Review - (German) American pale ale

I am going to do a review of my first beer, the (German) American pale ale that I started a little over a month ago (pictured above).

I will review my beer as they do on the Beer Advocate website. I would like to think that I won't pull any punches with myself, but I can't guarantee that won't happen. I guess the real verdict will be when I get my friends to try it.

Here's my review.

Appearance:  Very clear (surprisingly clear for a homebrew). Rich copper color. A very nice looking beer! Off-white head with surprising retention. Good lacing, better than many American pale ales that I have had.

Aroma:  The aroma is mostly citrus. There is a hint of clove, but definitely the majority is citrus - orange and grapefruit.

Taste:  Very solid taste profile. Great balance! Hops come through strongly, but don't overwhelm. I am getting a lot of pine notes. Some citrus too, a hint of lemon and orange flavor. Not much prominent malty flavor to this beer. I am picking up what I think are some very mild caramel notes.

Mouthfeel:  Very light. It is a touch over-carbonated for my taste, but that doesn't take much away from the beer. I would prefer to have this particular beer overcarbonated than undercarbonated. The body has a good deal of substance. This beer also has a bit of a sharpness to it, a bite. It fits the style quite well.

Overall:  Extremely satisfied! I think this beer turned out great. It is very drinkable and has a nice balance of flavors. For my first homebrew, I don't think I could have asked for more.


Try brewing it yourself!
Here's the recipe again if you are interested:

Recipe Name:         (German) American Pale Ale

Recipe Volume:      5 gallons

Yeast:                     White Labs WLP001 California Ale

Malt:	Amount	Gravity Points
1. Extra pale malt extract (LME) in boil	3.3 lbs.	40
2. Extra pale malt extract (LME) at knockout	3.3 lbs.	40
3. Crystal 60 malt	0.5 lb.	3

Calculated Original Gravity            1.049
Caclulated Boil Gravity                   1.032
Measured Final Gravity                  1.017

ABV          4.5%

Hops:	Amount	Boil Time	IBUs
1. German Northern Brewer (9.6%)	0.5 oz.	60	20
2. Cascade (6%)	0.5 oz.	30	9
3. Cascade (6%)	1 oz.	15	12
4. German Northern Brewer (9.6%)	0.5 oz.	Dry hop
5. Cascade (6%)	0.5 oz.	Dry hop

Calculated IBUs          41

Procedure
- Heat 1 gallon of water to 150-160 F, add Crystal 60, and steep for 30 minutes (maintaining temperature is not vital in this stage). Remove grain bag and let drain for 30 minutes.
- Add 3 gallons of water, bring to a boil, then turn off heat and stir in 3.3 lbs. pale LME
- Return to boil and add 0.5 oz. German Northern Brewer hops
- Boil 30 minutes, and then add 0.5 oz. Cascade hops
- Boil 15 minutes, and then add 1 oz. Cascade hops
- Boil 15 minutes, then add 3.3 lbs. extract, let sit 10 minutes to pasteurize
- Add 1.5 gallons chilled sterilized water
- Chill wort to 75 F in ice water bath
- Add wort to fermenter
- Pitch yeast

Fermentation start time - date:  6pm - 4/20/13
Bubble start time:  6am - 4/21/13
Bubble slow time:  6am - 4/23/13
Transferred to secondary fermenter:  7pm 4/28/13
Bottling date:  5/15/13

Bottle count:  42 (12 oz. bottles)
Priming sugar:  3.7 oz. (2/3 cup) cane sugar (boiled in 2 cups of water)
Bottle conditioning time:  2 weeks

Homemade stir plate

 

Apparently I did decide to make that blog (or should I say this blog)! (see video)

There is a lot of info out there on how to make your own stir plate. I am very new to home brewing, but I decided to make one because it seemed like a fun project. Stir plates are used in home brewing to make yeast starters. For beers that start from high gravity worts making a starter can be helpful to ensure the fermentation goes to completion before the yeast succumb to increasing alcohol content and decreasing food levels. As I understand it, a starter serves two functions - it increases the amount of the yeast and activates it before pitching. This allows the yeast to rip through the fermentation with much more ease than if it is simply pitched directly from the vial.

Anyway, here's how I made the stir plate.

You might want to take a look at the parts list first, but I thought it fit better at the bottom of the post.


