Hoppy Session beers???

[David R]

Last weekend while on holiday in Wellington I was reading a Beer Advocate magazine at Hashigo Zake and stumbled across an article I found very interesting, called "With a Little Help from My Friends, British and American Craft Brewers Find Common Ground" and described as "Hoppy UK Session Beers" on the cover. I love the super-hoppy 8%+ double-IPAs as much as anyone, but I also love the "drinkability" of the mild English bitters (Galbraiths Bob Hudson is a favourite), so when the article spoke of brewers taking the best bits of both and creating something that still has the good strong hop flavours of an American IPA but in balance with ~4% ABV to create a session beer for hop-heads that isn't going to get you trollied after a couple of bottles, I thought 'I've gotta have a crack at making one!'.

So while I feel I'm starting to get the hang of this brewing thing, I still have a long way to go before being knowledgeable enough to develop a recipe from scratch. The last brew I did was an extract + partial mash based on the recipe for Yeastie Boys Digital IPA and after tasting it yesterday while bottling I've got a sneaky suspicion it's going to be my best one yet by a long shot, love the fruity aromas of the NZ hops! What I'm thinking of doing is make a scaled-down version of that recipe with the ABV reduced from 7% to 4.5% with the hops scaled back accordingly but really need some ideas/suggestion about the malt and grains. I'm also thinking that spreading the hop additions out rather than just at 60, 10 and 1min would be a good idea for this beer.

And if anyone has a recipe for a hoppy ale under 5% I'd love to see it!

Cheers,

David

ps here's the Digital IPA recipe I used; http://hopville.com/recipe/1690237

[Grant R Baker]

Have a lookc at these style sheets.

Bitterness    Colour    Gravity

8a is the English Bitter.

There is no replacement for personal taste tho.

I like a standard bitter to be about 13-18 in SRM colour and have about 35+ IBUs.. but the mix of hops makes all the difference.

An ESB just has a little more of these.. although the colour of stays about the same.

[David R]

So here's a couple of basic recipes I've come up with, an English-y one based loosely on the Bob Hundsons Bitter recipe I found in the Recipe advice thread, and an American one using similar hops to the last IPA I brewed which is smelling pretty tasty (and testing my patience, only another 12 days until I can crack the first bottle!). I still haven't made the leap to all-grain, although it just struck me that with a 12L batch I could do a BIAB type thing with all my current gear.....

English: http://hopville.com/recipe/1690707

12L batch, OG 1.045, FG 1.012, 14 EBC, 30.6IBU, 4.4% ABV.

1.7kg Muntons Light Liquid Extract

.2kg Pale Crystal (steeped)

.1kg Caramalt (steeped)

6g EKG and 6g Styrian Goldings @60min

6g EKG @45min

6g EKG @30min

6g Styrian Goldings @15min

10g EKG and 10g SG @1min

S-04 yeast (?)

I'm not too clued up on using English hops, so not sure if it would benefit from dry hopping or if the larger 1min additions will impart enough flavour.

US: http://hopville.com/recipe/1690712

12L Batch, OG 1.045, FG 1.012, 13 EBC, 33.1 IBU, 4.4% ABV.

1.5kg Briess Golden Light LME

.2kg LDME

.25kg pale crystal (steeped)

8g Chinook @60min

10g Centennial @10min

30g Centennial and 15g Chinook @1min

40g Centennial and 20g Chinook dry hopped

US-05

Worth a shot? Suggestions?

[David R]

Just tweaked the malts to drop both back to 4.1% ABV, and to make the US one a little darker in colour, too late to edit the above post now.

[Grant R Baker]

I like the look of the US-05 one. A selection of hops worth a try too. I also like the hops on the English one but think it needs a touch more caramalt or colour/malt.

Either way I think you have a good enough base recipe to brew a small test brew and see how they go.

[David R]

Dropped the LME back to 1.5kg and bumped the grains up to 250g each, do you think it would be worth while doing a mini-mash with them and reducing the LME further to keep the alcohol the same?

Though if I'm going to do that I'm kinda thinking I should have a crack at doing a mini-BIAB all-grain brew...

http://hopville.com/recipe/1690707

[Grant R Baker]

simple answer "yep, get on with it.".

It sounds like yer well on the way to all grain and BIAB and mini-BIAB (what I use for 4.5l Test brews) is the easiest way to get into it. Nothing wrong with extract brews either.

I use a two 8L pots (one for strike/mash the other for batch sparge) and BIAB bag and 5l carboys to test my recipes both a brew a bigger version. The results are close to what the final 30l brews come out as (sometimes better)..

[David R]

"I use a two 8L pots (one for strike/mash the other for batch sparge) and BIAB bag and 5l carboys to test my recipes".

So rather than doing a typical BIAB full volume mash, you mash with a smaller volume then batch-sparge to bring it up to the boil volume?

[Grant R Baker]

Yeah.. I kinda try to simulate how I would brew it full size - all grain.. the BIAB just replaces the mashtun.

Normal strike water volume and at strike temp go into the first.. then the bag is drained (after 90mins or so) and goes into the batch sparge pot (which is preheated to the batch sparge temp & volume).

I use BrewMate to build a 30l recipe then just reduce the volume size and it calculate everything for me.

The only extra bit of gear I have for this is a small copper immersion cooler for the smaller test brews, I use a bigger one for the full size brew, and four 5l Amber Demijohns.

 

It takes a lot less time to complete a test brew since 3-6 litres of water take very little time on the stove to bring to the temp.. and to can try a lot of different recipes & variations before going larger size. When I get going I might do two in a single evenings (nothing on tv anyway).

[David R]

An immersion chiller is high on my list of must-haves, I just need to source some copper pipe. Luckily I have a contact for cheap damaged bags of party ice, so crash cooling a small batch is easy enough for now.

Wife is off to Auckland tomorrow so I've hastily converted the two recipes to AG and sent the list to Brewers Coop so she can pick up the goods tomorrow. Guess I'm doing my first AG brews this weekend, any hints or tips would be much appreciated!

Here are the final recipes;

English Ale: http://hopville.com/recipe/1690952

Lightweight IPA: http://hopville.com/recipe/1691117

[Kerry Gray]

[e-mail] for copper pipe mate.
He lists on trademe but not always.
From memory its $65 delivered - a lot cheaper than trade suppliers.
His name is Brian, flick him a email.

[paul m]

give yourself plenty of time

[Grant R Baker]

hmm , two things jump to mind

1) Watch your mash temps. Too low and your mash will not produce all the sugars required, too high and you can kill the emzimes that perform the conversion and also extract tannin from the grain husk.

Pick you temp you want to go for and don't try anything complicated first few times (like two or three step mashing etc).

2) Evaporation rate of your gear. When you get your boil going... how much water are you going to lose?

My 8l small pots ended up evaporating at about 15% per hour... my 56l brew kettle at 13% per hour (all comes down to surface area vs total volume vs how vigorous you boil is)... and only trial and error will help you get accurate here (Hell I find windy days lower my evaporation, probably cos the wind is trying to blow my gas flames out).

A refracto-meter is a great tool here.. basically tells you what your worts gravity is at before, during and after the boil (not so good for post-fermentation readings, you can google that). Again.. not needed the first few times, but once you start to get fussy....

Good luck.