Sierra Nevada Pale Ale Clone - All Grain Recipe

[wedwards]

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale Clone - All Grain Recipe

Batch size - 23L

Est original Gravity : 1.053
Est final Gravity : 1.013

Hops
14g - Magnum [14.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min
14g - Perle [8.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min
28g - Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min
56g - Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 0 min

Malt

430gm - Caramel/Crystal - 60L
5.6kg - Pale 2 row

Yeast

American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) or White Labs California Ale (WLP001)

PROCESS

This is hard to say as I use a 50L braumeister. Ive converted the recipe to use a cooler as a mash tun (if you are using something different let me know).

Mash

Mash in - add 15.6L water at 75.6 degrees C
Add crushed malt and mash for 90 min (temp should be around 66.7)
Sparge with 20L of water at 75.6 degrees C

Boil

Add water to achieve boil volume of 28.60L
Estimated pre-boil gravity 1.051 SG
Add hops per the times above - note that I exclusively do no-chill, so when it says to put hops in at 0 mins, I usually just put them in my cube and the hot wort gets dumped in there. You get more bang for buck doing it that way instead of doing it in your kettle.

NOTES


Cant remember where I got this recipe that I started with, but the guy who originally published it online was living in japan at the time and had some email assistance/correspondence with the head brewer at Sierra Nevada, and anyone who made this reckons its spot on - first time I have made it so can't comment yet, but its fermenting nicely at the moment :)

This recipe should give you a nice mildly hoppy beer at around 5.8% before bottling/kegging (when I say mildly hoppy, IPAs are my favourite beer style, so this isn't very hoppy to me but might be to the generic mass-produced beer lovers). I bumped up the pale malt slightly to keep the ABV up as I will be kegging this as my generic summer pale ale, but you can probably drop a half kilo of the pale malt and end up somewhere around 5% after fermentation to get a 5.5% beer after bottling if you wanted.

If you don't already do no-chill - get on it (I have 17 and 25L cubes from super cheap but there are other places to get them). Its WAY faster than normal and allows you to do a couple extra batches on brew day from my experience, then you just ferment whenever you want. Ive got cubes with wort in them that are over 12 months old and still good.

Hopefully thats enough info to get you going - let me know if any queries or issues etc. Im usually brewing beers 12 months in advance now, especially for things like big stouts and stuff that need time to bottle condition. Have a really good russian imperial stout recipe (yeti clone), but it takes 6 months to condition (although does taste really good straight out of the gate). Recently did a 250IBU IPA (pliny the elder clone), just to see if we could. Had approx 1kg of hops in it but was expensive to make - just did this one to see whether you could taste difference between 100 and 250 IBU (we decided you can't taste much difference over 100 IBU, so will re-make it but will drop at least half the hops next time). If you like mad stuff like that, let me know - happy to share whatever recipes I have.

[bt1]

thanks wed,

really precise...appreciate the efforts here...

It's defintely on my list...
Are you in the mood to tackle a Mountain Goat IPA by any chance? :D

again thanks
bt1

[wedwards]

Which mountain goat IPA are we talking about? They do a bunch of different year to year releases that are considered IPAs, or just their standard one?

[Maxttt]

This looks like the recipe from BYO mag. It is the benchmark APA, tasty.
Have to say I prefer to chill. Especially as the set up is there to recirc water for the still. Pitch early, that's my motto! (but no chill still produces good ales...not sold on lagers)

[wedwards]

Maybe they stole it from one of the brewing forums, dunno....that's where I found it

[cdbrown]

So wed have those hopping rates/times already been adjusted for the impact no chill causes to bitterness, aroma and hop flavour? I really like the SNPA and looking at brewing one once I done an altbier. Might up the hops a little to more IPA style.

[bt1]

Hello wed,

CD raises a good point bout to give this baby a run this weekend...bit timid on the magnum @14%... being a softer beer drinker ...your thoughts?

bt1

[BackyardBrewer]

I have an excel spreadsheet for cloning beers from kits and bits if anyone is interested - you can piss that all grain shit off and save it for your whisky:-)

[bt1]

yes please...

In fact if I recall you where short of 1/4"/6.37mm copper for aeration legs for kegs and mason jars...swap ya

bt1

[wedwards]

I like mad hops so I leave them all as is - you could back it off to account for no chill but I don't bother. There must be a calculator for doing that somehow.

And I know you can do kits and bits but I'm too stupid and tried it for a while and hated my beer yet with all grain I have never disliked anything I've made yet. Each to their own I guess - apparently it's possible to make kit beer as good as all grain but I've never tasted anything good enough (read great awesome etc) even from those who are experts at that style. As I said, must be too stupid to brew in that manner or something.

[cdbrown]

I've done some further searching and that's pretty much the recipe when chilling. A lot of posts say that after flame out leave the wort for 30mins before chilling.

The overall bitterness is quite low - 36IBU - so don't worry about that magnum at the start of the boil, you won't notice it with all the cascade at the end throwing up lots of grapefruit and citrus mmmm. I'll be doing mine in a few weeks, double batch with about 120g cascade thrown in at flame out. Upping the grains as well to get it over 6%abv making it more an IPA.

[wedwards]

Awesome feedback - let us know how it goes and what you think of it. I have a batch that should be ready to bottle on Sunday - can't wait