Further ideas for split batches

[stz]

Hello HBT.
I'm planning to brew a pale this weekend. It'll mostly (90%) pale malt, some oat, some wheat, some crystal for 1.060-65. Planning a 2:1 or 1.5:1 chloride to sulphate ratio to test out the theory regarding fruit bomb rather than that very british bitterness. Basically the 2:1 sulphate to chloride industry standard ratio seems great when talking about traditional ales with relatively low bitterness and high malt character.

Thing is when you brew a simple pale with tons of hops the bitterness can be hideous. I want to try emphasising the hop character by throwing in lots of hops instead of bringing up the sulphates and reducing the malt character by reducing the speciality malts, but keeping the chloride up to help balance the bittering. I find a lot of traditional pales which go overboard on new world hops have a hard astringent bitterness which covers up the more subtle flavours and aromas at best, or leaves something on the teeth at worst. Aiming for 50-60IBU from something clean, zeus, magnum, herkules, summit. Flame out addition will be citra, mosaic, galaxy, nelson sauvignon, amerillo, calypso, summer, pick one to four.

Anyway. So that'll be the base beer. 5g is going to get a healthy dry hop of fruity american hops, maybe two additions split. 5g is going to get a some noble finishing hops and some decent earl grey with cornflowers, jasmine, rose petals etc. 5g is going to get some sea salt and bitter cherries.

Would anybody suggest different things to do with the base wort? Generally I like to brew large batches and then split them up to try different things.

 

[stz]

Grain bill is coming together. Don't want it to get too complex with it, but basic idea is some munich for body and character (don't have vienna or else would use that), oat for body and haze, wheat for head retention and subtle tang. Mash medium 65C or so.

78% extra pale malt
8% pale munich
8% naked golden oat
6% wheat malt

On the fence about 3% extra light crystal exchanged for pale malt because I'm wondering if I'll miss it for the body if I mash low.

Bittering will be Summit, Columbus, Zeus, Warrior, Hercules, Magnum, whatever I lay hands on in that order of preference for 40IBU's, approx 65g in this batch depending on AA.

Late hops will be half total at 5 minutes, rest at knock out with brief stand before transfer.

Ahtanum, Cascade, Amarillo, Centennial, Simcoe in order of preference for hop 1 total weight 75g. Mosaic, Simcoe, Galaxy, El Dorado, Calypso in order of preference for hop 2 total weight 75g. Citra, Centennial, Cascade, Nelson Sauvignon in order of preference for hop 3 total weight 75g. Will blend if I feel the need to to preserve the intent.

SG 63-65, FG <13 (though I've no faith in predictions, everything pale ends up <09). 62IBU's, 6SRM.

Beer 1 will get two rounds of dry hopping with more of the same hops at similar weights at 1.5x the ratios for things like citra and 0.5x for things like simcoe and galaxy. Round one a few points off FG, round two on the day before cold crashing for two days before packaging.

Beer 2 is getting a very nice cornflower blue earl grey blend at the rate of 4g/L as a dry hop for 4 days alongside Saaz + Centennial, Saaz + Amarillo, or mandarina bavaria + Hallertauer Mittelfruh + Saaz.

Beer 3 is getting sea salt (like a gram, 50ppm) 500g of bitter cherries and most likely a saison yeast. I'll allow it to ferment outside of the chest freezer I use for fermentation control for the first few days. Might also do a few feeds with some wheat DME to get the wheat up. I'm hoping the cherries get it nice and tangy, if not I might be doing a mini mash, allowing it to sour naturally and then boiling and adding the resulting wort.

I'd be down with suggestions on all of this. Will update as brewing happens and eventually pictures.

 

[stz]

Weighed out today. Decided against the crystal, I'm going to mash at 65C and to hell with it. If I get stressed by it then next time I'll add some dextrine malt.

Ended up with zeus @ 16.82%AA for bittering. Ahtanum, citra and mosaic for late hops.

 

[stz]

Pretty much at the limit for the kettle, boiled 15m longer to make room for the hops and ended up with an SG of 68 as a result. Mash sucked tbh, such a slow run off, blaming the oats and the volume of grain didn't leave much room for actual water. Stuck so often that I gave up after my second vorlauf and ended up with a bunch of flour. Made quite a difference with the amount of trub in the kettle, but leaf hops make a decent filter bed for it. Don't think I got my full volumes as a result though, will have to weigh the FV's later. Room for a slight dilution.