Hoppy Pale with Cleopatra hops

[marc1]

I've got some Cleopatra hops to play with. I'm going to try them out making an extra hoppy pale ale:

6 gallon batch to the fermentor
OG - 1.052
FG - 1.013
IBU (Tinseth) - 55
Water - 8.1 gallons RO + 12.2g gypsum + 1.6mL 88% lactic acid
(Bru'n Water says I'm at 93ppm calcium and 222ppm Sulfate, mash pH 5.4 at room temp)

8# 2-row
1# Munich
1# Wheat malt

Mash at 152F, no sparge BIAB

0.5 oz Magnum 60 min
1 oz Cleopatra 15 min
1 oz Cleopatra 10 min
1 oz Cleopatra 5 min

2 oz Cleopatra dry hop in keg

Yeast - Wyeast 1450 Denny's Favorite
Ferment at 64F, bring it up to 68 after a few days

I've been using the brewing water primer thread for water, this is my first time using a spreadsheet to adjust. It seems like a lot of gypsum to add, but it's actually lower on sulfate than the pale ale profile suggests. How does the water look?

 

[saltymirv]

Water looks solid, I usually add some epsom (MgSO4) along with the gypsum, but that's ok without it. You'll likely find that the gypsum won't fully dissolve when you add it. I imagine it fully dissolves once you add the grains in.

Are you sure you need 8.1 gallons of water for a no-sparge? I usually only need 7.0 and that's with a 60 min boil.

Recipe otherwise looks good. I'm not familiar with that hop so I hope it turns out!

 

[marc1]

Thanks for the reply!
Here's my math on the water volume:
8.1 gallons in the mash
0.1 gallons per pound grain absorption leaves 7.1 gallons
1 hour boil at a little over a gallon an hour leaves 6 gallons to the fermenter
If I have a little extra wort left from squeezing the bag, I'll use it to freshen the yeast with a vitality starter

 

[marc1]

I brewed this up yesterday. I was in a hurry and didn't do my normal mashout, and my OG was lower than expected (1.045). I usually do 45 minutes at mash temp and then direct fire to bring it up to 169 for 15 minutes. Looks like I'll keep it as part of my process.
The Cleopatra hops were stuck together pretty well - I ended up using a pair of kitchen scissors to cut them apart.
My Denny's yeast starter had crashed out in the fridge for about a week, and I used about a quart of wort from the start of the boil to make a vitality starter on my stir plate.
Everything is now fermenting away at 63/64F. In 3 or 4 days, I'll bring it up to 68/69 for a couple of days.

 

[marc1]

The beer was great! Cleopatra has an orangy citrus flavor. If I let the glass of beer warm up, there was a hint of tropical fruit in the aroma. Cleopatra wasn't a super distinctive hop, but it had a great general hoppy character. The better part of the keg got killed last weekend at a party we had - there was alcohol aplenty to drink, and people kept going back to this beer.

 

[marc1]

Interestingly, last fall's pre-order email from Hop Heaven says that Cleopatra has been renamed Idaho Gem.