Mounting the magnet to the fan

The fan that I used must have some kind of metal component at the center because the magnet would stick to it pretty strongly. This made centering the magnet a much easier task. To center the magnet, I stuck it to the fan and put my stir bar on it. I spun the fan by attaching it to the 5 VCD power supply I ended up using (*see note below for explanation of how to do this). By spinning the fan with the magnet attached, I could get a pretty good idea of how well centered it was by the extent of vibration the fan would undergo. Also, with the stir bar stuck to the magnet, I could watch it as it spun and make sure that it didn't wobble at all (I found that this was easiest to notice as the fan slowed to a stop). Once I had the magnet pretty well centered, I marked its location with a Sharpie. Then I put some polymer resin on it and mounted it to the fan for good.

*You can strip the wires of your power supply then just push the bare wires into the contacts for the black and red wires of the fan (don't worry about the yellow wire if there is one) to get it spinning. If it doesn't spin then you probably have the positive wire (red on fan, often striped on power supply) and negative wire (black on fan, often no stripe on power supply) mismatched.


Mounting the switch and rheostat to the box

I put an on/off switch on my stir plate. This is not necessary. You can also set it up so that it turns on once you plug it in, but I had a switch lying so I figured I would put it on.

Don't worry about the wiring quite yet. I will explain that at the end.

As a side note, I think it would be an interesting social experiment to walk around with a briefcase that has a switch on it and see what kind of reactions you get.

I added the rheostat into this circuit to have control over the speed of the fan. A rheostat is a variable resistor. Since it is in series with the fan, it steals away some of the fan's power, making it spin more slowly. The amount of power that the rheostat consumes in this circuit depends on its resistance. The higher the resistance set on the rheostat, the slower the fan spins. Since this resistance is variable, we can adjust the speed of the fan by dialing the rheostat.

Mounting the fan to the box

Mounting the fan to the box was a little bit tricky. That's mainly because the box that I used is thick, and I wanted to mount the fan from the bottom so that I wouldn't have screw heads getting in the way of my flask. I wanted the flask to be able to sit on a flat surface, which meant that I needed screws that were 4 inches long. The only ones I could find were too big to fit through the holes of the fan. Luckily a guy at Home Depot had an idea for me. Instead of using screws I made my own with all thread rod, which I could cut to any length that I wanted. I used this equation to make the screws I needed:

all thread + end caps = screws

I mounted the screws at the correct spacings on the bottom of the box and secured them in place with washers and nuts on the inside. I used lock nuts to set the height of the fan (since the fan vibrates a little bit, I didn't want to use regular nuts since they might slip down over time). I secured the fan in place with some regular nuts on the top. This is all a little difficult for me to explain, but if you look at the photo below I think you will get the idea.

Wiring it all up

This step turned out to be a lot easier than I had expected. All you need to do is connect the positive wire (striped) from the power supply through the switch to the middle prong of the rheostat. Run the positive wire (red) from the fan to one of the rheostat's two side prongs. Finally connect the negaitve wire (black) from the fan directly to the negative wire (solid) from the power supply. That's all it takes. I soldered it all together to make sure I get good connections.

Check out this diagram. I think it might make things a little more clear.

By the way, I know my box has a strange hair issue (black stuff in the diagram). That doesn't bother me.

It seems to work really well! I will try to post another video when I actually use it to make a yeast starter.


Parts List

Computer fan - Free (thanks Randy! can salvage from old computer)
Hard drive magnet - Free (thanks again Randy! can salvage from old computer)
Switch - Free (salvaged)
5 VDC power adapter from cell phone - Free (salvaged)
25 ohm rheostat - $4.50 (Radioshack)
Control knob for rheostat - $3.50 (Radioshack)
Wire - Free (salvaged)
8-32 all thread - $2 (Home Depot)
8-32 end caps - $1 (Home Depot)
8-32 lock nuts - $1 (Home Depot)
8-32 nuts - $1 (Home Depot)
Washers - Free (salvaged)
Box - $7 (Goodwill)
Epoxy - Free (salvaged)

Total cost - $20

A lot of this cost was the box. I could have bought a cheaper one, but I liked the one that I found at the Goodwill. It had a lot of character (mostly due to a few bumper stickers that I took off - I will put some more on there when I find the right ones).

Brewing my first beer - American pale ale

So, I brewed my first beer a couple weeks ago (pictured above). I wanted to start with something simple so I decided to make an American Pale Ale. The recipe I used is from a book called "How to Brew" by Palmer (a great book for anyone interested in getting started in homebrewing). I followed the recipe almost to a T, except instead of using Northern Brewer hops, as the recipe calls for, I had accidentally bought German Northern Brewer hops. I guess that makes this a German-American Pale Ale - I'm a big fan of cultural diversity anyway.

Let's walk through the general steps of brewing so you understand the process a little bit. The first step in brewing is to make the "wort", which is the food that the yeast eats to make the beer. Wort is a solution consisting primarily of sugars (extracted from malted grains - usually barley, but sometimes wheat, rye, or some combination of these) and isoprenes (extracted from hops).

