Sierra Nevada Pale Ale - Opinions

[Bazzak]

I love the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. [love] So, I thought I would try making a clone. I had a look at their website and came up with a recipe which seems to be very close to their stats. I thought you knowledgeable blokes might be able to tell me what you think. I am still new to this!

 

Ingredients:

110g American Caramel 120\xb0L

670g American 2-row

3.1Kg Coopers Liquid Light Malt

18g Magnum @60 mins

15g Perle @15 mins

15g Cascade @ 1 min

WYeast 1056 American Ale Or BRY-97..?

 

10L boil for a 21L batch.

 

When I put this into BeerTools I got back very close to the SN figures quotes on their website. The calcs came back as 37.5 IBU, 1.053 OG and 1.010 FG.

 

What do you guys think? With the grains I was thinking a 65-75 degrees steep for ~20-30 mins. Is that about right?

 

Really interested to hear your opinions on the recipe and method.

 

Thanks!

Adam [biggrin]

[Otto Von Blotto]

You will need to mash the 2-row pale malt. This is basically steeping it but keeping the temperature constant throughout. I'd probably go around the 66C mark for that. Normally you'd mash base grains for an hour, but that's with a full grain bill, I'm not sure about partials as I've never actually brewed one. You can throw in the Caramel at the same time too.

 

This is a hops schedule I found on another thread posted by someone who actually contacted SN and got some help formulating a recipe to get close to it (converted to metric):

14g. Magnum Pellet 60 min.

14g. Perle Pellet 30 min.

28g. Cascade Pellet 10 min.

56g Cascade Pellet 0 min. (not sure if this all at flameout or half at flameout and half dry hopped. EDIT: Reading further in the thread, these are all added at flameout)

 

They also used a pound (450g) of Crystal 60 along with the base malt.

1.00 lbs. Crystal 60L

11.50 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row)

Obviously, you won't need 5kg of pale malt using the two tins of extract, but just food for thought. I might even brew up this myself soon to get rid of some of my older pale malt.

 

I would say either of those two yeasts would be suitable.

 

I too, am a big fan of this beer and have been buying quite a lot of it lately for the bottles, but I've not yet tried to make a clone of it. I have brewed pale ales that taste similar, though not intentionally. I think it's the Cascade that gives it its flavour, as the pales I've done predominantly with that hop are the ones that taste similar to SNPA.

 

Good luck with it though, look forward to hearing how it turns out!

[Hairy]

I agree with Otto - you need a lot more late Cascade in it and some more crystal, but otherwise it looks good.

 

I would mash for at least 45 minutes. With the quantity you have you aren't really using it to get a massive conversion. So temp isn't a major issue either. Try to keep it in the mid 60's and it doesn't matter if it is a couple of degrees higher or lower. I don't think it will change the taste of the beer significantly in that quantity.

[Bazzak]

This is why I love this forum, so much good advice.

 

How about I up the cascade late in the boil, and also dry hop with cascade. I would generally consider the SNPA a fairly aromatic beer, so I would have thought that it was dry hopped. I like the idea of the half flameout half dry hop.

 

I am happy to do the grains for longer, it shouldn't be an issue to keep them in a reasonable temp range. Would the crystal 60 replace the caramel?

[Hairy]

This is why I love this forum, so much good advice.

 

How about I up the cascade late in the boil, and also dry hop with cascade. I would generally consider the SNPA a fairly aromatic beer, so I would have thought that it was dry hopped. I like the idea of the half flameout half dry hop.

 

I am happy to do the grains for longer, it shouldn't be an issue to keep them in a reasonable temp range. Would the crystal 60 replace the caramel?

Yep. Crystal 60 is the same stuff.

 

The rest sounds fine. Good luck with it.

[Beerlust]

+1 to all the advice given to you so far Bazzak.

 

Ottoman's recipe listing is the exact SNPA recipe I logged some time ago. Hopefully I'll get around to brewing it in the near future! [unsure]

 

Good luck with your SNPA brew. I'll look forward to your comments on the brew once it is at a drinkable stage. [cool]

 

Cheers,

 

Anthony.

[Otto Von Blotto]

You'd think it would be dry hopped but according to that recipe which was formulated with the help of the SN brewmaster, it isn't. Reading on through the thread, the people who have brewed it as stated have all said that the flavour is pretty much spot on to the original, just slight variants in color.

