The club members enjoyed another great brewing session today, this time to recreate one of their favorite recipes, Yuba Gold, a light and refreshing American Pale Ale using only American 2-Row Pale and light Crystal malted barley (no sugar adjuncts other than for bottle carbonation). Amarillo Gold and Centennial hops give a citrusy, floral taste and aroma for this well balanced beer. Something like a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, but with more alcohol and body!.
The first batch brewed earlier this year was well received by friends and club members, so making more of it was a no brainer! This should be ready to enjoy by the middle of May. We’ll be sure to be quaffing lots of this with friends at The River this summer – can’t wait!
With this batch, the mash temperature was lowered to 150 ºF (specified for light-bodied beers) rather than first Yuba Gold batch which was at 153 ºF. Should result in a lighter mouthfeel and dryer finish.
Fermenting wort in cool water bath
Some observations and problems with this brew session:
• Cleaning mash tun suggested that some of the malted barley grains may not have become fully hydrated (maybe 5% of entire mashed grains) and possibly resulted in lower brewing efficiency for this batch (70%; planned for 75%). Next time we’ll make a better effort to be certain that all grains to be mashed are properly hydrated at dough-in. We still hit 1.053 (planned for 1.056) OG and with decent yeast attenuation should get close to 6-6.5% bottled ABV.
• Use of harvested yeast (Nottingham Dry Yeast) from earlier brew session batch failed to start the fermentation process, so we decided to re-pitch a new packet of the Nottingham 20 hours after normal yeast pitch time. The image in this post shows the results 1 day after the second yeast pitching. This will be the last time we’ll make the effort to harvest and reuse yeast unless it’s a for a special-purpose liquid yeast variety that tends to be expensive ($6-$8 per 5-gallon batch) and deemed worth the effort.
• We missed the boil addition of Whirflock (Irish Moss powdered tablets) which is a fining agent that helps to make the finished beer clear itself of protein and other sediments. Hopefully the Nottingham yeast will help to clear the beer during fermentation and maybe a longer secondary time will help, too.
Must say, the Yuba Gold has turned out to be a very enjoyable brew. We let it condition in the bottle for some time, and it really brought out the fall flavor of this wonderful pale ale. With an ABV of 6.5%-7% it has been given the thumbs up by our taste tester friends! Yuba Gold II is sure to be a treat too!