was 24 bottles.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Note that comments to this blog are moderated in order to minimize spam comments and things that might be offensive to readers.

Popular posts from this blog

Grainfather Specifications for BeerSmith, Beer Tools Pro, and Other Software

Recently, I've been trying to "dial in" settings in BeerSmith and Beer Tools Pro so that I can do a better job getting my actual brewing results to match up to the figures in the software. Below are some of the figures I've worked out with my US Grainfather. Given manufacturing variances and possible measuring errors on my part, these might not match exactly to yours, but hopefully they're close enough that it will help you. BeerSmith Equipment Profile: Brewhouse Efficiency: 83% (based on my experience, yours may vary) Mash Tun Volume: 8 gallons Mash Tun Weight: 8.82 pounds Mash Tun Specific Heat: 0.12 Cal/gram-deg C Mash Tun Addition: 0 gallons Lauter Tun Losses: 0 gallons Top Up Water for Kettle: 0 gallons Boil Volume: 6.25 gallons Boil Time: 60 minutes Boil Off: 0.40 gallons per hour Cooling Shrinkage: 6% Loss to Trub and Chiller: 0.53 gallons Batch Volume: 5 gallons Fermenter Loss: 0.40 gallons (yours may vary) Whirlpool time: 0 minutes B
1 comment
Read more

Yellow Label Angel Yeast vs. Typical Brewing Yeast

I currently have my second batch of rice wine fermenting with the "magical" yellow-label Angel Yeast from China, and wanted to share some of the more unusual aspects of using it.  If you've never seen or used this yeast, I suspect you're not alone.  It ships in a 500 gram package that looks like this: What makes it "yellow label" is that yellow box you see in the upper left corner of the package.  This implies that it's yeast for distilling (though you do not need to have a still or distill the output to use it).  As I understand it, inside the package is a mix of yeast and other materials which will convert starch into sugar and directly ferment it, without the need for a traditional mash step.  This can radically shorten your brewing time.  For my most-recent batch of rice wine, I heated 3 gallons of water to 155F, poured it over 13+ pounds of uncooked rice straight out of the bag, let that soak for an hour, rehydrated some of this yeast in warm water,
Post a Comment
Read more

Things I've Learned Brewing with The Grainfather, Part 2

In the last post, I shared an overview of The Grainfather, recommended equipment to use with it, and an overview of the brewing process.  In this installment, I'm going to talk specifically about mashing and sparging. Having brewed over a dozen batches with it, I'm finally becoming very comfortable with the device, the mash process, and how to get what I want out of it. I don't consider myself a "master" of it yet, though. For those who have never done all-grain brewing, I want to provide a quick overview of the mash process itself. Mashing - With or Without The Grainfather The goal of mashing is to turn the starches in the grain into sugars. More specifically, you want to turn the starches into a mix of fermentable and unfermentable sugars that provide the flavor profile associated with the beer you are brewing. A sweeter beer might warrant more unfermentable sugars. A more dry beer will demand few unfermentable sugars. To a great extent, controlling the
2 comments
Read more