APA Recipe

[bj]

Was thinking of popping my all grain cherry with an APA.
Would welcome any suggestions/ideas

The recipe so far is:

For 50L

12.5kg Maris Otter
640g 60L Crystal
640g 10L crystal
640g Aromatic
640g Munich

Single infusion mash at 68C for an hour, batch sparged at 80C

20g Warrior @ 60m
60g D Saaz @30m
60g Amarillo @15m
30g each of dsaaz & amarillo @ flameout

US56 Dry yeast


OG 1.057 IBU 40

One other question, what is the best tubing to use for hot wort transfer?

Cheers
BJ

[Soren]

Looks like a tasty brew! However, for an APA the Aromatic and Munich seems a bit out of place... Personally I would stick to the pale and crystal malt, but increase the 10L crystal to maybe 1 kg or more for extra mouthfeel. Or maybe keep the crystal ratios and add some carapils to keep the colour pale, after all it is an A "Pale" A:)

Likewise, the hops look tasty but Saaz really have no place in the style.. I would definitely make sure to get some Cascade in there, and possibly also some Willamette. Personally I would certainly dry hop it, probably with cascade.

Cheers

[Barry]

check your percentages.
similar amounts of munich and crystal seem very wrong to me, a beer can tolerate a lot of munich, not nearly as much crystal. 1280 gms, that sounds like a ton. but I'm thrown off by the 50lt batch size, I suppose most of my 23l apa's use 300+gm crystal.
I'd leave the 60L in there, remove the 10L and reduce the aromatic to 200gm personally. then use your mash temp to control fermentability (sweetness/dryness).

dsaaz is technically out of style, it'll make a really nice beer though, I'd change your malt bill before looking at the hops. if anything the hops are a little light.

but nothing in there is a showstopper, brew it, take notes and perfect it.

Cheers.

[Steve Baker]

I got my tubing from here:
http://www.hoseandcoupling.co.nz/contact_us.htm

Tell them you need something for food grade boiling liquid, they'll recommend the right vinyl tube.

I've just brewed a fairly similar ale which I'm drinking now. I think I got the aromatic about right. I which I had more hops to spare on it though:
Ingredients
-----------
Belgian aromatic malt 0.25 kg, Grain, Mashed
Crystal 90L 0.10 kg, Grain, Mashed
German Munich 0.25 kg, Grain, Mashed
Lager malt 2.00 kg, Grain, Mashed
Maris Otter Malt 3.10 kg, Grain, Mashed

Amarillo 25.00 g, Pellet, 5 minutes
Amarillo 25.00 g, Pellet, dry hopped
NZ Super Alpha 11.00 g, Pellet, 60 minutes
Nelson Sauvin 13.00 g, Pellet, 60 minutes

Ale yeast 1.00 unit, Yeast, Safale US-05

[Stu McKinlay]

Ask yourself what each ingredient is adding to the beer.

With a 68c mash of Maris Otter I see no reason for the 10L crystal.
The aromatic? Maris Otter has a great aroma, and with the crystal I'm sure this beer will be gutsy enough in the malt department.
Munich - hang on to it for an amber ale or something German.

I'd probably go with just the Maris and the Crystal 60 for a first up effort, then add other malts subsequetly if you think the beer needs it. I don't think it will. At 1.057 and a 68c mash, this is going to be a pretty sweet beer.

On that sweet note... IBU's look too low. Get them up to 50, maybe even 60. I'd also add more late hops if you have them. Double what you have there, if possible.

In the ned though, it is your beer and this could well be a pretty tasty brew. I'd just prefer less malt and more hops to make it a good strong "APA".

Good luck.

Cheers
Stu

[JoKing]

I'm with Stu. No need to compicate tings this early in your game. You cant go wrong flavour-wise if you doubled, or even trippled your flavour/aroma/dry hops.

Example: I recently did a Pale Ale that finished at 1012 and hopped it out to 65IBU. Took about a month to condition, but it is outstanding at the moment. The mash only had Gladfield Ale malt, and 6% caramunich #2. Total flavour/aroma/dry hops for 20L batch: 155g. In my opinion it could be even more hoppy!

It is good advise asking what you want the malt to do in your beer.

[bj]

Thanks for the the helpful suggestions.
Have decided to can the aromatic, but stick with the 2 crystals and munich which were based on the malt bill lfrom Jamils American Pale Ale recipe.
With regards to the hops, i will keep the Riwaka, but increase the late additions to 100g at 20min, 10min and whirlpool.
Will let yous know how it turns out.
Cheers