Time of the Month Pale Ale & Momma's Mango's Pale Ale

I really love any sort of beer with fruit in it so I've been dying to do one since last years Blueberry Wheat that a friend and I whipped up. I really REALLY love Minneapolis Town Hall's Mango Momma and I'd love to try to replicate that. I know I won't be able to though because I don't have a draught system (yet) and I can't just age a IPA on Mango's in a keg. So I'm going to take a couple pounds of fresh Mango's, toss them in the secondary and let my brew do it's thing. I also decided that Blood Oranges would be fun to use because they are in season and pretty damned tasty.

I didn't really have much of a plan when I decided what fruits I wanted to use but over the last week I came up with a beer base. I wanted to keep the hops fruity and the bitterness fairly low. So I went with Amarillo and Simcoe and the majority in the last 15 min of the boil. I kept the base of the beer fairly simple with a lot of 2-Row, some Crystal 20 for color and White Wheat for head retention. Decided to throw in about 8ounces of Oats to keep things silky smooth. I'm only doing a 4 gal batch so 2 gal on each fruit is gonna be real nice.

My brew day went really smooth and I'm pretty sure I set a all-time record for not screwing up and not forgetting anything. Since it damn near hit 30 today it was pretty darned warm (for Minneapolis) and I even had a chance to wash my car during the boil. I missed my mash temp by 1 degree which shouldn't be a huge deal but I'm fairly anal about getting my mash exact. Once the boil wound down and I got the wort down to pitching temp, I tried 2 new purchases. A 8 gal nylon mesh bag and a simple fish tank air pump attached to a diffusion stone to aerate my wort. The nylon mesh bag worked great! I lined my fermenter with the bag and just poured my cooled wort into the bag. Pulled the bag out and Viola!, all the hops and crud were gone! Too bad the air pump didn't work as good... Since it didn't work AT ALL!! Gotta take that back damnit!

I really look forward to the results on this one. I hope the fruit really comes through.

Recipe
--------------------
Batch Size - 4 Gallons
Boil Size - 5.2 Gallons
Total Grains - 10.5lbs
Anticipated OG - 1.057
Boil Time - 60 min
Bitterness - 41.1 IBU's

Grains
--------------------
8.0lbs American 2-Row (36 ppg, 2 SRM) - 76.19%
1.0lbs White Wheat (40 ppg, 2.4 SRM) - 9.52%
1.0lbs Crystal 20L (35 ppg, 2.0 SRM) - 9.52%
0.8lbs Raw Oats (37 ppg, 1 SRM) - 4.76

Hops
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0.25oz Simcoe (13% Pellet) - 60 min

0.25oz Simcoe (13% Pellet) - 30 min
0.25oz Simcoe (13% Pellet) - 15 min
0.25oz Amarillo (8.5% Pellet) - 15 min
0.25oz Simcoe (13% Pellet) - 5 min
0.25oz Amarillo (8.5% Pellet) - 5 min
0.50oz Amarillo (8.5% Pellet) - 0 min (Whirlpooled)

Yeast
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Fermentis - Safale US-05 (75-80%, 59-75F)

Extras
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1tsp Irish Moss - 5 min

Brewed 2/21/2010

Pitched my yeast at about 80 degrees and it was bubbling away fairly aggressively the next morning at about 70 degrees. I might let it go another day before taking it downstairs and hopefully getting it down to the mid 60's.

OG was measured at 1.058. Right at 60% efficiency which is exactly what I planned for when I put together this recipe. I still suck... Even crushed the grains a quite a bit more than usual.

2/28/2010

OG: Measured at 1.012. Corrected to 1.013 at 71 degrees. Should put this brew right at 6% ABV.

Transfered 2 gal of the beer to a 3 gal carboy with about 2 1/2 pounds of Blood Oranges and the other 2 gal to a 5 gal carboy that has about 3 pounds of Mango's. I also added maybe 3-4 tablespoons of Blood Orange zest that I had soaked in tequilla for about a week to the Blood Orange carboy.

The beer wasn't too bad but the yeast was too prominent and it really could have used a bit more late additions. Since this brew is getting quite a bit of fruit added to it I'm not too worried about it though. If I ever just wanted to make this beer, I'd easily double or triple the late hop additions. The beer wasn't too bitter at all either so I might even bump up some of the early bittering Simcoe. The color was okay but it was super cloudy. No more White Wheat in a Pale Ale. Live and learn I suppose.

I think I'll let the beer sit on the fruit for at least 14 days. I'll shake or stir the carboys every couple days to make sure the fruit sugars get fully fermented. I really think these are going to be really tasty. Wish I could serve on draft to really keep the fruit nice and fresh tasting.

3/19/2010

Well I ended up letting the beer sit for almost an entire month. I swished the fruit and beer around about once a week and wanted to be 100% sure the beer was finished. The mango's looked the same for the most part but the blood oranges had a really pale, gross look to them. Although they were still firm, almost all the color was out of them. Weird stuff.

When I tasted the beers upon bottling the mango was really really good. The mango was nice and potent and I'm excited to what it'll taste like carbonated. The blood orange on the other hand was kind of weird. It has a fairly strong blood orange flavor but something is missing. I either needed more hops to add a bit more flavor and bitterness, or I needed to somehow make it sweeter. It's not horrible, but definitely wasn't I was going for. Hopefully it'll change a bit in the bottle. I look forward to the results.

Tasting: Simcoe and Chinook Single Hop IPA

Chinook Single Hop IPA

Appearance- Slightly chill hazed but pretty good clarity overall, great head with tons of staying power. Looks like it might be slightly over carbonated.
Smell- Fairly piney and sappy, intense, not very fruity, earthy, a bit of caramel pops through as it warms
Taste- Holy bitter, resiny, pine tar and grass, dandelion stem, almost no malt to speak of. I’d say overly bitter but as it warms a bit it’s just really hoppy. Probably could have used a bit more caramel malt.
Mouthfeel- Great carbonation, spot on, heavy body, numbing feel. Somewhat dry.
Overall- Needs more of a malt backbone. A touch more crystal might have helped a little and prob 1/3 less hops. Chinook is pretty intense as I might have gone slightly overboard. It was a good example of what Chinook tastes like though as it’s basically all you can taste.

Simcoe Single Hop IPA

Appearance- Pours a beautifully clear reddish orange with a big fluffy off white head with serious staying power. A cap and collar is maintained the entire beer along with a ton of sticky lacing.
Smell- Very earthy and piney with a bit more of a citric nose than the Chinook. Some orange peel and lilac add to the really nice nose. A touch of caramel is noticeable as a light grainy undertone is detectable. Much more malt makes it way out than it did in the Chinook.
Taste- Starts slightly bitter with a big rush of caramelly malt. A pine and dandelion like bitterness steps in and like the Chinook, not really any citrus. The bitterness really lingers as does some grass and a touch of alcohol in the finish.
Mouthfeel- Perfect carbonation with a nice big feel and somewhat oily/slick feel. The bitterness actually gets numbing after a few sips.
Overall- Like the Chinook it bitterness is almost too much as a touch more malt (or less hops) could have helped. Saying that, it is a bit more balanced than the Chinook and I do enjoy this one much more. Next time maybe more malt but the Simcoe’s really were the showcase here.

Simcoe and Chinook Single Hop

So for my first beer after moving to Minneapolis (and getting the rest of my brewing supplies that my buddy in Chicago had) I decided I'd brew up a nice light bodied beer and split the batch to single hop with Simcoe's and Chinooks. I wanted Simcoe and a buddy suggested the Chinooks. I'm usually more of a fruity hop type guy (C-Hops) but these both sounded like nice choices that I'm not as familiar with.

Since I still hadn't bought a full sized pot that I could boil a entire 5 gal batch in, I did this inside on my stove. I did have two stainless steal pots though that could handle a split 4 gal batch since they were 5 gal and 4 gal respectively. The base of the recipe was something I found online that was someones made up version of Pliny the Elder (I wish I could find the link to give credit but I didn't realize I'd be doing this half-assed blog). I decided it would be a good recipe to really showcase the hops off.

My brew day was a little shaky since I wasn't 100% sure how I was going to evenly split the batch split. I decided that after I vorlauf I'd just evenly pour the wort into each pot about 4 cups at a time. I did the same with the sparge water and that seemed to work okay. It was hard to tell if the batches were even though since one pot was 4 gal and the other was 5 gal. From there, everything went fairly smoothly.

Recipe -

--------------------

Batch Size - 4 Gallons

Boil Size - 5.3 Gallons

Total Grains - 12.8lbs

Anticipated OG - 1.092

Boil Time - 90 min

Grains

--------------------

11.2lbs 2 Row Base (37ppg, 1.5L) - 87.5%

0.8lbs Sugar - Cane (42ppg, 0L) - 6.3%

0.4lbs Crystal 40L (42ppg, 40L) - 3.1%

0.4lbs Wheat (38ppg, 2L) - 3.1%

(Batch Split)

Hops

--------------------

(1/2 Batch)
1oz Simcoe (13% Plug) - 90 min

1/2oz Simcoe (13% Plug) - 60 min

1/2oz Simcoe (13% Plug) - 30 min

1/2oz Simcoe (13% Plug) - 5 min

1/2oz Simcoe (13% Plug) - Dry Hopped 7 days

(other 1/2 batch)

1oz Chinook (13% Plug) - 90 min
1/2oz Chinook (13% Plug) - 60 min
1/2oz Chinook (13% Plug) - 30 min
1/2oz Chinook (13% Plug) - 5 min
1/2oz Chinook (13% Plug) - Dry Hopped 7 days

Yeast

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Wyeast 1056 - American Ale (73-77%, 60-72F)

Brewed October 10th 2009

10/10/2009

Original gravity of both beers were way lower than expected at 1.060. Again my efficiency continues to suck and ended up around 50% (uggghhh....). I need to figure out what I'm doing wrong (grain crush? channeling?) and quick. Since I just split up the batch I don't exactly know how much wort I started with but it should be somewhere around 2.65 gallons per pot. The 5 gal pot is a little wider though so I know I got a bit more boil off on that particular batch (the Simcoe was in the 5 gal pot). This whole thing is by the seat of my pants though so I'm not too worried about it.

10/24/2009

Final gravity checked in at a unbelievable 1.012. Racked both beers and added a 1/2oz of the respective beers hops. Starting to rethink this whole plug hop idea considering I lost quite a bit of wort when racking.

11/1/2009

Racked into my bottling bucket and again lost probably another 1/4 to 1/2 gallon of wort from the massive swelling of the plug hops. The gravity even fell another point or two to somewhere between 1.011 or 1.010. Crazy, I screwed something up that it ended up this dry. I used the small Munton's CarbTabs for the first time on this beer because I've had problems with even carbonation using just dissolved sugar.