Favorites: Mass Productions and Variance

I have friends visiting for the holidays. They will be here shortly after Christmas and stay a few days after New Year's. I need to be ready. I asked them what kind of beer they wanted and they gave a rather wishy washy response. So I took it upon myself to brew up some of my favorite styles. I chose to recreate the Rye Pale Ale for them as well as the Amber Clone, but I chose to do 10 gallons. Adapting a 5 gallon recipe to a 10 gallon recipe requires close attention to detail and a knowledge from experience of which variants need to be remeasured or multiplied by an exact coefficient to produce a consistent product. I, on the other hand, just doubled everything. Looking at the Recipes side by side:

Amber Clone
Style: American Amber Ale
OG: 1.049
FG: 1.013
ABV: 4.72 %
IBU's: 37.22
Primary: 7 days @ 68°F
Secondary: 14 days @ 72°F
Aging: 21 days @ 74°F
Volume: 5 Gallons
Color: 9.4 SRM

Grains & Adjuncts
0.50 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L
0.25 lbs Biscuit Malt
8.25 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US
0.50 lbs Munich Malt
0.25 lbs Victory Malt

Hops
1.00 ozs Northern Brewer - 60 mins
0.66 ozs Williamette - 15 mins
0.34 ozs Williamette - 5 mins

Yeasts
1.0 pkg California Ale V - White Labs WLP051

www.iBrewMaster.com

Amber Clone (10 gal)
Style: American Amber Ale
OG: 1.050
FG: 1.014
ABV: 4.72 %
IBU's: 36.69
Primary: 7 days @ 68°F
Secondary: 14 days @ 72°F
Aging: 21 days @ 74°F
Volume: 10 Gallons
Color: 8.5 SRM

Grains & Adjuncts
0.50 lbs Biscuit Malt
1.00 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L
0.50 lbs Victory Malt
1.00 lbs Munich Malt
17.00 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US

Hops
2.00 ozs Northern Brewer - 60 mins
1.25 ozs Williamette - 15 mins
0.75 ozs Williamette - 5 mins

Yeasts
2.0 pkg Safale US-05 Dry Ale Yeast - Fermentis

www.iBrewMaster.com

we can see roughly the same numbers as predicted by iBrewmaster. Now those of you who are math sticklers can see that the hops were misadjusted. If I doubled everything then the flavoring hops should have doubled from 0.66oz to 1.34oz, or from 2/3 to 1 1/3, and the aroma from 0.34oz to 0.66oz, or 1/3 to 2/3. Good for you for knowing fractions and ratios! The total hops ounces are the same, but you can see a slight variance in the IBUs.

Looking at the Rye Pale Ale:

Rye Pale Ale
Style: English IPA
OG: 1.053
FG: 1.013
ABV: 5.24 %
IBU's: 41.50
Primary: 7 days @ 68°F
Secondary: 14 days @ 72°F
Aging: 21 days @ 74°F
Volume: 5 Gallons
Color: 11.2 SRM

Grains & Adjuncts
0.50 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L
8.50 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) UK
2.00 lbs Rye Malt

Hops
1.00 ozs Cluster - 60 mins
1.00 ozs Amarillo Gold - 15 mins
1.00 ozs Glacier - 5 mins
1.00 ozs Cascade - 14 days (dry hopped)

Yeasts
1.0 pkg Dry English Ale - White Labs WLP007

www.iBrewMaster.com

Rye Pale Ale (10 gal)
Style: American Rye Beer
OG: 1.053
FG: 1.013
ABV: 5.24 %
IBU's: 41.50
Primary: 7 days @ 68°F
Secondary: 14 days @ 72°F
Aging: 21 days @ 74°F
Volume: 10 Gallons
Color: 10.5 SRM

Grains & Adjuncts
1.00 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L
17.00 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US
4.00 lbs Rye Malt

Hops
2.00 ozs Cluster - 60 mins
2.00 ozs Amarillo Gold - 15 mins
2.00 ozs Glacier - 5 mins
1.00 ozs Cascade - 14 days (dry hopped)

Yeasts
1.0 pkg Dry English Ale - White Labs WLP007
1.0 pkg Safale S-04 - Fermentis

www.iBrewMaster.com

we see exactly the same numbers, save a slightly lover SRM color rating. Note the amount of dry hops stays constant from 5 gal to 10 gal, but the overall IBUs didn't change. I usually don't use a whole ounce of hops for 5 gallon batch, but I do use a handful of whole leaf - enough to cover the surface area.

These two recipes are solid, but I wanted to revive one of my favorites, The Rouge Wheat. If I haven't mentioned it, it's a pun. You can read all about it in my Note on Facebook:

Brew 6/24 Wheat

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 3:18pm
I'm making a summer wheat beer. I made one for my friends wedding involving orange peel, honey, and chamomile flowers called the Honey Moon Wedding Wheat. This one skips the flowers and uses grapefruit rather than orange. The honey is still there. I can't think of a good name. Suggestions? Preferably something Baton Rouge related.