Malted grains - sugars

Sugars extracted from grains are metabolized by yeast to produce alcohol and carbon dioxide. However, the yeast cannot metabolize all of the sugars. Some are left behind, which contribute "malty" flavors to the beer. If you have ever noticed the taste of toast or caramel in a beer, then you know what malty means. The unmetabolized sugars that remain in the beer contribute these, in addition to many other flavors. Dark beers, like porters and stouts, have flavor profiles that are very malty.

Hops - isoprenes

Hops are boiled in the solution containing the extract sugars from the grains. As they are boiled, the release molecules called isoprenes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoprene) which contribute bitter flavors to the beer. Hops are also largely responsible for the aroma of the beer. Citrusy and spicy smells are common. There is a lot of variation in the flavor and aroma the hops can lend to the beer.

The style of beer that I was trying to make has a flavor profile that is mostly dominated by hoppiness. If you have ever had Sierra Nevada's pale ale, then you know what I was shooting for. The hops I used are on the citrusy side of the spectrum.  I tried a glass of the beer today (even though it isn't quite ready yet). It tastes really good already - almost exactly how I think an American pale ale should. The hops shine through nicely, but are not overwhelming. I am pretty pleased with the balance it has achieved. It is still a little sweet, but I am hoping that is because I am drinking it a few days premature (I really should wait until Wednesday at the earliest, but I couldn't). Anyway, I think it was a good first effort. More to come!



If you are interested, here's the recipe:

Recipe Name:         (German) American Pale Ale

Recipe Volume:      5 gallons

Yeast:                     White Labs WLP001 California Ale

Malt:	Amount	Gravity Points
1. Extra pale malt extract (LME) in boil	3.3 lbs.	40
2. Extra pale malt extract (LME) at knockout	3.3 lbs.	40
3. Crystal 60 malt	0.5 lb.	3

Calculated Original Gravity            1.049
Caclulated Boil Gravity                   1.032
Measured Final Gravity                  1.017

ABV          4.5%

Hops:	Amount	Boil Time	IBUs
1. German Northern Brewer (9.6%)	0.5 oz.	60	20
2. Cascade (6%)	0.5 oz.	30	9
3. Cascade (6%)	1 oz.	15	12
4. German Northern Brewer (9.6%)	0.5 oz.	Dry hop
5. Cascade (6%)	0.5 oz.	Dry hop

Calculated IBUs          41

Procedure
- Heat 1 gallon of water to 150-160 F, add Crystal 60, and steep for 30 minutes (maintaining temperature is not vital in this stage). Remove grain bag and let drain for 30 minutes.
- Add 3 gallons of water, bring to a boil, then turn off heat and stir in 3.3 lbs. pale LME
- Return to boil and add 0.5 oz. German Northern Brewer hops
- Boil 30 minutes, and then add 0.5 oz. Cascade hops
- Boil 15 minutes, and then add 1 oz. Cascade hops
- Boil 15 minutes, then add 3.3 lbs. extract, let sit 10 minutes to pasteurize
- Add 1.5 gallons chilled sterilized water
- Chill wort to 75 F in ice water bath
- Add wort to fermenter
- Pitch yeast

Fermentation start time - date:  6pm - 4/20/13
Bubble start time:  6am - 4/21/13
Bubble slow time:  6am - 4/23/13
Transferred to secondary fermenter:  7pm 4/28/13
Bottling date:  5/15/13

Bottle count:  42 (12 oz. bottles)
Priming sugar:  3.7 oz. (2/3 cup) cane sugar (boiled in 2 cups of water)
Bottle conditioning time:  2 weeks

The beginning

I don't know if I will keep this up or not. I generally go strong on things in the beginning then peter off shortly afterwards, but I figured I will give this a go anyway.

I like beer. A lot. I recently decided to start brewing my own beer and have dreams (possibly fantasies) of one day starting my own brewery. I intend for this blog to an outlet for my adventures in homebrewing. I may do some beer reviews on here too, but probably only if I drink one that blows me away.

That's pretty much the scoop. No bells and whistles (at least not yet). Just a place for me to talk about a budding hobby.

Before I go, let's end this first post with a tribute to the beer that made me first realize how wonderful beer can be. I don't think it is going too far to say that this beer changed my life, and I still think about it with a sense of reverence and amazement even though I haven't had it in a few years. That beer is Troegs Nugget Nectar.

Although I have only recently become a homebrewer (my first beer actually isn't even finished yet), I believe it was my first sip of Nugget Nectar that laid the foundation for the journey on which I plan to embark. I'm excited to see where it takes me.

I hope we talk again soon.



-Greg