Wet Hop Harvest Ale Recipe (5 US Gallon)

My local home brew club, Regional Harrisburg Area Brewers (ReHAB - http://rehabrew.wordpress.com/) was approached by a local hop farmer from Carlisle, PA who was requesting a Wet Hop Harvest Ale from the harvest of his first season. I quickly jumped at the opportunity, knowing that my own small collection of bines would never produce the quantity of hops needed to produce a well balanced harvest ale. We linked up, set a date (8/17/2014), and I quickly went into motion producing the recipe.

This Wet Hop Harvest Ale Recipe falls into the American Pale Ale Catagory. Mostly 2-row, a little crystal 10L for sweetness, and victory malt for biscuit/breadiness to help add character and balance out the...wait for it...25 ounces of wet Cascade hops we are adding to this five gallon batch! Columbus (Tomahawk) is being used at first wort for bittering to add a calculated smooth bitterness. Using first year Cascade wet hops, we will not know the alpha and beta, so bitterness calculations will be difficult...and I certainly won't want to build us a "bitter bomb."

So 25 ounces of hops, lets do some hop bursting...here is the plan. In "olden days," the English used Hop Backs to run hot wort through leaf hops to filter trub from the beer, while still increasing the flavor and aroma of the finished product by extracting essential hop oils. Today, many modern breweries use Hop Backs, but in a different form...to optimize hop flavor by running wort or beer through an air tight container to infuse the wort/beer with hop oils.

As all-grain home brewers, we have the ability to use a Hop Back as well, by using our mash tun. Most mast tuns have either a finely slotted steel or plastic manifold at the bottom of the container, or a slotted false bottom. By adding leaf hops (instead of malted barley), and running wort into the container, we can obtain the hop oils in a manner that will not boil off the essential oils (such as the boil). I will suggest the container be covered as the wort will still be near boiling (below) and some oils will evaporate and try to leave the container...smelling awesome but not really helping the final flavor/aroma of the beer. Finally, using the manifold or false bottom and a valve, we will remove the newly oiled wort from the hops, chill through a counter-flow chiller, and place into the fermenter. My guess is that I will find significantly less trub than a typical batch due to the filtering of the wet hop cones.

Now...to the recipe.  Feel free to contact me on Twitter @ihackbeer. I will hopefully post pictures and updates as necessary.  Cheers!

Wet Hop Harvest Ale 2014 (5 Gallon)

American Pale Ale (10 A)

Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 6.00 gal
Boil Size: 9.28 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
End of Boil Vol: 7.28 gal
Final Bottling Vol: 5.25 gal
Fermentation: Ale, Single Stage

Date: 17 Aug 2014
Brewer: Karl D. Larson
Equipment: Stainless Kegs (10 Gal/37.8 L) - All Grain
Efficiency: 77.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 89.8 %
Taste Rating: 30.0

Taste Notes:

Ingredients

Amt	Name	Type	#	%/IBU
10 lbs	Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)	Grain	1	87.0 %
12.0 oz	Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM)	Grain	2	6.5 %
12.0 oz	Victory Malt (25.0 SRM)	Grain	3	6.5 %
0.90 oz	Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min	Hop	4	37.2 IBUs
1.00 Items	Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins)	Fining	5	-
1.0 pkg	California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) [35.49 ml]	Yeast	6	-

Gravity, Alcohol Content and Color

Est Original Gravity: 1.053 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.012 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.5 %
Bitterness: 37.2 IBUs
Est Color: 5.4 SRM

Measured Original Gravity: 1.053 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Actual Alcohol by Vol: 5.6 %
Calories: 175.5 kcal/12oz

Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out
Sparge Water: 6.58 gal
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE

Total Grain Weight: 11 lbs 8.0 oz
Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Tun Temperature: 72.0 F
Mash PH: 5.20

Mash Steps

Name	Description	Step Temperature	Step Time
Mash In	Add 20.33 qt of water at 160.2 F	152.0 F	75 min

Sparge: Fly sparge with 6.58 gal water at 168.0 F

Mash Notes: Simple single infusion mash for use with most modern well modified grains (about 95% of the time).

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