Juniper Pale Ale II Project

Well my original Juniper Pale Ale was a big success, so I’ve decided to brew it again, this time all-grain.  Gee, this is starting to sound familiar!  This time however, I’m not only revisiting an old recipe, I’m co-brewing it with another brewer, MrOH as he is known on beeradvocate.com.  You can read the entire thread here.

Here is the most important part of the original post:

My original Juniper Pale Ale was an extract/partial mash ale. MrOH got his hands on some, and apparently he liked it enough to want to try a version of it himself! Admittedly, it was pretty good, one of my better extract beers. I liked it, other people liked it, and I thought it was worthy of trying again, this time all-grain.

The premise of our project is that we’re both going to brew the same basic spiced beer / APA using these parameters…

9 lbs base malt, any combination
1 lb crystal malt, any combination
1 oz juniper berries

Essentially, that’s the beer (5 gallons). The addition of juniper isn’t specified exactly as to how, but from our conversations we both intended to crush the berries and add late in the boil.

Hops wise we hadn’t come up with an exact criteria, but MrOH suggested:

1.5 oz hops @ 10
2.5 oz hops @ FO
1 oz DH
bittering addition to bring it up to 40 IBUs (max)

I will probably change the hops parameters a little, but essentially it won’t make much difference.

We are looking for a beer that’s a good APA/spiced beer, has a light to moderate juniper taste (I don’t want “gin beer”), is neither too bitter nor dominated by hops (i.e. let the juniper have a little sunlight), and is refreshing and tasty. Mostly the last one though, tasty is what matters. But I guess there’s no point in making a “juniper” beer if you don’t show off the juniper a little.

My actual recipe’s  grain bill:

• 7 lbs pale ale malt
• 2 lbs maris otter
• 12 oz caramel malt 20L
• 4 oz caramel malt 60L
• 2 oz carafoam

Hops wise, I bounced around a lot, but finally decided on the following schedule:

• 14 g columbus 60 minutes
• 35g chinook 10 minutes
• 14g willamette at 10 minutes
• 21 g Northern brewer flameout
• 14g  columbus flameout

Yeast: US-05

Targets:

• IBUs 39.5
• OG 1.053
• FG 1.012
• SRM 6.6
• ABV 5.4%

Procedure:

1. prepare checklist
2. lay out ingredients and equipment
3. reconstitute dry yeast using 95F boiled spring water and allow to cool to room temperature
4. Add grains to mash tun
5. bring 3 gallon spring water to 166 F
6. Add 3.5 gallons of 166F spring water to mash tun on top of grains, then stir well
7. add more water to boil pot, bring to near 172F and hold for sparging
8. measure temperature after temperature equalizes in mash.  Once again, this has been pretty spot-on the last few batches, so I don’t anticipate having to boil extra water, but I will be ready just in case
9. adjust mash temperature using either heated mash water or cool spring water as needed to reach 152F, if necessary
10. mash for 75 minutes at 151F
11. during mash, stir about every 15 minutes or so, checking temperature and adjusting if needed
12. at end of mash, begin draining wort into pitcher
13. allow first runnings to drain into a pitcher until clear
14. pour first runnings back on top of mash
15. drain remaining wort into boil pot until mash tun is near empty
16. add 2.4 gallons 172F water (adjusted as needed)
17. stir well
18. drain first runnings of first batch sparge into pitcher until clear (or close to it)
19. pour first runnings of first batch sparge back on top of mash
20. drain wort into main boil pot until near empty
21. add another 2.4 gallons 172F water to mash tun (adjusted as needed)
22. stir well
23. drain first runnings of second batch sparge to pitcher until clear (or close to it)
24. add first runnings back into mash tun
25. drain wort into main boil pot
26. add wort chiller to boil pot, filled with hot water
27. bring main boil pot to a boil
28. when boil is reached, boil 60 minutes total
29. at 60 minutes, add 14g Columbus Hops
30. at 25 minutes, add about 1/4 tsp Wyeast nutrient blend to a small amount of spring water and dissolve
31. add nutrient blend at 20 minute mark
32. add 1/8 tsp Irish moss powder at 20 minute mark
33. add 1.25 oz chinook at 10 minutes
34. add 0.5 oz willamette at 10 minutes
35. add .75 oz chinook at flameout
36. add 0.5 oz columbus at flameout
37. at flameout, turn on water for wort chiller and chill to 170 F
38. let stand about 15 minutes hop rest, then turn wort chiller back on
39. begin sanitation procedures on spoon, thermometer, bucket, wine thief
40. stir occasionally with sanitized stainless spoon during cooling
41. ensure bucket, wine thief, thermometer, strainer, spoon are sanitized
42. when wort gets to about 70F, add to fermentation bucket, pouring through sanitized strainer to catch any extra solids and to help aerate.  If necessary, clean strainer during process and re-sanitize to remove most of the hop trub before fermentation
    
43. take OG reading with sanitized wine thief
44. thoroughly aerate wort with sanitized stainless steel spoon again
45. ensure wort is 68F or a little less before pitching yeast
46. ensure yeast is a little cooler than wort before pitching
47. pitch yeast
48. gently stir using sanitized stainless steel spoon
49. install sanitized bucket lid and airlock
50. ferment in freezer chest w/Johnson controller for 14+ days at 66F
51. after 14+ days, add dry hops, 1 oz chinook, 0.5 oz willamette
52. ferment a total of 21+ days
53. take FG sample and bottle
54. use 5 oz corn sugar at bottling

Actual OG:1.052

Actual FG: 1.010

Notes: