What's Brewing

I wanted to write a quick post about my recent brew. Before vacation I picked up an informative book by Ray Daniels called Designing Great Beers. One main point Daniels brings up early on is the importance of charting a course for the recipe by characterizing the beer you want to make. He lists six steps that I find myself and other brewers doing already, but goes into some great detail. The second part of the book breaks down each style of beer and how to achieve their characteristics. Check it out if you haven't already. Anyway... back to the recipe.

The purpose of this recipe was to clone Maui Brewing Co's Pueo Pale Ale. Since it's only available at the brewpub you'll have to catch a flight to try some. Even more of a reason to clone it... but I can only rely on my memory, taste buds and some useful info from MBC's website:

ABV: 5.5%
IBU: 35

Centennial and Simcoe Hops

This pale ale consists of two row malted barley and a dash of Munich and crystal malts. Centennial and Simcoe hops are used to give a crisp hop bitterness to balance the maly notes.

I remember the beer being lighter in color and sessionable, but still had a great malt backbone. The hops were much more on the nose and flavorful without being overly bitter. It reminded me alot of Stone Levitation. Here's what I came up with:

Style: 10A American Pale Ale
Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Wyeast 1056 (American Ale)
Yeast Starter: 1L
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Target Original Gravity: 1.058 (assuming 75% efficiency)
IBU: 43
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60 minutes
Color: 8.5 SRM
Mash: Single Infusion 154F - Batch Sparge

Grain Bill:
8.5 lb Two Row
1 lb Munich Malt
1 lb Crystal 40L

Hop and Other Addition Schedule:
0.25 oz Centennial (60 min)
0.5 oz Simcoe (30 min)
0.5 oz Centennial (20 min)
2 tsp Irish Moss (20 min)
0.5 oz Simcoe (5 min)
0.5 oz Simcoe (Dry hop 10 days)
0.5 oz Centennial (Dry hop 10 days)

As you can see I went a little hoppier and a tid higher in achohol, but that's more what I was looking for! Here's some crappy iphone pics: