Batch 20

Batch 20 was celebrated as a clone of Dugges “Avenyn ale” that I personally enjoy, it’s simple yet delicious. Well balanced body with citrus and fruity notes makes it perfect for a sunny day, and the lower ABV at 5.0% excuses to drink one more. Unfortunately my batch fermented a bit too well, making ABV go all the way to 5.6% instead of the targeted 5.0%. It’s OK but I’d enjoy a lower number for my beer.

Overall the brewing day went well and I actually didn’t use my hop spider this time despite the big hops additions but it was with good intentions. I’ve read on so many places that the hops extraction suffers from being trapped in the hop spider and I didn’t want less flavor, but more. So I through the hops freely right in the kettle and I tested hop stand for the first time, meaning I add the last hops addition right when the boil is done and let the kettle sit turned off and then wait 20 minutes while the wort naturally cools itself. After the 20 minutes I start cooling it and proceed like normal. Some make the hop stand at different temperatures, perhaps 85 Celsius is the most common, and maybe I’ll try that another time. The idea is that the perceived bitterness is easier, or gentler if hop oils are extracted at lower temperatures unlike when they’re boiled. So in my case, I’m guessing I more or less could’ve just boiled my hop stand addition but I’m not sure the differences can be perceived but I’ll try hop stand at 85 Celsius in the future for sure. Another question one might ask themselves regarding this topic is, why not just add the hops to the fermenter directly after cooling? Good question! Unfortunately I’ve no answer for you, but the apparent difference is that you remove the hops after 20 minutes compared to a very early dry hopping, keeping the hops in the fermenter for days or weeks.

The beer turned out very tasty and I’d like to make my own APA recipe, if not I can see myself brewing this recipe again. For this cloning I didn’t buy an original sample to compare them side by side, I’m sure this can be fun to see how well I did but I’m not cloning to make it a copy of the original but following recipes that I know should taste good, if I don’t mess it up too badly of course. So, even if it could be fun doing in the future, I don’t see the point right now. It’s very tricky to clone as well as there’s so many differences; water, equipment, malts and hops suppliers and skills (duh).