 

If you're interested to have a look, the thread containing the recipe is here: http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=15532

[Otto Von Blotto]

This is the recipe I have come up with after converting to metric values. Their 6.5 gallons which the linked recipe is based on roughly equates to 25 litres which is what I normally brew anyway so that worked out well.

 

Ingredients:

 

5.20 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) US (3.9 EBC)

0.45 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt (145.0 EBC) (Because that's what I have)

 

Mash at 66C for 90 minutes. Mashout at 76C

 

20.00 g Magnum [12.20 %] - Boil 60.0 min 22.9 IBUs

18.00 g Perle [7.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min 9.1 IBUs

30.00 g Cascade [5.60 %] - Boil 10.0 min 5.7 IBUs

60.00 g Cascade [5.60 %] - Aroma Steep 0.0 min (Flameout addition)

 

Wyeast 1056 fermented around 18-19C.

 

Estimated OG: 1.051 SG

Estimated FG: 1.011 SG

Estimated Color: 17.0 EBC

Estimated IBU: 37.6 IBUs

Estimated ABV: 5.2% (5.5%/5.6% bottled)

 

The only changes I made were to up the Magnum and Perle to achieve the desired IBUs, and change the Cascade additions to more rounded numbers.

 

Doing an extract version obviously you'd sub the pale malt for tins of extract plus that small amount of pale malt, perhaps scale the crystal addition down a bit too (maybe 300g?) if you are only doing a 21 litre batch.

 

I'm brewing an English ale tomorrow, but this one is next in the pipeline and may even get preference in the fermentation line as I'm keen to see just how close it gets to the original. [biggrin]

[Bazzak]

I'm brewing an English ale tomorrow, but this one is next in the pipeline and may even get preference in the fermentation line as I'm keen to see just how close it gets to the original.

 

Did you end up putting this down Kelsey? Be interested to know how it went. I am looking at having a crack at an extract version in the next few days, just need to get my ingredients together. I'll also need to figure out the grain to liquid light malt conversion. In terms of a batch size, I can do a 25L as I have a 30L fermenter...don't really know why I went 21!...why have less beer, when you can have more!

[PhilboBaggins]

why have less beer' date=' when you can have more![/quote']

 

I'll drink to that.[happy]

[Otto Von Blotto]

Me too! [lol]

 

Anyway, I haven't done this one yet, but I'll be doing it on my next brew day. I will have to ferment the English ale first so I can get the cube to put this one into, but it will be going in the FV after that one is done.

 

If you've got some form of brewing software, or IanH's spreadsheet, you can plug in your pale malt + crystal and then figure out from there how much liquid malt extract you'll need to achieve the desired OG. My guess in 25 litres would be about 3.5kg, but that's just a guess.

[Canadian Eh!L]

Hey Gang,

 

SNPA is one of my fav's. My house Pale Ale is a clone of this beauty. The recipe varies a little from batch to batch but it follows this basic model.

 

Golden PA

4.3Kg Pale Malt

.3 Kg Crystal 40L

.1 Kg Wheat malt (optional)

25g Cascade (FWH)

5g Magnum (60mins)

17g Perle (60mins)

35g Cascade (dry hop).... more is better!

US-05

21L

 

OG 1.053 FG 1.010

 

[Beerlust]

Hi Skookum!

 

Out of curiosity, what IBU number do you obtain from that Cascade 25gm FWH addition?

 

Cheers,

 

Anthony.

[Canadian Eh!L]

Hey Lusty,

 

I'm not sure how to calculate it, really. I use Brewmate for my recipe creations. I set the time for 20mins (I can't remember why[unsure]). I figure the FWH IBU's should be around 15ish.

[Otto Von Blotto]

Similarly, I use Beersmith for my recipes, I normally use 20g in the FWH addition, I just set it to the boil time which is usually 75 minutes. For a 20 FWH of Cascade it works it out at 12.5 IBU. [cool]

 

I'll be following my posted recipe to the letter the first time (don't get much better than a recipe straight from the SN brewmaster[happy]), and possibly making any adjustments I might need after that. Plus it's a good excuse to use up my Cascade so I can buy more. [lol]

[Canadian Eh!L]

I've noticed since I started kegging that the aroma is not quite as present as when I was bottling. I have been thinking of bumping the late Cascade up a fair bit on my next batch.

[Otto Von Blotto]

I think that's where it gets most of its flavour from. I've got 90g of late Cascade additions in the recipe I found so will be interesting to see what it brings to the beer, first time I won't be dry hopping in a while.