Smooth Valley Brewing

Brewed 27 Sep 2016 | Bottled 9 Oct 2016 | Yield 19 L / 4.9% (11.3°P → 2.0°P)

I liked Sheepgoat, but it was (unsurprisingly) a little caramel-malty (due to the Münchner malt), and the hops also weren’t quite what I was going for. I did want to keep the name though. So in the spirit of completely uncontrolled experimentation, I dropped the Münchner, added a little light wheat malt, and switched to a simpler, lower temperature malt program to make the result more fermentable.

Grain Bill

• 3900g Pale Ale malt (7 EBC)
• 350g Light Wheat malt (4 EBC)
• 270g Caramünch 2 (120 EBC)
• 100g Carapils (5 EBC)
• 80g Acid Malt (5 EBC)

Mash

I used an English-style (“absteigend”) single-temperature mash program for this brew: 20L of water at 64°C for 75 minutes, sparged with 9L at 78°C, two liters at a time. Mashing out took about 50 minutes.

Boil

I boiled the wort for five minutes before adding the first hops, then added hops as follows:

• Bittering: 60 min 25g 13.3% Pacific Jade
• Flavor: 30 min 10g 13.2% Citra
• Flavor: 30 min 10g 11.9% Chinook
• Aroma: 2 min 15g 13.2% Citra
• Aroma: 2 min 10g 11.9% Chinook
• Aroma: 2 min 10g 13.3% Pacific Jade

Pitching and Fermentation

Cooling to 24°C with an immersion cooler took 45 minutes. Initial gravity was 11.3°P. I pitched Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale; enthusiastic fermentation started after about 36 hours, and lasted five days. Final gravity was 2.0°P, for 4.9% ABV.

Bottling

I bottled a total yield of 19L after twelve days in the fermenter, adding 120g light DME dissolved in 300mL water to the bottling bucket for priming.

How is it, then?

After cellaring for a month at around 17°C, the new Sheepgoat is an extremely drinkable pale ale. The Citra and Chinook flavor and aroma hops lend it a very American IPA character, while the malted wheat rounds out the malt flavor a bit. I was convinced enough by it to run it again with a minor tweak to the mash program.