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Galaxy & Cascade Ale

Today's brew is a slight variation on my Nelson & Cascade Ale, this time featuring Galaxy and Cascade to see how those two pair off together. IBUs are little higher due to the Galaxy weighing in at a mighty 15.6% AA and I've skipped the Munich on this one because I didn't want to mask the honey sweetness of the Weyermann Bohemian Pilsner malt too much. This week's user-upper hop addition is 23g of Cashmere at 2 mins.

Brew day

Recipe: Galaxy and Cascade Ale
Date: 9 Nov 2020
Batch Size (fermenter): 24.00 L
Estimated OG: 1.045 SG
Estimated Color: 8.0 EBC
Estimated IBU: 41.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 75.6 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes
Water profile: Ca:63, Mg:11, Na:10, SO4:98, Cl:65

Ingredients:
------------
Amt         Name                                     Type         %/IBU     Volume     
29.70 L     Tesco Ashbeck                            Water        -         -          
2.50 g      Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash)          Water Agent  -         -          
2.00 g      Calcium Chloride (Mash)                  Water Agent  -         -          
2.00 g      Epsom Salt (MgSO4) (Mash)                Water Agent  -         -          
1.90 ml     Lactic Acid (Mash)                       Water Agent  -         -          

4.30 kg     Weyermann Bohemian Pilsner (4.0 EBC)     Grain        90.0 %    2.80 L     
0.48 kg     IREKS Crystal Maple (3.5 EBC)            Grain        10.0 %    0.31 L     

0.50 g      Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Sparge)        Water Agent  -         -          
0.40 g      Calcium Chloride (Sparge)                Water Agent  -         -          
0.40 g      Epsom Salt (MgSO4) (Sparge)              Water Agent  -         -          
0.20 ml     Lactic Acid (Sparge)                     Water Agent  -         -          

12.00 g     Cascade [6.70 %] - Boil 15.0 min         Hop          4.2 IBUs  -          
12.00 g     Galaxy [15.60 %] - Boil 15.0 min         Hop          10.7 IBUs -          
16.00 g     Cascade [6.70 %] - Boil 10.0 min         Hop          4.1 IBUs  -          
16.00 g     Galaxy [15.60 %] - Boil 10.0 min         Hop          10.4 IBUs -          
1.00 Items  Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 7.0 mins)         Fining       -         -          
22.00 g     Cascade [6.70 %] - Boil 5.0 min          Hop          3.1 IBUs  -          
22.00 g     Galaxy [15.60 %] - Boil 5.0 min          Hop          7.9 IBUs  -          
23.00 g     Cashmere [7.00 %] - Boil 2.0 min         Hop          1.6 IBUs  -          

1.0 pkg     Vermont Ale (Yeast Bay #-)               Yeast        -         -

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 4.80 kg
----------------------------
Name      Description                      Step Temperature   Step Time  
Mash In   Add 24.70 L of water at 69.4 C   66.0 C             60 min     

Sparge: Dunk sparge with 5 L of water at 75 C

Nothing exciting to report on the brew day itself. I started at 06:15 and was all washed up by 11:30. 24 litres of wort at an OG of 1.046 were collected and the brew fridge got it down from 24 to 20 in about 4 hours. The 1 litre starter of Vermont Ale yeast was pitched at 16:00.

This should be lager-like in appearance with lots of tropical fruity goodness from those hops. I'm predicting an ABV of between 4.9 and 5.1%.

Fermentation

Pitched starter late Sunday afternoon. Rapid fermentation by Monday morning. Extreme fermentation during late Monday/Tuesday. Not bubbles, more a continuous stream of gas. Much slower on Wednesday. Absolutely no activity through the blowoff tube Thursday morning.

This could be the fastest fermentation I've seen yet from WLP4000. Looking at my notes back in 2018 it visibly finished in 5 days and was kegged in 10, drinking at 17. That was from a new pack and they're supposed to get better with a couple of re-uses (this is #4).

Kegging

I mentioned earlier on that I was a little concerned because the WLP4000 Vermont yeast appeared to go mad like a half-starved crazy thing for 3 days then stop dead after day 4. My schedule is to leave the fermenter sealed for 2 weeks and then take an FG reading while kegging so I just left it, hoping that everything was OK.

I needn't have worried. It finished at 1.007, squarely in the range of just about everything I brew. There was even a small krausen stain on the inside of the fermenter lid when I removed it and I've never seen that before (the fermenter is a broad 33 litres and I fill with 24 litres of wort). Clearly at reuse #4 the WLP4000 is reaching the peak of its vitality.

It's almost a shame that there are no more overbuilds of this one to come but I'm moving on to a different style next that mandates a new yeast.

So there we have it, 1.007 for an ABV of 5.1%. The unconditioned beer tasted good and I got one keg and 3 left over bottles out of it. The keg was fined with Kwik-clear, purged 5 times with 15psi and set at around 12-psi-ish for carbonation and conditioning at the keezer temperature of 12C.

Tasting notes

Sadly I didn't take a photograph of this one but my Beersmith notes are telling me that I got all the expected melon, grapefruit and other tropical fruit flavours that I'd expect. It was a good APA but there are other hop combinations that I prefer.