kicked up American Ale experiment

[Rikkard Von Damage]

Ok so I've been doing a Coopers extract kits in 5 gal batches
and also when I first got a Mr. Beer setup I brewed some pretty good cream stout and brown ale.

A 1.3# can of American Pale Ale comes with the kit.
I had it sitting here doing nothing so I thought I may experiment with it and make test batch of something. So here is what I did.

1.3lb. can American Pale Ale extract
16.oz dry light malt extract
16.oz dry dark malt extract
.40oz German Perle Hops
11.5g. SafeAle S-04

Made starter of 11.5g. SafeAle S-04
1/16t Fermax
1 cup 75f tap
let sit for 1 hour


I boiled 1 gal. tap for 10 minutes
added all the liquid and dry malt
boiled for 20 minutes stirring occasionally
At 20 min in added 2 quarts 60f. tap
brought temp up to 148f.
steeped hops for 13 minutes
removed hops squeezed out excess water ( yah I know it won't happen again)
cooled to 100f. in cold water bath
checked OG 1.072 duh didn't think about the temp of the wort
added additional 2qt. 60f water
rechecked sg 1.040
honestly I don't no what I was thinking but I added
another 16oz. of LME to bring og back to 1.072 @ 71f

put wort into 2.5gal. Mr. Beer
added water to bring to 2.5gal.
Pitched yeast at 70f. Feb. 9
stirred wort to aerate aprox. 5 minutes

checked SG on 2/12/07 1.024 @ 71f (adjusted for temp)
2/15/07 SG 1.022 @ 71f (adjusted for temp)

Now I know that S-04 attenuates about 79% so my figures
are pretty darn close. Problem being it's obviously a bit to sweet.
I would like to bring the SG down to about 1.010 or maybe a bit lower. I have tasted it and it does tasted pretty darn good. A nice slight Hope aroma and flavor. Dark amber color. Slight fruity banana taste from the S-04 I'm thinking.
And an ABV of 8% or so which I don't have a problem with.
Anyway my thinking is, I was going to dry hop with .5oz.
of Cascade and/or Willamette for another week.
Also I figured I would pitch another package of yeast
and bring the SG down to about 1.008-1.010 Then bottle
and let them naturally carbonate at about 70f for two weeks or so.

Will this work or should I just bottle as normal and chalk it
up to lesson learned?

 

[akueck]

Personally I wouldn't bother pitching more yeast. You'll have to use a pretty hefty yeast to get it down 10 more points (79% attenuation is a lot for a beer yeast). Plus with all that extract, esp the dark extract, the sugars you have left might be mostly unfermentable anyway.

Dry hopping is a good idea though. It obviously won't change the sweetness, but the hop aroma might fool you a little and it sounds like a good addition. Cascade and Willamette are both good IMO; you could even use a little of both if you wanted.