Georgia Pale Ale

This is batch 24 – a special pale ale.  Not an India Pale Ale, but more than American: a Georgia Pale Ale, or GPA.

The Reason

Since the coffee beer I made in January didn’t turn out the way I wanted, I decided I to make something I’d actually drink and enjoy.  I took a general American Pale Ale recipe from the January-February issue of Brew Your Own and scaled it up to make 10 gallons.

The Recipe

• 21 lbs Rahr Pale Ale Malt
• 2 lbs Briess Victory Malt
• 1 lb Rahr White Wheat Malt
• 1 lb Briess Munich 10L Malt
• 1 oz Horizon hop pellets (12% AA)
• 1 oz Centennial hop pellets (10.5% AA)
• 1 oz Cascade hop pellets (6.5% AA)
• 2 vials White Labs WLP001 California Ale yeast

The basic process is easy with the right equipment:

1. Mash all of the grain at 1.5 quarts per pound and 152°F (67°C) for one hour.
2. Mash out at 168°F (76°C).
3. Sparge slowly with 170°F (77°C) until you reach your target boil volume.
4. Boil the Horizon pellets for 60 minutes.
5. Add half the Centennial and Cascade hops at 10 minutes.
6. Add the remainder of Centennial and Cascade hops at flameout (0 minutes).
7. Cool wort, transfer to fermenter, and pitch yeast.

See, What Had Happened Was…

I lost access to my recipe on Brewer’s Friend (for the day, it seems…) and really wasn’t thinking when I was sparging – I ended up with a 14-gallon boil when my target should have been about 11.5 gallons or so.  However, I didn’t fret – I just boiled it down to my batch size.  During that extraordinarily long boil time (175 minutes!), I took the liberty of adding hops fresh from my front porch three times.  Using that boil time, here’s the hop schedule:

• 175 minutes: 1 oz Horizon pellets, 0.3 oz whole-leaf Centennial (5 cones)
• 153 minutes: 0.3 oz whole-leaf Centennial
• 111 minutes: 0.3 oz whole-leaf Centennial
• 55 minutes: 0.3 oz whole-leaf Centennial
• 37 minutes: 0.5 oz Centennial pellets, 0.5 oz Cascade pellets
• 1 minute: 0.5 oz Centennial pellets, 0.5 oz Cascade pellets

The recipe in BYO said the original gravity would be 1.056, but my OG (adjusted) was 1.062.  It smells awesome and there’s lots of slurry in the bottom of the fermenters.  That might lend even more bitterness; we’ll wait and see.  It’s heavy so it might actually be balanced a bit.  I’d like to keep this recipe and tweak it for next time.  I’ll try to update this post as fermentation proceeds or when I get to bottling day.  I intend to put all of this in 12-oz bottles – wish me luck…

Bottling Day

Bottling day (Labor Day 2014) went off without a hitch.  I ended up with 84-12oz capped and 4-16oz swing-top bottles.  They’re conditioning along the wall at the moment…  I’ll open the first one on Saturday, September 27th – my 36th birthday.