A first pale ale recipe for a 10 litre homebrew batch
A pale ale is the best first all grain beer. It is forgiving, it tells you clearly when something has gone wrong and 10 litres is small enough to brew on a home stove in an afternoon.
Why a pale ale in a 10 litre batch
A pale ale has nowhere to hide a fault, yet it is not as fussy as a pale lager. It ferments at temperatures you can manage in an Indian home for much of the year. It is also ready to drink in about four weeks, so you learn from it quickly.
Ten litres suits a 15 to 20 litre stockpot, a single gas burner or induction plate and a small fermenter. You end up with about 25 bottles. That is enough to share and judge, but not so much that a mistake leaves you with a cupboard full of beer you do not want.
The recipe
Target numbers: original gravity 1.050, final gravity about 1.010, roughly 5.2% ABV, around 30 IBU and a golden amber colour. These assume brew in a bag at about 70% efficiency. If you need help reading the shorthand, see our guide to reading a beer recipe.
- Pale ale malt: 2.2 kg (92%)
- Light crystal malt, around 30 to 60 EBC: 0.2 kg (8%)
- Cascade hops, about 6% alpha acid: 15 g at 60 minutes, 15 g at 10 minutes, 25 g at flameout
- Yeast: one sachet of a clean American ale dry yeast such as US-05
- Water: about 14 litres in total, filtered or RO with a little tap or packaged water added
Have the malt milled by the supplier if you do not own a mill. Use it within a few weeks. Keep it sealed and dry in the meantime, because humid air turns crushed malt stale quickly.
Mash and boil
Heat about 14 litres of water to around 72 °C, put the bag in the pot and stir in the grain. It should settle at 65 to 67 °C. Hold it there for 60 minutes with the lid on, checking every 15 minutes. That range gives a dry, drinkable finish with enough body to carry the hops. Our mash temperature guide explains what moving a couple of degrees either way does.
Lift the bag and let it drain. Squeezing it gently is fine. You should have about 12.5 to 13 litres of sweet wort. Bring it to a rolling boil with the lid off and start a 60 minute timer. Add the hops at the times listed. At the end of the boil, turn off the heat, add the flameout hops and stir for a minute.
Then cool the wort to 18 to 20 °C as fast as you can. In a sink full of water and ice it takes 30 to 45 minutes for this volume. Faster is better: hot wort sitting around picks up cooked vegetable flavours and is an open invitation to bacteria.
Fermentation
Pour the cooled wort into a sanitised fermenter. Splash it around this time, because yeast needs oxygen at the start. Take a hydrometer reading. If you have more than 10 litres and the gravity is low, that is fine; note it and move on. Sprinkle the yeast on top and fit the lid and airlock.
Keep the beer at 18 to 20 °C. That is the beer temperature, which runs a few degrees above the room once fermentation gets going. In a 28 °C room you will need a water bath with frozen bottles swapped twice a day, or a wet towel and a fan. Warm fermentation gives fruity, solventy flavours. That is the most common fault in Indian homebrew.
Fermentation will look finished in four or five days. Leave it for at least ten to twelve days so the yeast can clean up after itself, then check the gravity on two days running before bottling.
Bottling and tasting
Prime with about 60 to 65 g of white sugar for 10 litres, dissolved in a little boiled water. Condition the bottles at room temperature for two weeks. Chill one, pour it carefully into a glass and leave the yeast in the bottle.
Taste it against what you expected. Is it clear and golden, with grapefruit and floral hop notes over a light bready malt? Or is it sweet, thin, harsh or fruity in a way you did not plan? Each of those answers points to a specific step.
What to change on the second batch
Change one thing at a time and write it down. Swap Cascade for another hop and keep everything else the same. Or keep the recipe and move the mash temperature by two degrees. This is how brewers learn what each ingredient and step actually does.
The jump from following a recipe to designing one is bigger than it looks. Choosing malts for colour and body, calculating bitterness and predicting gravity at your own efficiency are skills you build, not facts you look up.
Common questions
Can I double this recipe for 20 litres?
Yes. Double every ingredient, but check that your pot holds about 26 litres of wort with room to boil. Your efficiency may change slightly at the larger size.
What if I cannot find Cascade hops?
Use another citrusy American hop with a similar alpha acid, such as Centennial or Amarillo. Adjust the 60 minute addition if the alpha acid is higher.
My original gravity came in low. Is the batch ruined?
No. You will get a slightly lighter, less alcoholic beer. Note the number and work out your real efficiency, then scale the grain up next time.
Do I need a yeast starter for 10 litres?
Not with dry yeast. One 11.5 g sachet is plenty for 10 litres of wort at 1.050.
