Back in the Saddle Pale Ale

Holy crap, has it really been more than three months since I brewed? It has. Time to fix that with a straight-ahead pale ale. Sorta.

Recipe

Batch size: 5 gallons

Grain bill:

• 8 lbs Marris Otter
• 1 lb organic wheat malt
• 1 lb Carapils 8

Hops:

All hops were last year's Harvest Hops, and are mostly Cascade and Willamette.

• 1 oz @ 70 min
• 3 oz @ 30
• 1 oz @ 10
• 1 oz @ 5

Yeast:

• Safale US-05 American Ale

Prep

March 19, 2012: Mash overnight w/7 gallons of water. 67 C/154 F.

Brew Day

March 20, 2012: Early start -- runoff at 4.45am, full boil at 5.40pm. Forgot the chiller, so everything ran for an extra ten minutes. Chilled to 20C. Squeezed the hops w/a paint strainer bag; tried a salad spinner but that was awkward and didn't work as well.

Bottling

April 1, 2012: 6.8%.

Tasting

April 10, 2012: Hard day at work, so it's time to try out the new beer. And it's good -- but holy cow, you'd never know all those hops were in there. The caramel flavour from the Carapils is definitely noticeable; I'd cut it down to half a pound next time.