Amarillo Pale Ale

I have about 2 lbs of Amarillo hops from the 2008 crop and I absolutely love the smell and taste it gives in a beer. So I wanted to make a Pale Ale from nothing but Amarillo. It has a high enough alpha acid to act as a bittering hop but then also has the ability to add to the aroma. So we will see how this turns out. Amarillo has a nice crusty and citrus smell, which some have said to be more like an orange. I am going to try and re-use my yeast from the Chocolate Rye Porter on this one to see how that works out as well. With aroma additions at 30,25,20,15,10,5 and KO it really should come out nice. The last APA I made was great, the bad thing is that the hops dropped out of it after a month. I am hoping that upping the IBU could will make this beer last a bit longer.

Amarillo Imperial Pale Ale

Malt:

9.5 lbs: American Two-Row

.5 lbs: Belgian Biscuit Malt

.5lbs: American Crystal 20L

.5lbs: Cara-Pils

.5lbs: Honey Malt

Hops:

1.25oz: Amarillo 8.0aa FWH

1oz: Amarillo 8.0aa 60m

.5oz: Amarillo 8.0aa 45m

.5oz: Amarillo 8.0aa 30m

.5oz Amarillo 8.0aa 25m

.5oz: Amarillo 8.0aa 20m

.5oz Amarillo 8.0aa 15m

.5oz: Amarillo 8.0aa 10m

.5oz: Amarillo 8.0aa 5m

.5oz Amarillo 8.0aa KO

1.5oz: Amarillo 8.0aa DH (2 days)

1oz: Amarillo 8.0aa DH (4 days)

Yeast:

Wyeast British Cask Ale (1026)/Nottingham Dry Yeast

Target OG: 1.057

Target FG: 1.014

Target ABV: 5.7%

IBU: ~62

Actual OG: 1.052
Actual FG: 1.012
ABV: 5.4%
Apparent Attenuation: 76.1

Hopville Recipe

Update 3.6.2009: Brew day, I decided to add another .25 lbs of Carapils and .5lbs of honey malt. Gravity ended up being 1.052 so I missed it by a few points but I will take it. I tried a new method of mashing today and I might have to perfect it. Basically I started to do a mash out @ 168-169 degrees before gathering my 1st runnings, then doing a batch sparge. I'll try it a few more time before giving up on it. Anyway I will pitch the yeast and see how it starts fermenting.

Update 3.16.2009: Racked to secondary and added 1.5oz of Amarillo hops gravity is now at 1.012-1.013 which is 5.4% ABV and 76.1AA. The Wyeast 1026 never kicked in, so I pitched some Nottingham which kicked in and fermented like crazy and it seems to do a great job. I am beginning to wonder why I pay extra for 1056 or WLP001 when dry yeast will do just as good or better job of fermenting and gives the same flavors and texture to the beer. I will add 1 more oz of Amarillo in 2 days and then bottle next week.

Update 3.19.2009: Added another 1.5oz of Amarillo hops to dry hop till Sunday/Monday then I will bottle.

Update 3.22.2009: Bottled tonight, in 2 weeks we will see how the beer turned out.