JS Golden Ale Clone

[Anna]

Guys, you just have to try this recipe. It's simple to make and tastes fantastic. I have just sampled a bottle with only 6 weeks bottle age and not my usual 3 months bottle aging and it is absolutely great.

Recipe is:

1 can Coopers Pale Ale
1kg LDME
15gm Amarillo for 15 min
15gm Amarillo at 5 min
15gm Amarillo at flame out
15gm Amarillo dry hopped

Brought 4 litres of water to boil, dissolved LDME. added hop additions as per above. allowed to cool than added to fermenter. Topped up to 22 litres. Pitched with US05 yeast.

Wassa - how much of the LDME did you add to the boil for the hops? I read on another thread that you should only use enough to give the same SG as the final brew for optimum hop utilisation? eg. If making to 22L, with about 2 kgs fermentable (very roughly), then in 4L you would add only about 400 gm of LDME. ( know these calcs are rough but it's just an example). Or did you use the whole 1kg of LDME? Anna

[Wassa]

Anna,

Used the whole kilo. I know that ythey say try to be within the range of the OG, but I didn't have a big enough boiler.

Wassa

[Anna]

Hi Wassa!

I made this one yesterday and used 1/3 of the LWE tin (approx. 500 gm) in 5L of boiling water, then added the rest plus the can of goop at flameout. Just fitted into my big pasta boiler. (I did have a slight boilover just before I added the first lot of hops - you can't turn your back for a second eh? Hell it goes quick! Only lost a 100 ml or so though.) That's a bit of a rough calc. I know, but near enough's good enough for me! Had a bit of a hassle trying not to aerate the wort when pouring into the fermenter, although I did cool it down as much as I had the patience for.

Haven't tried this one before but I was quite excited to find the recipe, as it's my favourite beer! Dying to try it.

[Wassa]

Let me know how you like this one.

Wassa

[Anna]

Tastes fantastic so far (after 3 days fermentation). Very pineappley. I'm a bit worried about it though - doesn't seem to be fermenting very actively. It's gone from 1.042 OG to 1.024 so far, so I guess it's OK, but there's no condensation on the lid and not much krausen. Is this normal with US-05? I haven't used that before. Anna

[Planner]

Is this normal with US-05? I haven't used that before. Anna

Anna

My experience with US-05 "sometimes" shows this behavior. I recently did this recipe and Boonies LCPA clone side-by-side. Both were brewed the same day, both fermented in the same big esky (so same temp). The LCPA went crazy with 40-50mm of krausen, while the JSGA slowly bubbled away with just a hint of krausen.

Planner

[Anna]

Wonder if it's anything to do with either the different hops or fermentables? How different were the two brews? Anna

[ozcah]

Hiya,

I've tried this recipe with a couple of small changes.
1 Coopers Lager Kit
1kg Wheat Dry malt extract
125g LDME (I had it lying around and need to put it to good use)
15g amarillo at 20 mins
15g amarillo at 5 minutes
15g amarillo at flame out
15g amarillo dry hopped.
American Ale yeast I got from Craft Brewer.

Topped up to 23L and poured all the boiled hops into the fermenter.
Dry hopped about 4-5 days later.

Bottle after three weeks and couldn't wait much longer than the standard two weeks to try it.

LIghtly carbonated, though I am putting that down to the hot weather I had during fermentation, couldn't control the termperature as much as I liked. I had hoped to time things well then the unexpected heat wave hits Adelaide. So I think this may have hurt the yeast when it comes to carbonation, not bad carbonation actually but I was expecting a little more fizz.

Very hoppy, which is what I expected. I think I'll leave it for another month to let the hops mellow some more but it did taste very good.
Should be a winner.

I once made an American Pale using a very similar recipe from the Jovial Monk, here in Adelaide, and this tastes very similar.

Quick question, the 5 minute hop addtion - what does that do?
Could we drop it?

The 20 minute adds flavour and maybe some bitterness. My understanding anything over 40 minutes adds bitterness.
The flame out flavour and some aroma.
The dry hop is purely for aroma.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Catchya
Osc

[Planner]

Wonder if it's anything to do with either the different hops or fermentables? How different were the two brews? Anna

Anna

The 2 brews were different (as different as K&B can be)
LCPA - Boonies, used LDME with cascade, chinook & cluster. (should be ready for a sneaky sample this weekend can't wait)
JSGA - DrS, used WDME (which I believe is 75% LDME) with amarillo. (also ready this weekend but not as urgent as I still have a few from previous batches)

I have done DrS JSGA a few times now, each time with US-05. Each packet seems to have a mind of its own as to how vigorous it ferments, maybe yeast handling plays a role before the LHBS gets their hands on it. I don't buy yeast in bulk, so it's possible they come from different batches.

Maybe slightly different pitch temp is to blame, I only use the stick on thermometers. (I have 4 of these stickons in the frog tank, and they all read different temps. I'm sure there isn't that range of weather in a 500l glass tank). So it may be my pitching temp of 23deg might vary between fermenters.

Not much help with your predicament, just observations I have found.

Planner

[Anna]

Hmmmm.... Interesting. Did a bit of a Google today on US-05 and comments seem to vary between how fast and active it is and how slow and inactive it is! That's why I was wondering whether the other ingredients might affect the speed it works at (we need the Doc to comment on that I think!). I did buy mine from the LHBS and noticed that it wasn't kept in the fridge, but the "Best Before" date was OK. According to the Fermentis website: "Store in cool (< 10C/50F), dry conditions." I'm betting the LHBS shelf is nowhere near that cold!

Another thought: I didn't re-hydrate mine like the Fermentis instructions recommend. Did you?

