APA Recipe development...

[Sparge Pervert]

Hi,

I've recently moved to a small flat and due to space restraints I'm going to be doing small (2imperial gallon) stove-top brew-in-a-bag brews. I thought this would give me an opportunity to brew more often and start honing in on a house APA. Im going to start off with the following base recipe & then tweak the recipe to make it slighlty darker & more malty, moving towards an amber ale. I dont want to change too many things at once, so was going to keep the hop profile the same.

O.G 1.050
IBUs 32
14.2 SRM

Pale 2 row - 1.00kg (2.2lb)
Munich malt 20L - 0.8kg (1.8lb)
Carared 20L - 0.4kg (1lb)

Cascade 60mins - 20g (0.7oz)
Cascade 10mins - 10g (0.4oz)
Cascade Dry hop - 30g - (1oz)

Yeast: Safale US-05 American Ale yest.

Im not really sure what to vary on the malt bill I would like to make it darker in colour and more malty flavour, but keeeping it as a sessionable ale.
If I want to make this darker should I just add more Caraed, or switch it for a darker crystal malt? Do i want to be looking at keeping the base malts at around 80% of the grain bill?
What if I replaced all of the pale 2 row with munich malt (or just changed the ratio of 2row:munich)?

Also just out of interest, what differences in flavour would I get if I used an english ale yeast instead?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[LocalBrewer]

String, what I would do is add a few oz of Belgian Special B. If you have the opportunity of just tasting the malt you will see it's qualities, nice and sweet with slight toasty bready profiles. It is around 140L and it is a wonderful malt to work with, I pretty much use a small amount in all my beers. This will darken you beer up and keep the og down. If you are going to add the Special B I would cut down on the Cara 20L a bit. If you are going for more maltiness in the beer I would add more munich malt maybe half munich half 2 row. I think you base beer is a perfect starting point. I hope this helps, cheers!

[speed]

and don't change too many things at one time, that way you will know what flavor each ingredient will contribute.

[CRBrewHound]

Just my take by looking it your recipe. That looks a little malty for an APA.

You are building with 36% 20L munich (if using this much I would consider a 10L or drop to no more then 15%)
You are building with 20% Cara Red (consider dropping to 5 or 10%)

I would consider cutting these back to constitute no more then 30% of the bill.
American Pale Ales per style are not that malty, they are designed to focus on Hop flavors and balance the hops with malt.

This is just my opinion though.

[BDawg]

+1 on cutting the CaraRed & Munich down. Also, add about 5% Victory or Biscuit for a bit more malty flavor.

Hops wise, i'd suggest spreading out some of your hops over the last 20 mins of the boil. A nice regimen is start at 20 and add some every 5 mins till flame out. You will develop some awesome flavor and aroma that way.

HTH-

[Sparge Pervert]

You are building with 36% 20L munich (if using this much I would consider a 10L or drop to no more then 15%)

Good point, I quite like munich malt & was hoping it would add a nice subtle flavour to the base malt. Would the 20L be too sweet?

You are building with 20% Cara Red (consider dropping to 5 or 10%)

Would it be best to drop the speciality grains down to 10% and then just play around with different grains in different batches. I guess I'm not really sure what % of the grain bill should be base malt, I like a bit of malty flavour but dont want to end up with it being to thick & sweet.

Bdawg, whats victory like, its about 25L right? So is that less caramilsed, but more toasty than the carared?

When you say spreading the hops out, should I still keep the dry hopping? and just out of interest, will I get more hop aroma from the dry hop compared to adding the same amount at flame out?

I quite like the idea of using Special B. I think I might use this experiment as a way to get to know some of the speciality malts a bit better, using different ones in the same base beer. This might drift out of style to be honest, but I'm not too fussed about that!

Cheers for the advice guys.

[CRBrewHound]

Good point, I quite like munich malt & was hoping it would add a nice subtle flavour to the base malt. Would the 20L be too sweet?

I don't think it would be too sweet as Munich does have enough enzymes for conversion, however, you will get a very big Malty flavor with that much munich in the grist especially with the 20L munich. I think a little too much for the style.

Would it be best to drop the speciality grains down to 10% and then just play around with different grains in different batches. I guess I'm not really sure what % of the grain bill should be base malt, I like a bit of malty flavour but dont want to end up with it being to thick & sweet.

I would, I would start with something like 10% of grist being munich and work my way up from there until I hit the balance I was looking for. It is easier to start with simple tastes then move to more complex then it is to start complex and move to simple as your taste buds have a hard time singleing what is too much in a complex beer. At least I do.