Coastalbrew
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Disclaimer: Long post
Several years ago I made an extract kit from my LHBS that came out really good. They called it a "Medium Irish Ale". It was a mildly hopped light Irish Red Ale about 25 IBU and 7-8 SRM. The original recipe called for 6.6 lbs golden light LME, 1 # golden light DME, .5# Honey Malt, .25# Carapils, and .25# Biscuit with 1 oz EKG @ 60, 1oz EKG @ 20, and 1 oz EKG @ flame out , WLP004 Irish Ale yeast.
I made the move to all grain this past fall and wanted to try to recreate this recipe since I enjoyed it so much back in the day. This is where the train may have gone off the rails: I converted the recipe to all grain as a 5.5 G batch, which is the original batch size, then I scaled it down to a 3.25 G batch using the percentages of grains from the larger batch. I also remembered from the original batches of this beer that I had wanted a little more hop presence, both in the bitterness and in the aroma and flavor so I decided to alter the hop schedule a bit. The new recipe looked like this:
3.25 G batch
70% efficiency
OG - 1.064
FG - 1.018
SRM - 7.9
IBU - 35 ish (don't have the printout in front of me right now)
3.625 # Marris Otter
3.625 # 2 Row
.5 # Honey malt
.25 # Carapils
.25 # Biscuit
1 oz EKG @60
.7 oz EKG @20
1.3 oz EKG @ Flame out
1pk WLP004 Irish Ale Yeast pitched yeast @ 67 and fermented at 65 -67 for 3 days then ramped up to 70 for the next 4 days.
This was my first small batch brew and it ironically took almost an hour to cool down because my chiller was mostly out of the wort. I have since fixed this problem. Fermentation was slow but steady, but there has been continual air lock activity even last night it was releasing a bubble or two every 5 minutes or so. This has me a little puzzled so I checked the gravity this morning on day 8 since pitching and it was at 1.016. I of course tasted the hydrometer sample and it did not taste anything like the original beer. The best way I can describe it is that it tastes strongly of dirt. Very earthy flavor and aroma like the garden when you turn the soil, but not what I would call barnyard. I had my wife taste it for her feedback, she said "It tastes like Budweiser." It does have that sort of metallicy twang right at the finish that I get from Bud, but to me before that hits it just tastes like dirt. The beer has a very light body, and nice light copper color. It is still very hazy, but that is to be expected only 8 days in. On opening the fermenter there are no obvious signs of infection, no floaters (other than the odd hop particle). There were some bubbles at the surface, but like I said it seems to still be slowly fermenting. I re-sanitized the lid and air lock and re sealed the fermenter after taking the gravity reading, and plan to leave it at 70* for another week or so to see what happens.
In the meantime I'm wondering if the earthyness I'm experiencing could be my use of the EKG? I've heard that they can be very earthy hops, and I did use a fair bit of them in this smaller batch. Can I possibly dry hop with something like Cascade and maybe save this batch? Open to any thoughts you all may have regarding my recipe and how I may bring this one back. Thanks!
Several years ago I made an extract kit from my LHBS that came out really good. They called it a "Medium Irish Ale". It was a mildly hopped light Irish Red Ale about 25 IBU and 7-8 SRM. The original recipe called for 6.6 lbs golden light LME, 1 # golden light DME, .5# Honey Malt, .25# Carapils, and .25# Biscuit with 1 oz EKG @ 60, 1oz EKG @ 20, and 1 oz EKG @ flame out , WLP004 Irish Ale yeast.
I made the move to all grain this past fall and wanted to try to recreate this recipe since I enjoyed it so much back in the day. This is where the train may have gone off the rails: I converted the recipe to all grain as a 5.5 G batch, which is the original batch size, then I scaled it down to a 3.25 G batch using the percentages of grains from the larger batch. I also remembered from the original batches of this beer that I had wanted a little more hop presence, both in the bitterness and in the aroma and flavor so I decided to alter the hop schedule a bit. The new recipe looked like this:
3.25 G batch
70% efficiency
OG - 1.064
FG - 1.018
SRM - 7.9
IBU - 35 ish (don't have the printout in front of me right now)
3.625 # Marris Otter
3.625 # 2 Row
.5 # Honey malt
.25 # Carapils
.25 # Biscuit
1 oz EKG @60
.7 oz EKG @20
1.3 oz EKG @ Flame out
1pk WLP004 Irish Ale Yeast pitched yeast @ 67 and fermented at 65 -67 for 3 days then ramped up to 70 for the next 4 days.
This was my first small batch brew and it ironically took almost an hour to cool down because my chiller was mostly out of the wort. I have since fixed this problem. Fermentation was slow but steady, but there has been continual air lock activity even last night it was releasing a bubble or two every 5 minutes or so. This has me a little puzzled so I checked the gravity this morning on day 8 since pitching and it was at 1.016. I of course tasted the hydrometer sample and it did not taste anything like the original beer. The best way I can describe it is that it tastes strongly of dirt. Very earthy flavor and aroma like the garden when you turn the soil, but not what I would call barnyard. I had my wife taste it for her feedback, she said "It tastes like Budweiser." It does have that sort of metallicy twang right at the finish that I get from Bud, but to me before that hits it just tastes like dirt. The beer has a very light body, and nice light copper color. It is still very hazy, but that is to be expected only 8 days in. On opening the fermenter there are no obvious signs of infection, no floaters (other than the odd hop particle). There were some bubbles at the surface, but like I said it seems to still be slowly fermenting. I re-sanitized the lid and air lock and re sealed the fermenter after taking the gravity reading, and plan to leave it at 70* for another week or so to see what happens.
In the meantime I'm wondering if the earthyness I'm experiencing could be my use of the EKG? I've heard that they can be very earthy hops, and I did use a fair bit of them in this smaller batch. Can I possibly dry hop with something like Cascade and maybe save this batch? Open to any thoughts you all may have regarding my recipe and how I may bring this one back. Thanks!
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