Anyone have a recipe for a really nice APA

[Richard Maclaurin]

Hi All, I am wanting to make an APA along the lines of the Panhead Supercharger. Other beers I really enjoy are Parrot Dog's Bitter Bitch, and Mike's Full Nelson… so, a full flavored beer with heavy bitterness would be an approximation of a flavour profile I'm looking for. I have several batches of Epic's Pale Ale under my belt, so I want to try something different.  Any ideas?

Cheers.

[Crusader-Rob]

All I know about Supercharger is the hops are Centennial, Simcoe and Citra. Bittered with Centennial I think?

[Richard Maclaurin]

Thanks for that. You had a link to an APA that used Simcoe and Mosaic, and I was going that give that a go, but those two hops seem impossible to get.  Really keen to do a brew this weekend, but struggling to find a recipe (yes, I know, there are thousands all over the web, but I have no idea if I would like them)  Any ideas?

[Cain Harland]

Baylands have both Simcoe and Mosaic both great hops and should be a great combo

http://baylandsbrewery.co.nz/store/imported-hops

[Crusader-Rob]

Oh yeah, Thats a great recipe. If you wanted to run with that one. grab some stuff from baylands.
finney has some mosaic I think, no simcoe though...

the recipe was "Mountain Warrior APA
1.054 OG - FG1.014, mashed at 66
400g Carahell
1.9kg Maris Otter
3.3kg Gladfield Pale
80g Acidulated 

15g Simcoe @60
15g Simcoe @30
30g Mosaic @10
35g Simcoe @0

Dry: 55g Simcoe/5g Mosaic
Used US-05. x1 pack

[Richard Maclaurin]

Cheers!  Will be firing up the brew this Saturday, so fingers crossed.  I see that the yeast is pitched @ 17deg C, lifting it to 18deg C after 24hrs.  In this weather how do you keep the fermenter at a cool 18deg?

[Crusader-Rob]

Hahaha, depends on the temp on the day really.
When 
I first brewed it the weather was a bit cooler, so it wasn't so difficult.
I have a temp controlled fridge for my fermentation, so I can keep it relatively stable. If you don't havethat keep it as close to 18-19 as you can. then let it free rise a couple of degrees after 4days or so.
Because have a fridge, I add the dtyhops 5-6 days before bottling/kegging, and after 3-4 days I cold crash to about 1.5 degrees, to help some of this stuff drop out. and clear the beer up a bit.

[Richard Maclaurin]

Sorry to be a pain, but how do you control your fridge temp? I have a heat pad and thermostat but I absolutely no faith in it.  My wife suggested we buy a beer fridge (don't know what I did to deserve that excellent scheme - possibly her desire to get her fridge back, especially when I cold crash!) but I don't think you can make a fridge work with the range of temps needed.  What was your solution?

[Peter Church]

An stc1000 is the method of choice for controlling a fermentation  fridge. Temp control is the single most important thing for getting quality results (after sanitation) should be plenty on trademe, my stepup is a vertical freezer with a 70l conical inside. Works well

[Richard Maclaurin]

Thanks Peter.  How does this connect to your freezer? (can you use a fridge which can then double as a beer fridge when I don't have a brew?)

[Cain Harland]

stc-1000s are awesome, except for the horrible interface but you change the target temps so infrequently that it hardly matters. It can be used to control a heat and cold source to stay within a set tolerance of a target temperature. eg I currently have mine set at 17c and 1c tolerance so if it gets to 16c heat goes on and if it gets to 18c cold till it hits 17c again.

Some folks make nice boxes for them or set them into the door of the fridge but for mine I just cut 2 extension chords using the plug from one and sockets from both, all with about 6 inches of chord just dangling off the thing, its pretty strait forward to wire up.

The plug provides power to the whole thing. The sockets are for hot (marked with red cable tie) and cold (marked with blue cable tie), in my case low watt heater (in the fridge) and fridge. It also has a thermal probe on a long cable, I sit mine under my fermenter (in a thermowell is better but I'm not cutting a hole in my fermenter to add one). You just set the temp and tolerance and the stc-1000 will turn on the heat or cold to keep it in range.

I was a bit pissed off after paying $75 for on at brewhouse to find you can buy one on aliexpress for < $20.

So in answer to your questing yes a fridge is fine and yes you can use it as a beer fridge just set the stc-1000 to storage temp rather than fermentation or pull the fridge plug out of the stc-1000 cold socket and plug it back in to the wall.

[Peter Church]

Check out the wiring on youtube, you can use it all the time as a normal fridge or freezer when not fermenting, either plug fridge directly into wall or set the temp on the stc to lower than the thermostat on the fridge.

Stc controls power to the appliance, if temp is outside of the desired band it powers up the appropriate circuit. If you get one Make sure it is the 10 amp 2 relay one though otherwise it is a manual switch between heating or cooling

Also dont set you band too narrow or it will cycle between heating and cooling all the time.

[Druid]

To get a better measure of the wort temp *and* to avoid the fridge cycling too often, tape a 4"x4" piece of foam to the side of your fermenter then slide the temp probe between it and the wall of your fermenter.

Because it is then measuring the temp of your wort directly from the wall of your fermenter, you won't see the rapid changes in temp like you would when it was measuring the air around the fermenter - and that means the controller will no longer be turning the fridge/heat pad on or off rapidly.