Balter XPA Style Recipe

Date: 9/11/19

Batch Number: 5

Beer: XPA

Extract/Ingredients:

• 1.5kg Light Liquid Malt Extract (LME)
• 0.5kg Light Dry Malt Extract (DME)
• 1.0kg Wheat Dry Malt Extract (DME)
• 0.25kg Wheat Grains

Hops:

• Citra
• Centennial
• Amarillo

Yeast: Fermentis Safale US-05 (dry)
IBU: 33.3
Expected OG: 1.047

Hop Schedule

• 60min - 15g Citra - 13.5%AA - 22.19 IBU
• 10min - 12g Citra - 13.5%AA - 6.41 IBU
• 10min - 12g Centennial - 10%AA - 4.75 IBU
• 0min - 12g Centennial - 10%AA
• 0min - 12g Amarillo - 9%AA
• Dry Hop - 4 days - 10g Citra - 13.5%AA
• Dry Hop - 4 days - 10g Centennial - 10%AA
• Dry Hop - 4 days - 20g Amarillo - 9%AA

(note: Dry Hop - 4 days means adding dry hops 4 days prior to bottling)

Steps

1. Put 10L of tap water into kettle/large pot and bring to the boil (put lid on pot to help it heat up faster)
2. While waiting for the large kettle to boil, add 2L of tap water to a smaller pot/saucepan and heat to 71C
3. Once the small pot reaches 71C, turn off the heat and add the 0.25kg wheat grains to a hop/grain bag then steep it in the smaller pot for 30 mins.  You can dunk/move the grain in the pot like a tea-bag to ensure all the grain is wetted
4. After 30 mins has elapsed, sparge (rinse) the grains with 1L of hot tap water
5. Add all the liquid from the small pot into the large kettle and wait for it to boil (if it hasn't already). Discard the used grain
6. Once the large kettle is boiled - remove from heat and add the 1.5kg light liquid malt extract - whilst stirring in the large pot to help dissolve
7. Return large kettle to heat and wait for it to boil (ensure lid is not on the pot/kettle at this point)
8. Fill the light liquid malt extract container with hot tap water - leave to stand for a couple of minutes to dissolve remaining extract in the container - add contents to large kettle
9. Once the large kettle is boiling, start a 60 minute timer and add the first bittering hops (as per hop schedule below)
10. After 50 minutes (ie. 10 minutes remaining in the boil), add the second set of hops (as per hop schedule below)
11. After 60 minutes has elapsed (ie. 0 minutes remaining in the boil), remove the kettle from the heat and add the final set of hops (as per hop schedule below)
12. Place lid on kettle and allow to stand for 10 minutes
13. After 10 minutes, place kettle in sink of water/ice water to cool (or use other cooling method - eg. immersion chiller)
14. Whilst waiting for the wort to cool, add 5L of cold tap water to the fermenting vessel (FV)
15. Add all the dry malt extracts to the FV and stir to mix/dissolve - be sure to remove any clumps
16. Once the wort in the large pot has cooled to less than 26 degrees, tip all the contents in the FV and stir to mix. You can use a filter/strainer to filter out the trub/large particles from the boil (optional)
17. Top up the FV to 23L with cold tap water - ideal pitching temperature should be 20-24C - stirring constantly to mix and aerate the wort
18. Pitch yeast

Pitched at 24C - moved to fermentation fridge and dropped temperature to 22C
Dropped to 20C after ~18hrs when fermentation was underway

Fermentation Notes

• Fermentation underway within 18 hours
• Set temperature to 20C +- 0.5C
• Fermentation subsiding/slowing by day 3
• Krausen mostly dropped by day 4-5 - still a thin floating layer but not persisting as it has previously with US05 - beer mostly cleared
  
  

Hydrometer Readings

Actual OG: 1041 + 3 points for inaccurate hydrometer (1044)
Day 5: 1006 + 3 points for inaccurate hydrometer (1009)
Day 9: 1006 + 3 points for inaccurate hydrometer (1009)
Day 13: 1006 + 3 points for inaccurate hydrometer (1009)
ABV: (1041 - 1006) / 7.46 + 0.5 = 5.19%
Bottled Day 13 with carbonation drops (1 drop per 375ml)

Tasting Notes

• First taste before pitching yeast (when taking OG sample) - quite bitter - hopefully didn't go overboard with the bittering hops
• Tasted on day 5 (of fermentation) - bittering quite pronounced but a definitely sweet undertone but may not be enough to balance it out. May need dry hopping but haven't attempted this yet. Recipe calls for dry hopping (as per link below)
• Tasted on day 9 (of fermentation) - bittering has subsided a little and hop flavour much more pronounced - much more balanced. No noticeable off flavours
• Tasted on day 13 (of fermentation) when bottling - balance seems good - dry hopping has given it a nice fruity punch - very interested to see how this develops once carbed and cold
• Tasted after just 1 week of bottling and this is hands down the best beer I've made. Has zero off flavours, and has an excellent balance of bitterness and flavour from the other hops. Wouldn't change anything if I were to brew it again. Credit to homebrew-recipes.com (link under Source below) for creating such a great and accurate recipe!
  
  

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