It contains:

1 x Brewers 2-Row Malt 4 lbs 8 oz

1 x White Wheat 4 lbs 8 oz

1 x Rice Hulls 1 lb

1 x Rye Malt 8 oz

1 x Flaked Wheat 8 oz

1 x Vanguard Pellet Hops (1 oz) boiled 60min

1x Grapefruit peel boiled 20min

cheers!

The comments had names like Bitter Bee Summer Wheat (Bitter for the Grapefruit, Bee for the Honey), sweet nip summer, and Jangle. In the end I settled the discussion by commenting:

"..and the winner is Red 8. Which [in] French is Rouge Huit ("rouge wheat") get it? so Rouge 8 it is, thank you Sarah Dee I cannot resist a bilingual pun."

The name turned out to be too clever for its own good. To keep it simple I now call it Rouge Wheat and its label is a Red #8, don't think too hard about it. The recipe evolved from there. I dropped the Rye Malt altogether, I gravitated towards a 60/40 ratio wheat to barley, and the grapefruit was replaced by dried apricot:



Rouge Huit
Style: Witbier
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.016
ABV: 4.98 %
IBU's: 18.34
Primary: 7 days @ 68°F
Secondary: 14 days @ 72°F
Aging: 21 days @ 74°F
Volume: 5 Gallons
Color: 4.6 SRM


Grains & Adjuncts
5.00 lbs White Wheat Malt
4.00 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel
1.00 lbs Wheat, Flaked
0.50 lbs Rice Hulls

Hops
1.00 ozs Vanguard - 60 mins

Yeasts
1.0 pkg Bavarian Wheat - Wyeast Labs 3638

Additions
8.00 oz Apricots - 60 mins / Boil
1.00 lb Honey - 60 mins / Boil

www.iBrewMaster.com

This beer was the smash hit of the summer. I made it exactly as listed numerous times and once as a 10 gallon (double the recipe). I wanted to recreate this recipe for my visitors - they come from all over; several are on the East Coast, Baltimore and New York to be specific, others are on the West Coast, Los Angelas. In accordance I have adjusted the recipe to better suit the Gulf Coast:

Satsuma Wheat
Style: American Wheat Beer
OG: 1.061
FG: 1.018
ABV: 5.63 %
IBU's: 17.22
Primary: 7 days @ 68°F
Secondary: 14 days @ 72°F
Aging: 21 days @ 74°F
Color: 4.7 SRM

Grains & Adjuncts
1.00 lbs Honey
0.50 lbs Oats, Flaked
5.00 lbs Wheat Malt, Bel
5.00 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel

Hops
1.00 ozs Vanguard - 60 mins

Yeasts
1.0 pkg Safbrew WB-06 Wheat Beer Dry Yeast - Fermentis

Additions
Peel and separated 3 satsumas with white part of peel zested off. Add satsumas and peels to boil for 60 min. At flame out add saved shavings of peels.


The homebrew shop was out of Flaked Wheat and low on White Wheat. I used standard, slightly darker Belgian Wheat Malt as well as Flaked Oats, which he assured me was a fine compliment to any Wheat Ale. I couldn't get my hands on any coriander - out of season I suppose- but Satsumas are plentiful these days.

I got my satsumas from my wife's parent's neighbor's tree. It was hanging over the fence and loaded with satsumas. In a matter of minutes we had a bagful and it seemed the tree had barely been picked at all. Some recipes call for fruit or fruit peel addition late in boil, but my experience with the previous mutations told me the best favor can be achieved by a full boil as I did with the Apricots and the Grapefruit.

One of the major catalysts for the switch to Apricot from Grapefruit was my wife. She did not favor the extreme bitterness of the grapefruit. I mean I used a huge grapefruit! Peel and all! As a friend pointed out I should have used zested Grapefruit peel. Supposedly the white stuff between the peel and the fruit was quite bitter. In addition the Rye might have imparted a spicy bitterness. I enjoyed the bitterness. In my opinion it makes a wit more than the fruity notes and the Abita brewery's interpretation of a very similar brew was decent, but could have used more citrus and bitterness - more satsuma.

I intend to achieve this bitterness. As I described I peeled and separated the chunks and used a fine cheese grader to sand off as much of the white stuff off the peels. I collected it and added it at flame out, as you would flavor hops. The fruit and its peels went into a bag and got boiled for an hour along with 1 lb of honey and a single ounce of hops. Very easy brew, just add it and forget it.

This will be the first brew my visitors try when they get here, unless some of the brews mentioned earlier are still available (not likely). I then hope to crank 'em out, age slightly, and force carbonate for quick consumption. This next month will more than likely fly by, as the Holidays usually do, and I have set a grueling pace for myself... That's it. That is all.