Recipe Decision

[Brew Engineer]

A few weeks ago I made a Mystery Hop American Pale Ale with hops from my parents backyard. The beer turned out pretty good. I wanted to run an experiment by using essentially the same grain/extract bill, but different hops. I also want to use some of the Cascade that I harvested from my own plants (I got 10 ounces this year). Which hop combination should I choose?

OG - 1.054
84% light LME
3.2% Aromatic Malt
6.4% Victory Malt
6.4% Munich Malt

Hop Option 1:

~34 IBU Horizon 60min
~8 IBU Cascade/Amarillo 15 min
Cascade/Amarillo @ Flameout

Hop Option 2:
All Homegrown Cascade, unknown IBU, mimicking the mystery hop schedule
1 1/4 oz 60 min
1 oz 25 min
1 oz 10 min
1 oz @ flameout


I like the idea of using the homegrown hops, and make a side by side comparison of the two nearly identical beers, but will I really like a 100% Cascade APA?

What do you think?

[SoCalBrewer]

I would go for the homegrown to give it a more perosonal touch.

[BDawg]

You said 10 oz, but is that 10 oz dry or wet? Remember you need roughly 5x the weight when wet.

If you have enough hops, I'd go all homegrown.

[Brew Engineer]

You said 10 oz, but is that 10 oz dry or wet? Remember you need roughly 5x the weight when wet.

If you have enough hops, I'd go all homegrown.

I dried it, so I've got 10 oz dry, I would end up using about half of it.

I like the idea of another all homegrown beer, but is an all cascade beer too much cascade? I'd be guessing at AA too.

Maybe I'm just worrying too much!

RDWHAHB

[BDawg]

the recent Sierra Nevada anniversary Ale is all-cascade & delicious

[herbaljoe]

I voted for the all Cascade homegrown hop schedule. But, I would suggest upping (perhaps doubling) the bittering addition. Most homegrown hops have lower AA levels than their commercial counterparts. I brewed a homegrown Cascade beer recently the turned out nice but wasn't bitter enough.

[Brew Engineer]

Ok, looks like the Cascade it is!

I had wanted to brew this past weekend, but circumstances did not favor me.

I'll post my final recipe and results when I brew in a couple weeks.

[Brew Engineer]

I just finished up my brew day of my Homegrown Harvest Cascade Pale Ale:

I tried to replicate the last Pale Ale I brewed as closly as possible. My last batch used mystery hops from my parents property, and it turned out reasonably well. I decided to mimic the recipe exect for the hops, where this time I used all homegrown Cascades. I figured it would be a nice way to tell teh difference between the hops.

Two changes, however. I didn't have any DME, so I used LME, and upped my batch size from 5ga to 6ga, since I lost so much to the hops last time.

OG (promash): 1.054
OG (actual): 1.056

8 lbs ultra light LME
5 oz Aromatic Malt
10 oz Victory Malt
10 oz Munich Malt


1.75 oz Cascade 60 min
1.5 oz Cascade 20 min
1.5 oz Cascade 10 min
1.5 oz Cascade 0 min

She's in the fermentor now. I can't wait to try her out!

I'll have to talk to Shat about sending in my two homegrown Pale Ales, and see if they'll taste them on the show. I'd love the feedback!