Sweetwater 420

[siwelwerd]

When I was in Florida a few weeks ago, I stopped by the Piggly Wiggly and picked up a six pack of Sweetwater 420. They label it as an "Extra Pale Ale", which I guess just means a pale colored APA. What struck me about this beer was the soft, bready malt character that I attribute to Vienna malt. How much of this will I need to add for that character to come through? I'm thinking of brewing something like this:


Austrian Pale Ale
10 lbs 2 row
1.5 lbs Vienna
0.5 lbs Munich
0.5 lbs Wheat malt
0.5 lbs Crystal 15

1.5 oz Cascade @60
0.5 oz Cascade, 0.5 oz Centennial @ 10
0.5 oz Cascade, 0.5 oz Centennial @ 0
1 oz Cascade, 1 oz Centennial dry

WLP 001

For something like an OG of 1.057 at 42 IBU.

Will this get me in the ballpark of what I'm looking for, or should I be doing something different with my malt bill?

[bmock]

Hey Drew,

There was a guy that listed a clone on Homebrew Talk that used this.

7 1/2 Pounds - Pale Malt American 2-row, ( 1.036 - 2L ) - 65.2%
1 1/2 Pounds - Light Munich Malt ( 1.033 - 10L ) - 13%
1 1/2 Pounds - Vienna Malt ( 1.035 - 4L ) - 13%
1/2 Pound - CaraAroma ( 1.036 - 25L ) - 4.3%
1/2 Pounds - Cara-Pils Dextrine Malt ( 1.033 2-L ) # .5 - 4.3%

1 ounce Cascade ( 5.75% Alpha ) @ 60 minutes
1.5 ounce Cascade ( 5.75% Alpha ) @ 30 minutes
.5 ounce Cascade ( 5.75% Alpha ) @ 5 minutes

But another said the Sweetwater site listed the grain and hops as this (no amounts).

Malts: 2 Row, Munich, Carastan 30-37

Hops: Centenial, Cascade

Basically, I think your recipe is going to be very close, but you might sub Carastan for your Crystal 15 since it might give you more of the English bread flavors.

[siwelwerd]

Yeah, I found that clone recipe. Seems heavy on the Munich, and the Carapils doesn't strike me as something needed in an APA. I can't find any helpful info on the current Sweetwater website.

I've got to run out to St. Louis Wine & Beer to grab the yeast for this, do you know if they carry Carastan? If so, I might give that a try.

[bmock]

They have a habit of substituting a lot of grains for others. I mean they have a tendency to sub American Crystals for a lot of Euro specialties and other sillyness, so I'd make sure they have real Carastan if that's what you want and not just Crystal 40.

[OldTree]

I think you might be looking for English pale malt for your base malt.

Augie

[siwelwerd]

Turns out they only had American crystal, so I'll have to wait to brew this until I get some Carastan from Kent. I think I might stick with American two row on my first attempt to try and use up some of this free stuff from Schlafly. If that doesn't do it, I'll try some Maris Otter for the next one.

[RobertHSmith]

SW 420 was one of my favorites when my wife and I were living in GA still. I would love to try this when it is finished.

For the carastan malt, I found this, not sure if you'll go this way though...
http://www.beertools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=20193

[RobertHSmith]

having been inspired by this post, I may brew this on this Sat instead of the one I was orginally planning on brewing:

This is what I would do for a clone , 5.5 gal

7.5 lbs 2 row
1.5 lbs munich
8 oz c20
7 oz c40
1 oz c120

.5 oz Centennial @ 60 min
1 oz Cascade @ 30 min
.5 oz Centennial, .5 oz Cascade @ 5 min

OG should be around 1.054, ABV 5.3%, ~37 IBU, 7 SRM

American Ale yeast, 1056, WLP001, or s05

[RobertHSmith]

I found this link this morning, not sure why google didn't bring it up yesterday, it has most of the information you would need to design a good clone:

http://www.behindthebeer.com/5x5sweetwater

[siwelwerd]

Hey Robert, did you brew this this weekend? Did you use that exact recipe above?

[RobertHSmith]

Thanks to Dale for giving me some grain to be later traded for a couple bottles of beer, I did brew, I changed the hops around a little once I got home and used the following recipe..

Code: Select all

5.5 Gal. recipe/ 83% efficency assumed
-------------------------------------------------
7 lbs 8 oz Two Row
1 lbs 8 oz Munich - 8-10L
0 lbs 8 oz Crystal 20
0 lbs 7 oz Crystal 40
0 lbs 1 oz Bairds Extra Dark British Crystal 135L

Hops:
-------------------------------------------------
60 min - 0.50 oz Centannial (8.7%)
30 min - 1.25 oz Cascade (4.6%)
 5 min - 0.5 oz Centennial (8.7%) and 0.5 oz Cascade (4.6%)

Yeast:
-------------------------------------------------
2L Starter of 2nd gen. Wyeast 1056

Anticipated OG: 1.054
Anticapated FG: 1.014

7 SRM, 37.3 IBU, 5.3% abv, 4.1% abw

Batch Sparged: Batch 1, 5 gal @ 155degF, Batch 2 3.5gal at 169F for 10 min

After boiling I had around 6 gallons of wort, I collected about 7.25 gal. OG was 1.054 per the hydrometer after the boil, 14.5 brix per the refractometer.

It is currently happily bubbling away with a blow off tube in my 66 deg F temp. controlled downstairs bathroom.

Not sure if I'll dry hop this or not.

[siwelwerd]

I ordered some Carastan today. I'll brew something very similar to yours in a couple weeks, but with Vienna instead of Munich. Hopefully it will be ready for the March meeting. You think you'll have some left then to compare?

[RobertHSmith]

I may have some at the Feburary meeting and if I don't, I'll still have some at the March meeting.

[ericburnley]

FWIW, I've done a simple 5 gal Belgian Pale Ale with 1.5# of Vienna that had that nice toasty/bready quality to it. I thought 1.5# was a touch high in that beer, but that could've been because it was competing with the more delicate yeast notes of WY 3522 and it had lighter hopping than an APA would. Considering your late hop amounts, I'd think 1.5# would be good.

[siwelwerd]

Okay, just finished brewing this recipe:

9.5 lbs 2-row
1.5 lbs Vienna
1.0 lb Carastan
0.5 lb Wheat Malt

1.5 oz Cascade @60
0.5 oz Cascade, 0.5 oz Centennial @ 10
0.5 oz Cascade, 0.5 oz Centennial @ 0
1 oz Cascade, 1 oz Centennial dry

WLP 001

Measured OG of 1.060, ~42 IBUs

As long as the fermentation is good, I'll be able to have this at the March meeting.