A Pale American

This recipe is a noob rough draft experiment only. 8/6/2013 JD UPDATE: This worked out well. It ended up 6 points shy, not low calorie but not sweet - this beer is surprising, friendly and receiving great reviews.

DME is Breiss Golden LIght.

Invert sugar is made from natural turbinado, heat until 236, remove & cool covered (no caramelization).

Invert turbinado, darkens color nicely.

Yeast energizer

Special process:

Beano added to the wort boil, hold at approx. 100F for 45 minutes then continue the boil.

ABV should be higher than est. due to added enzyme making sugars more available to the yeast in 1/3 of the wort. This step is intended to reduce the carbs of some of, but not all of the wort, therefore making this a lower-carb beer whilst retaining 2/3 of fuller-bodied beer characteristics.

The idea is to hold the enzymes at approx. body temp for 45 minutes, along with 1/3 of the sugars/extracts. The temp is then brought up past 135F, permanently de-naturing the enzyme and its activity at that point.

The remaining 2/3 of the sugars/extracts are then added at boil, and the process continues as normal.

I am working on an informal 'study' using a control, that should provide evidence as to whether or not these carbs do actually break down and result in a lower final gravity.

RAW BREW NOTES transcribed (cleaning this up later)

8/6/2013 ambient temp 76F, cool, dry, sunny breezy day, occasional high clouds w/no expectation of rain.

Hot tap H2O (mine is 120F!! gotta turn that down, didn't realize I had tweaked it that far) - 7.5 gal. ad 1/3 wort sugars
1770 - 1054 G initial ultralight malt extract
Rice C - 2 cups 834 g
417 - 118 remain in 1 of 2 bags
Briess - 1/2 c + 700g - 65g gone to starter
1360-1259
hydro reading @ 114.4F - 1.01 (1/3 sugars, 7.5 gal)
10:04am - dissolve beano in water & added, temp 108.5F
10:47 - temp @ 104F (45 minutes potential enzyme activity at this point)
Flame On!
2 burners on pot, 12,000 & 9,000 btu
10:59 - 120F
11:09 - 147F
11:16 - 162.5F
11:25 - 175F
11:30 - 183F
11:36 - 191.8F
11:41 - 197F
11:44 - 203F
11:48 - 207F
11:49 - Boil (208F)
Flame off
added remaining 2/3 extracts/sugars
NOTE - added 8 oz Briess Golden Light, that was too much, recipe now 4 oz heavy (altering recipe makeup to match)
12:10pm - temp 180F, hydro 1.03 (never do that again)
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(unrelated note)
387g starter flask setup with airlock & sanitizer in airlock
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12:17pm - Flame on
12:26 - 187.5F
12:30 - 193.6
12:33 - 197.1
12:39 - 201.6
12:42 - Boil rem. heat add Magnum
12:44 Fire on
12:52 - 208F into boil
burners on med-low (12K) & med (9K)
12:55 both burners to med high to push rolling boil for a few minutes
1:00 back to med low w/both burners
1:41pm Saaz hops added for last 5 min. 7g
NOTE: forgot to add yeast energizer to boil. Boiling yeast energizer in separate pan. Burned it. Trying it again, 1.5 tsp. Added to wort after boil, stirred with sanitized spoon.
Noticed on sanitized carboy, is 6 gal not 6.5. Decide to separate into two containers.
Cooling in tub, also in tub. No quick way to cool.
3:28pm - 95.2F Add ice, cold packs to tub.
3:39pm - 78F, hydro reading 1.058
5:19pm - 75.7F
5:29 - 72F Stir and siphon to carboy. Prep to pour remaining 1/2 to brewing bucket - noticed that in time of siphoning, solids had precipitated quite a bit - so used funnel, poured more of that into carboy after stirring it. Poured remaining 1/3 into brewing bucket.
842g - weight of starter used, along with e. flask, airlock, sanitizer - total weight
5:35pm - Pitched entire flask after swirling to uniform slurry, approximated 2/3 into carboy and 1/3 into brew bucket.
5:45pm - approximate pitch time.
Vessels in greenhouse with trash bags over each except for airlock, and cardboard box inverted over both with seams taped dark, these steps to maintain cool dark wort.
Temp held @ 68F overnight.
8/7/2013 1:57pm mild activity in both, small fine foam, 68F.
8/7 7:40pm - looks great with a lot of material in suspension, a nice head of 4 - 5". One side of the foam has a cinnamon look to the edge of the froth. A frozen cold pack was placed in the opening of the handle on the carboy, and it appears as if this cold source has created a different surface on the foam, 10" down and on the other side of the glass. It seems to be allowing the surface tension on the top of the foam, to break.
8/8/2013 9:00am - Temp 69F. Swapped out ice pack at head space with larger. Foam looks good.
NOTE took 85% custom attenuation out of the brew equation. Since I added the alpha galactosidase to only 1/3 of the wort sugars then killed it, this beer should not attenuate highly, it should be yeast-dependent.
8/8 9:00PM Krausen reached the airlock despite my best effort with the ice pack. Thermometer on carboy, still reads 70F. Tipped carboy to alleviate, immersed carboy in cold water, to try to get things more under control.
Note: Beano has galactosidase, invertase and other ingredients. I failed to consider that some other of these enzymes might have survived the boil?

The other possibility is, that the yeast energizer that I added, actually has something like beano in it.
8/9 9:00am - pulled carboy from tub, 64.5F.
8/9 9:00am - carboy is at 65F. Brew bucket fine. Both have activity. approx. 64 hours into ferment at this point.
8/9 2:00pm - 69F fitted dual port bung/cap with hose to pitcher of water. Smaller portion of batch in bucket, shows slowing activity. Carboy still going strong. No further blowover issue with carboy in water of plastic tub.
8/25 - 1/2 into the first keg. Crisp, delicious beer, not a dull mindedness to it but rather the clarity of a good lens, amplifying the impact of the hops, such a good beer, like a journey calling you further in as it unfolds over a few minutes. Initially the beer is not overpowering, it lets you in easy and reveals itself after it has cleared your palette.