My Take on the Rye Pale Ale
January 28th, 2013
Mad Hops
My rye pale ale is merrily bubbling away in its secondary fermentation and I'm very excited for this batch. I've attempted to mimic my two favorite hopped-up rye pale ales: Founder's Red's Rye and Bear Republic's Hop Rod Rye. Time will tell if I've come anywhere close, but I've dry-hopped with a hefty amount of Cascade hops and I threw in an extra pound of DME (dry malt extract) during the boil to bump up the booze. It looks like I may actually hit my target of 7% ABV.
This was actually my first experience with dry hopping. I didn't leave quite enough headroom in the carboy for the hop pellets to expand (I had no clue they'd puff up so much!) and I had my first airlock overflow. Fortunately I caught the overflow before it made too big a mess and I was able to clean out the airlock and keep everything tidy and controlled (hopefully). I don't look forward to waiting 6 more weeks for my first taste of this bad boy, but in the meantime I'll enjoy the delicious smell wafting out of the airlock.