BTW - What does WDME stand for? (I'm assuming it's Dry Wheat Malt) Anna

[warra48]

What does WDME stand for? (I'm assuming it's Dry Wheat Malt) Anna

Yes, you guessed correctly!

[Planner]

Another thought: I didn't re-hydrate mine like the Fermentis instructions recommend. Did you?

Anna

I don't rehydrate yeast, just sprinkle it on top of the wort when filled to final volume.
On the yeast storage issue, both LHBS I buy from store their yeast in the fridge, although only one of them keeps thier hops cool.

Planner

[bullfrog]

Just on the topic of a JSGA clone, I was thinking something to this effect:

1kg Wheat LME
1.5kg Light LME
1kg Dark DME

20g Amarillo @ 30 mins
20g Amarillo @ 20 mins
20g Amarillo @ 10 mins

No idea if the hop schedule will get me close, anybody have any thoughts that? I was also toying with the idea of maybe 300g steeped Crystal and perhaps 200g Dex, but I don't think I need rocket fuel.

[drsmurto]

Just on the topic of a JSGA clone, I was thinking something to this effect:

1kg Wheat LME
1.5kg Light LME
1kg Dark DME

20g Amarillo @ 30 mins
20g Amarillo @ 20 mins
20g Amarillo @ 10 mins

No idea if the hop schedule will get me close, anybody have any thoughts that? I was also toying with the idea of maybe 300g steeped Crystal and perhaps 200g Dex, but I don't think I need rocket fuel.

Dark DME will push you way over the colour.

If you want to clone JSGA wind back the hops.

For a full extract JSGA 'clone' i would go something like this

1.50 kg Pale Liquid Extract (15.8 EBC) Extract 46.88 %
1.50 kg Wheat Liquid Extract (15.8 EBC) Extract 46.88 %
0.20 kg Caramalt (Joe White) (49.3 EBC) Grain 6.25 %
20.00 gm Pride of Ringwood [9.00 %] (60 min) Hops 23.3 IBU
15.00 gm Amarillo [8.60 %] (10 min) Hops 6.1 IBU
15.00 gm Amarillo [8.60 %] (0 min)
US05

This assumes a full size boil. 20L batch. OG 1.047. IBU 29.

I suspect the real deal contains some simple sugars as it finishes quite dry and with extract you cant really achieve this.

If you want to add dex, up the volume to 23L, add 250g of dex to keep the OG the same and up the 60 min addition of POR to 25g to keep the IBU the same.

[Anna]

Tastes fantastic so far (after 3 days fermentation). Very pineappley. I'm a bit worried about it though - doesn't seem to be fermenting very actively. It's gone from 1.042 OG to 1.024 so far, so I guess it's OK, but there's no condensation on the lid and not much krausen. Is this normal with US-05? I haven't used that before. Anna

Haha! Day 4 and we have high krausen! Can't wait!!!

Wassa: I sub'd Wheat Malt Extract for the LDME in your recipe. Anna

[Anna]

Hey Doc! Care to comment on the behaviour of US-05? Anna

[bullfrog]

Dark DME will push you way over the colour.

If you want to clone JSGA wind back the hops.

For a full extract JSGA 'clone' i would go something like this

1.50 kg Pale Liquid Extract (15.8 EBC) Extract 46.88 %
1.50 kg Wheat Liquid Extract (15.8 EBC) Extract 46.88 %
0.20 kg Caramalt (Joe White) (49.3 EBC) Grain 6.25 %
20.00 gm Pride of Ringwood [9.00 %] (60 min) Hops 23.3 IBU
15.00 gm Amarillo [8.60 %] (10 min) Hops 6.1 IBU
15.00 gm Amarillo [8.60 %] (0 min)
US05

This assumes a full size boil. 20L batch. OG 1.047. IBU 29.

I suspect the real deal contains some simple sugars as it finishes quite dry and with extract you cant really achieve this.

If you want to add dex, up the volume to 23L, add 250g of dex to keep the OG the same and up the 60 min addition of POR to 25g to keep the IBU the same.

Oh, I was under the impression that the JSGA was all Amarillo.

I also am a big fan of 30 minute first addition. It generally means that I somewhat hop-burst the rest of the schedule and that it takes a bit longer to balance out in the bottle, but if I kept my times and wound each addition back to 15g, perhaps?

I've also recently become a big fan of mixing light and dark extract, and I don't much care if I over-shoot the EBC. I suppose I'm not really going for a dead-on clone here, but just something that's close enough.

[drsmurto]

No, JSGA isn't all amarillo. They use Superpride to bitter as its high AA% and cheaper than amarillo by a very long way. As a HBer i don't care how much my beer costs me to make so i use all amarillo.

Secondly, JSGA isn't full on amarillo. The recipes listed on this thread will make cracking beers but will have loads more hop flavour and aroma. If you are ok with that then fine. If not, wind back the flavour and aroma hops and adjust the IBU via the 60 min (bittering) addition.

As for the behaviour of US05, I've never had an issues with it Anna. When using a fresh packet i sprinkle, cant recall the last time i re-hydrated it. Lag time of ~4-6 hours. When re-using the yeastcake you always get more krausen action and generally a quicker kick-off but that's more due to healthy, active yeast and over-pitching (if using the entire yeastcake - i use ~ 1 cup). I get my yeast from beerbelly or craftbrewer and they have a good turnover plus the yeast is refrigerated.

[Trough Lolly]

I'm a big fan of Amarillo - and simcoe.

I'm making an APA tonight that bittered with Millenium 14.4% A/A to 52 IBU and then flavoured with Amarillo - it's a nice combination IMHO.

Cheers,
TL