Day 2: American Pale Ale

I'm planning on brewing every style listed in the Beer Judges Certificate Program by the end of this experiment. I'm sure you'll see some ingredients popping up over and over again, probably consecutively. It's what I've got to use, and what I want to use up. Some of the ingredients might not be super fresh, some of the hops have been in my fridge a long while. Same with some of the yeast. Luckily, when I get through some of this old stuff, I have the privilege of diving in to some of the store stock. Though, again, I'll probably try and use up some of the older stock. I try and be as picky as possible about freshness for my customers, which is why I never bulk order yeast, hops or malt. I like to order once a week, and keep my inventory rotated.

Enough about that, on to the beer...


Beer #2 - "Pale Male Pale Ale"

Style: American Pale Ale (10A)

Recipe: For 2 Gallon (Extract)

2 lbs Munton's Light Dry Malt Extract
1 lb Munton's Light Liquid Malt Extract
2 oz Victory Malt (steeped at 152F for 20 minutes)
4 oz Briess Crystal 60L Malt (steeped at 152F for 20 minutes)
.5 oz Cascade Hops (5% AAU) (60 minutes, full boil)
.25 oz Cascade Hops (5% AAU) (last 30 minutes)
.5 oz Cascade Hops (5% AAU) (last 10 minutes)
Wyeast 1056 American Ale Yeast

Brewing notes: Ended up with roughly a 30 minute steep between 152-158F. Started with 2.5 gallons of water, and by the time an hour was up, was almost exactly 2 gallons. Decided to just go with Cascade, cause that's the hops I had on hand. Was gonna throw some Centennial or Willamette in for bittering, but went with the Cascade instead. O.G. was 1.064, a bit higher than I thought it'd be.

Cheers!
Aaron

UPDATE 8/27/2009 (11 days) : Transferred to a secondary fermenter. Gravity was at 1.018. Had a nice amber red hue, and smelled and tasted like a fairly moderate APA (American Pale Ale.) Actually somewhat similar in flavor to the Restoration Pale Ale put out by Abita Brewing here locally.

UPDATE 9/11/2009 (25 days) : Put in to bottles and one small party keg. FG finished at 1.020.