I didn’t name it, but I did like this one the last time Brad & I made this, and I wasn’t the only one. Here’s hoping we can come close to the crowd pleaser from last time. This is a hoppy, strong, flavorful beer that I’m looking forward to putting on the keg. Lots of steeping grains, make sure you’ve got a big bag to accommodate the volume.
Recipe for 5 gallons
Grain Bill:
3 lbs British Pale
1lb British Munich
1lb American Crystal 20L
1lb Flaked Rye
2oz Flaked Wheat
Sugars
4lbs Light Dry Malt Extract
3.3lbs Amber Liquid Malt Extract
6oz Honey
8oz Malt Dextrine
Hops
2oz Columbus 14.2% @ 60 min
1oz Target 10% @ 45 min
1oz Tettnanger x% @ 0 min
Yeast
WLP001 – California Ale
Method
Mill all grains EXCEPT the flaked Rye and Wheat. Place all grains together in 2 gallons of 160 F deg water for 30 min, then rinse with warm water. Add as much additional water as pot allows, dissolve Malt Dextrine, DLME, and AME in the water, add Columbus hops, and bring to a boil. Add honey at the 30 minute mark, and follow the hop schedule. Cool and pitch yeast at 70 degrees.
Substitutions
I just used the pre-set 7lb bucket of liquid amber malt extract available at my local shop for the barley sugars, and prices for the domestic versions of each of those specialty grains are lower, so I subbed out ‘Merican- grown grains, mostly the same style, or as close as sounded right at the time. I guess I could have kept track better, but it was pretty close. I had to use Zeus hops at 16.4% instead of the unavailable Columbus. I used the whole 2oz bag, but some of it looked pretty brown/ stale, so maybe it evened out. I also had to replace the Target hops, which were not in the freezer at the store. I don’t remember what I used, and the receipt cut off the description, but there’s a half bag of Willamette in our freezer that looks new, so I’ll go with that. Whatever the chart said at the store to sub out – Look dude, it was Saturday and I hadn’t really had my morning coffee yet, and I didn’t think about paying attention on Sunday. Anyway, that was most of it – I didn’t test OG, but the recipe says it should be about 1.078, finishing around 1.018. My beers have been finishing pretty heavy lately – I think it’s mostly the lack of temperature control (among other non- healthy yeast practices) – but I hope this gets close to the stated FG, it’s really not all that low. If I’m good, I’ll rack to a secondary and dry-hop with the half bag of Willamette in a week. We’ll see.
