I "C" What You Did There APA

Our take on a traditional "West Coast" style pale ale.

Mash schedule:

-Strike-In w/ 3.9 gal at 165 F (153 F sacch rest for 60 min)
-Mash-out at 168 F and sparge with 2.5 gal to collect 6.5 gal

5/10/15: Brew day for this one. Originally going to make a new version of Steve's Amber Ale using French ale yeast and a different hop bill but our yeast isn't in yet so we fixed this nice, hoppy APA's recipe up for today. Seems simple enough.

Brewing was fairly successful as far as hitting mash temps and what not. Good crush on the grain, only one last-minute substitution in the LHBS subbing honey malt for carafoam.

Yield was a bit low because we miscalculated strikewater and forgot absorption. Tried to compensate by thinning the mash 30 mins in with hot water. Seemed to work fine, actually. Gravity was a bit high after sparging and boil, so we diluted with .79gal boiled/cooled water before adding yeast. Ferm started the next night going hard.

5-14-15: adding dry hopping 8:30pm

5/30/15: FINALLY finished fermenting... has been dry-hopping for a couple weeks and we actually moved it to a warmer place to finish the primary ferm as the krausen still had not died down after a couple weeks. Finished at 1.010 (supposed to be 1.012, so that's an acceptable difference to us; slightly, slightly stronger but still in APA range at ~5.5% ABV), sample we took has a nice nose of pine, guava and apricot. Nice medium-heavy body for the style thanks to the addition of oats. Bottling maybe tonight, but may leave it in for another week. Don't think we'll do a secondary as it was fairly clear.

6/6/15: About to bottle this one now.

8/15/15: Kinda forgot to update on this one, but we've been damn busy doing all sorts of other recipes. Anyway, this rules after a couple months of conditioning. Very tropical and citrusy aroma. Papaya, guava, peach and other stone fruit, balanced bitterness. Pine seems to have faded and the Citra and Cascade are really taking hold. Pours a nice golden color with a few fingers of solid white head that dissipates to a finger or so after a few minutes. Body could be a bit thicker, so we're going to change the recipe to double the oats. We'll take a second look at the hop schedule if we brew this again, as well, but honestly it seems pretty solid so I'm not sure it needs much tweaking in that realm. It's a nice combo, really drinkable and is aging very solidly. Until next time.