Brew Day: Mild Pale Ale

Like most home brewers, I too started out with extract and I have a bit of it left over. One of the best things about an extract recipe is that most of the times, I hit the required original gravity with ease. I do not have to worry about the efficiency since there’s no grains involved. I do not have to worry about sparging. And I do not have to worry about maintaining temperature.

Over a period of time, home brewers will move away from extract and go all grain. They all swear, and I do too, that once you go all grain, there’s no going back. There’s this thing about all grain that makes it worth the time and the effort because at the end of the process you get a great beer. Please do not see this as an attempt to diss extract brewers. There are some extract brewers who make amazing beers and can even stand up to the very best all grain ones.

What I intend to say here is that I too have quite a bit of extract left over from my initial days and I don’t think I will forsake extract brewing completely. I formulated a very simple pale ale recipe (yes, another pale ale) which involved steeping some base malts, late addition of extract and then boiling for a full 45 minutes. Experienced brewers would raise their eyebrows when they read ‘steeping some base malts’, because usually steeping is carried out for specialty, crystal or roasted malts. But then I didn’t really look at what I was getting into and steeped the base malts anyway.

Mild Pale Ale (Tasting Notes here)

Specifics

Batch size (litres): 8 litres
Type: Extract with Grains

IBU: 22

SRM: 16

OG: 1.055

Grains and Sugars

155 grams Pale Ale
155 grams 2-Row
1 kg DME
 - 500 grams added at the start of boil
 - 500 grams at flame out

Hops

8 grams Cascade @ 45 min.

Yeast

Fermentis S-04 Ale Yeast

Schedules

Mash base malts at 66°C for 60 minutes.

Boiled for 45 minutes.