Dave's Pale Ale

Here is pale ale recipe that I just came up with today. Kinda attempting to do a Dale’s clone but apparently NB is out of Centennial and I don’t know how long it will be until they come in. Anyways, without further a-do, here is the recipe:

Fermentables:
3lbs - Extra Light DME
3lbs - Light DME
1lb - Weyerman Caramunich 1
1lb - Briess Caramel 20L
1lb - Bairds Light Carastan Malt

Hops:
1oz - German Magnum - 60 min
1oz - Cascade - 30 min
1oz - Glacier - 15 min
1oz - Amarillo - 0 min

Yeast:
1pkt - Safale S-33

Miscellaneous:
1tbsp - Irish Moss - added during last 15 min of boil

Readings:
OG - ~1.068
IBU’s - ~59.0
ABV - ~6.7%
SRM - ~12

So that’s the recipe. I realize that Amarillo is not a perfect substitute for the Centennial but I figure that will add my own spin to the brew. This one is a bit of a different direction than the previous 2 I have brewed. They were both sweeter brews. As this is my first pale, just wanted to post it and see what people thought. I’m always one for learning more about home brewing! :cheers:

Way too much crystal malts. You’re over 33% when you factor what’s in the DME!!! Cut it down to 10-15% max. Depends how much body/sweetness you like in your beer. Either way 33%+ is too much…

Hm. Valid point. I just changed some of the formulation and it comes around to 60 IBU’s. What do you mean by there being too much malts? I am not trying to do an IPA, just a pale ale. So I figured having the IBU’s around 60 or so would be good. I am going to check what else I have though and calculate based on those. I know I have medium crystal, belgian caramunich, or 2 row crystal that would work. may try any that might work?

So I just recalculated:

The steeping malts will now be
1lb - Medium Crystal
8oz - Belgian Caramunich

Does this make a bit more sense for this recipe?

IBU’s should be 64.4

i just changed my hop schedule a bit too. I am now going to be doing a dry hopping for 14 days of .5oz of the cascade, glacier, and amarillo. So instead of those hops being the full 1oz during the boils, they will be decreased to .5oz and the other halves added to the brew for dry hopping.

I didn’t say too much malt, just too much crystal malts. Crystal malts are unfermentable and add body, color and sweetness. Too much and your beer will have a cloying sweetness and have too much mouthfeel. Almost ‘chewy’. If you cut back to 1.5# be sure to add a lb or so of DME to keep the gravity up. Keep in mind that DME is 10-15% cara-pils. It doesn’t add color or flavor but it’s unfermentable as well.

So should I have 3 steeping malts then? I am trying to get a better understanding of what you are saying. Am I still using crystal malts with what I have with the 2 row and caramunich? What would you suggest to do?

I think I understand what you are saying a bit and thinking of the caramunich and crystal at 8oz each and doing an 8oz addition of Briess Victory. This adds a toasted malt so kinda take care of all the crystal/caramel malt then. Or maybe doing 1lb of the victory. Does that make sense or am I still missing something?

Just going to add 8oz of Briess Victory Malt. That should even things out a bit.

Switch the yeast to US-05 for an APA. And I would reduce your crystal malts to no more than one lb total.

Try this for your first batch and adjust next time if needed. Even with 1 lb of crystal malts (Caramunich, C20L or Carastan) you still have 12.5% unfermentables right there. The 7lbs of DME has a minimum of 3/4lbs of cara-pils. Thats 21% unfermentables. Still kinda high but pales ales should have some body to them. Like I said, give it a shot and adjust next time.:

Grain Bill:
3.5lbs - Extra Light DME
3.5lbs - Light DME
1lb - Weyerman Caramunich 1 or 1lb - Briess Caramel 20L or 1lb - Bairds Light Carastan Malt

Simple is better for making recipes from scratch. I just started last year and while I’ve made some good beers with a bunch of ingredients it gets tough to tell what I like about them. With a simple recipe you will know what you want to add/subtract for the next time around. I like the recipe above with one pound of any one crystal malt and then adding the US-05. Leave out the victory this time and add it next time if you want.

[quote=“Poobah58”]Try this for your first batch and adjust next time if needed. Even with 1 lb of crystal malts (Caramunich, C20L or Carastan) you still have 12.5% unfermentables right there. The 7lbs of DME has a minimum of 3/4lbs of cara-pils. Thats 21% unfermentables. Still kinda high but pales ales should have some body to them. Like I said, give it a shot and adjust next time.:

Grain Bill:
3.5lbs - Extra Light DME
3.5lbs - Light DME
1lb - Weyerman Caramunich 1 or 1lb - Briess Caramel 20L or 1lb - Bairds Light Carastan Malt[/quote]

I am trying to conserve on what I have to buy and still have 1lb of Medium Crystal and 8oz of Belgian Caramunich. Would it be best to do 1lb Crystal or 8oz Belgian and 8oz Crystal?

Thanks for the advice. I like the US-05 so far.

Yeah I understand what you are saying. I just started this a few months ago. This will be only my third recipe.

[quote=“David_R”][quote=“Poobah58”]Try this for your first batch and adjust next time if needed. Even with 1 lb of crystal malts (Caramunich, C20L or Carastan) you still have 12.5% unfermentables right there. The 7lbs of DME has a minimum of 3/4lbs of cara-pils. Thats 21% unfermentables. Still kinda high but pales ales should have some body to them. Like I said, give it a shot and adjust next time.:

Grain Bill:
3.5lbs - Extra Light DME
3.5lbs - Light DME
1lb - Weyerman Caramunich 1 or 1lb - Briess Caramel 20L or 1lb - Bairds Light Carastan Malt[/quote]

I am trying to conserve on what I have to buy and still have 1lb of Medium Crystal and 8oz of Belgian Caramunich. Would it be best to do 1lb Crystal or 8oz Belgian and 8oz Crystal?[/quote]
Doesn’t matter. Use any combo to get the color you want…

[quote=“Poobah58”][quote=“David_R”][quote=“Poobah58”]Try this for your first batch and adjust next time if needed. Even with 1 lb of crystal malts (Caramunich, C20L or Carastan) you still have 12.5% unfermentables right there. The 7lbs of DME has a minimum of 3/4lbs of cara-pils. Thats 21% unfermentables. Still kinda high but pales ales should have some body to them. Like I said, give it a shot and adjust next time.:

Grain Bill:
3.5lbs - Extra Light DME
3.5lbs - Light DME
1lb - Weyerman Caramunich 1 or 1lb - Briess Caramel 20L or 1lb - Bairds Light Carastan Malt[/quote]

I am trying to conserve on what I have to buy and still have 1lb of Medium Crystal and 8oz of Belgian Caramunich. Would it be best to do 1lb Crystal or 8oz Belgian and 8oz Crystal?[/quote]
Doesn’t matter. Use any combo to get the color you want…[/quote]

Awesome. With the combo of the 8ozs it comes to an SRM of 9. I really like that. It will really look like a pale ale. Thank you very much for the advice! Like I said before, I am always looking to learn so I am grateful for feedback on recipes.

Crap, I just realized you’re a Red Sox fan. Why don’t you throw a little crow in there…LOL

Haha. I take it you root for the Yanks then?

Haha. I take it you root for the Yanks then?[/quote]

:smiley: