Epic Pale Ale

I decided to do another "Can you brew it" recipe, this time the cloned "Epic Pale Ale" from New Zealand. The recipe is quite interesting, using Golden Promise in an American pale ale style beer. After the success of the Landlord clone I did with Golden Promise I'm quite keen to use it again to try and get used to it. I have had Epic quite a few times, and it's a really pleasant beer with a big up front hoppiness.

Here's the recipe:

Epic Pale Ale

A ProMash Recipe Report

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (L):          22.50    Wort Size (L):     22.50
Total Grain (kg):         5.16
Anticipated OG:          1.052    Plato:             12.93
Anticipated SRM:           6.0
Anticipated IBU:          22.2
Brewhouse Efficiency:       75 %
Wort Boil Time:             60    Minutes


Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                          Origin        Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 79.8     4.12 kg.  Pale Malt (Golden Promise)    UK             1.037      2
 10.2     0.53 kg.  Carahell Malt                 Germany        1.034     11
  3.3     0.17 kg.  CaraPils                      Germany        1.033      2
  6.7     0.34 kg.  CaraRed                       Germany        1.035     20

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

   Amount     Name                              Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 12.00 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   5.50   7.6  60 min.
 18.40 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   5.50   7.5  30 min.
 45.00 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   5.50   7.2  10 min.
 50.00 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   5.50   0.0  0 min.
 50.00 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   5.50   0.0  0 min. (after 10 min whirlpool)
 65.00 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   5.50   0.0  Dry Hop (at ferment temp)
 65.00 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   5.50   0.0  Dry Hop (cold)


Yeast
-----
 Wyeast 1272 American Ale II

As you can see, this beer takes a bucketload of hops, all cascade. Fortunately I had half a kilo which needed a home. Today also marked my first go at recirculating the mash. I hooked up my new control panel to an electric kettle with a small stainless steel coil in it through which the mash was recirculated. For now let's just say it went well and I was pretty happy with the system. A full report with pics etc, will follow when I get things dialled in a bit more.

I estimated an efficiency of 75%, but ended up with only 72%, so I'm two points off my intended original gravity. Hopefully this won't hurt the beer too much. Brew in a bag is essentially a 'no-sparge' technique, so it's difficult to break through the 75% mark, and that gets more difficult the higher the OG (or grain to water ratio). I expect to get a more consistent and higher efficiency once I start sparging.

Here's a picture of the organised chaos. The laptop was monitoring temperature readings as I don't have any displays on the control panel yet.

Forgot two things today, I should have done a mashout step, as I was keen to see how my little heat exchanger would handle it, and also I forgot to add koppafloc in the last 10 minutes. BIAB does result in pretty cloudy wort, so kettle finings are important, but I think extended cold conditioning helps with clearing, and I need to do that with this beer anyway for the dry hopping schedule.

Finally, my element blew just at the end of the boil. There has been some chatter on aussiehomebrewer.com about these elements, but mine looked in good condition so I was pretty surprised that it went. The insulation melted where the wire joins the body and the live and neutral touched. I was in the kitchen when it happened and the bang was pretty loud even from there. Scary. I'll have to figure out a replacement before the next brew day.