Basmati Pale Ale

Description:

We originally formulated this recipe because the Shade Tree Brewery (a.k.a Paul’s driveway) was prone to producing deep, flavorful, chewy brews. Our friends “who don’t like beer” seemed to shy away from our keg and crack open a Coors Light instead. The solution – brew a rice beer for them.

Unexpectibly, we stumbled across a beer that tastes good to us too. I’d like to share the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 25 lb. Domestic Pale malt
• 1.5 lb. Carapils
• 1 lb. Flaked Maize
• 6 lb Basmati rice
• 1 Hindi aphorism
• 2 lb. Honey
• 2 oz 5.3% Stryian Goldings 60 min
• 2 oz 5.3% Stryian Goldings 30 min
• 1 oz 3.3% Saaz 15 min
• 1 oz 5.3% Stryian Goldings 5 min
• 1 oz 3.3% Saaz 0
• Wyeast Irish and German ale yeast

Procedure:

Before the mash, the rice was cooked for about 20 minutes in a larger than normal amount of water – a sort of soupy texture. This prevented Paul’s housemates from raiding the rice for lunch.

Single infusion mash at 152F, sparged to 16 gallons of wort.

About midway through the boil, invoke the Hindi aphorism, thumb your nose in the general direction of Munich, and say “Nicht Reinheitsgebot”.

The OG of the wort was 1.078.

Yeasts used were stepped up Wyeast strains : Irish and German ale (I forget the numbers). Three batches had German, one had Irish.

The remaining 14.5 gallons left at the end of the boil was split evenly into 4 glass carboys for fermentation. 3/4 to 1.5 gallons of water was added to each primary to dilute down a random amount, insuring that we won’t be able to exactly duplicate this recipe. The FGs ranged from 1.010 to 1.012.