Little Hump Spring Ale Clone

[teamcoaster]

Hi all,

I'm a relatively new homebrewer who has spent a heck of a lot of time perusing this site. This site is a treasure trove of useful (and sometimes contradictory) information. I sincerely appreciate the help.

Last spring, I ran across a six pack of Highland Brewery's Little Hump Spring Ale. I loved it but was very disappointed to be unable to secure any more of it. I figured I'd be out of luck until Highland released a new batch but then my newfound obsession, I mean, hobby gave me an idea.

I have a nephew who lives in Asheville, a home brewer with several years of experience, who has told me about his home brew supplier, Asheville Brewers Supply (http://www.ashevillebrewers.com/). He said the owner, Andy, runs a local micro-brewery (French Broad, if memory serves me) and that he is a whiz at creating home brew clone recipes.

So, I took it upon myself to send an email to Andy, asking if he had or could create a recipe for the Little Hump of my dreams. In less than an hour, I had my reply.

I called and had Andy put me a kit together. Given the extremely cold temps, I asked him to substitute DME for LME and added the oz of Cascade for dry hopping. I haven't brewed it yet but thought I'd share it with the group.

Highland Brewing Company's
Little Hump Spring Ale -- Clone

3.3 lb Pilsner syrup

3.3 lb Gold syrup

1 lb grain (.25 C-45, .25 Munich, .25 Vienna, .25 Dextrin)

1 oz Simcoe BOB

1 oz Amarillo EOB

WL California Ale

(optional dry hop with Cascade, but not really necessary, per Andy)

The notes say to steep the grains for 45 minutes to an hour at 155F, boil for an hour, cool, pitch etc.


I hope to brew this recipe this Saturday and will follow up with notes -- and pics if anything unusual happens.

Thanks again for the forum!

Doc

 

[teamcoaster]

Thought I'd update this thread. I spent this morning brewing and bottling beer. This update is for the Little Hump.

I started by steeping the grains in 2 gallons of water for 45 minutes while bringing 3 gallons of water to boil in the brew pot. Temp was 150-55. After steeping, I pulled the grain bag out and let it drain while waiting on the water to boil.

Added 6 pounds DME while off the fire, stirred to mix and brought it back to a boil. That took a lot longer than I expected: 35-40 minutes.

Boiled for 10 minutes before adding the bittering hops (Simcoe). I used pellets and put them in a bag. At the end of the boil (60 minutes total boil) I added the Amarillo flavoring hops.

I used a water bath to lower the temp of the wort to about 130 F. It took 16 lbs of ice to bring things down to 80F. Total cooling time was about 25 minutes.

I didn't do anything special to add oxygen to the cooled wort. I did use the hairnet strainer and splashed 1.5 gallons of cold water to the wort. Gave it a really vigorous stirring before pitching yeast.

I used WL California yeast. Thought about making a starter but didn't have any DME other than what I needed for the wort, so I simply pitched the vial.

Original Gravity: 1.052. Color was darker than I expected but we'll see how things work out. 5.5 gallons in the primary. I use a bucket with 3-piece airlock.

I plan on leaving it in the primary til next weekend, rack to secondary and dry hop with 1/2 oz Cascade buds.

~ Doc