Pale ale

[Thomas]

The recipe is "EdWort's Bee Cave Brewery Haus Pale Ale" from HBT

8 lbs. 2-Row Pale Malt
2 lbs. Vienna Malt
0.5 lb. Crystal 10L Malt
1.25 oz Cascade 5.5% at 60 min.
0.5 oz. Cascade 5.5% at 30 min.
0.25 oz. Cascade 5.5% at 15 min.
0.25 oz. Cascade 5.5% at 5 min.
Nottingham yeast

Single Infusion mash for 60 minutes at 152 degrees.
Strike water 3.5 g at 175 F
Mashout with 1.25 g at ~212 F
Batch sparge with 3.25 g at 171 F

OG 1.052

[Thomas]

I have had this on tap for the last week and am not sure what I think about it. I haven't had a beer featuring cascade hops before, but I know they are suppost to be quite floral. Unfortunately they did not come through at all, there is little nose and less taste indicating cascade was used. The two pounds of vienna however give the beer a huge bread/biscuit/weird aftertaste that I initially did not like, but am getting used to.  Is this what vienna brings to the table? I have never used it before and was not sure what it does for a beer.

[Richard]

Did the mash actually hit 152? Just that 175 seems awful high for a mash strike temperature with the other parameters as they are.

A calculator I found suggests that for 152 mash temp at that water/grain ratio, assuming your grain is at 60F you want 168F strike, perhaps a little higher to compensate for cooling loss but still...

Edit: calculator (used backwards) suggests that 175 strike would have mashed at 158... Perhaps the problem is too much residual sweetness owning the hell out of the bittering?

[Thomas]

I find my mash tun looses a lot of heat when you dump in the strike water. To compensate I go above my target strike temperature, dump it in and let it equalize for a few minutes, after opening the lid and checking the temp I'm usually down to my target temp.

[Richard]

The two pounds of vienna however give the beer a huge bread/biscuit/weird aftertaste that I initially did not like, but am getting used to.  Is this what vienna brings to the table?

Whilst looking for a Special B sub, I came across Melanoidin Malt, and Vienna supposedly has a higher-than-normal melanoidin concentration:

http://www.picobrewery.com/askarchive/melanoidin.htm

Moreover, your pale ale (assuming I'm correct in thinking it's what I tried at the last meeting) exhibited the "mystery flavour" that I had previously ascribed to generalised fail in my own beer (because it was different, not because it was necessarily bad).

One of two things comes to mind:

1. That we've both fallen victim to hot-side aeration, which supposedly involves the oxidation of melanoidins.
2. That this is just the flavour profile of a higher-than-normal concentration of melanoidins.

At this point I draw a blank, as without some kind of reference it's just speculation. We'd have to do an experiment to figure out which if either of these is the case (neutral control, same recipe with melanoidin malt, same recipe with deliberate HSA).

[Chris Craig]

Ran this with Willamette instead of Cascade, and US-05.  Turned out really good. Nice change from the Cascade version.

[brew]

I have done quite a few Ed Worts in the past 12 months and have had some batches come out wonderful, while others come out with a flavor I think you are describing. I think I have discovered (accidentally) the batches with higher mash temps tend to cause that flavor. I mash it now at like 149 or 150 and it comes out much better. Of course, I have also found using Munich instead of Vienna is nicer also (although I may just be getting tired of Vienna after using it quite a bit).

[Brian_S]

I've tried this same recipe a few times and found the same over powering biscuit flavour but by increasing the 60 min addition to 1.5oz and giving is a 7 day dry hop with .5 oz of cascade it seems to balance out nicely.  I find this particular brew benefits from a nice hop bite.

B

[Chris Craig]

I have another carboy of this dry hopping.  I'm getting ready to keg it this week.  It should be an interesting comparison.

[Jake]

I have 15 gallons of this in carboys right now ... but instead of the vienna, I subbed in one pound of munich. It tastes pretty delicious. I used .5oz of cascade @ 15 and .5oz of fuggles at flameout. I brewed my first 5 gallons of this last week and dryhopped the other day with cascade. Brewed another 10 gallons on Saturday morning to be dry hopped.

I want to dryhop the other two carboys post fermentation (2 or 3 days from now), but want to mix it up. Here are my options that I'm considering: Fuggles, amarillo, centennial, tettnanger or citra. Any suggestions?

[jeffsmith]

I think that Amarillo or Centennial would go pretty well as a dry hop for this recipe.

[chrismccull]

I'd try the citra, I have some Comet if you would like to try that also.