A year ago tomorrow, I started home brewing. Hells yeah, 16 batches!!! As the final brew of our California experience, and in homage to our amazing time here, I am going to brew an Imperial IPA. I’ve named it ‘fashionably late, double the trouble’ as it’s a double IPA characterized by late additions of some ‘fashionable’ hops. Fermented with either WLP001 (double the trouble) or WLP005 (double the cheeky). The small beer will be called ‘fashionably lite’. Check it out:
Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: WLP001 (5 gallons), WLP005 (2.5 gallons)
Yeast Starter: 2qt WLP001 starter (from a vial), 1qt WLP002 starter (washed from batch 15)
Batch Size (Gallons): 7.5
Original Gravity: 1.071
Final Gravity: 1.007 (wlp001), 1.008 (wlp005)
IBU: ?
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 8?
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 3 weeks @ 66* (2 weeks for the small beer)
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 7 days
20# 2-row
2# biscuit malt
1# dextrine malt
2oz Horizon (11.2% a, 5.6% b) – FWH
The following hops were mixed together and added in equal portions (10 grams) each minute from 20 minutes to finish:
2.5 oz Williamette (4.9% a, 3.5% b)
2 oz Citra (14.1% a, 3.5% b)
1.5 oz Cascade (7.3% a, 6.6% b)
1 oz Norther Brewer (10.6% a, 4.6% b)
Dry hopped (7 days):
1 oz Williamette cones
1 oz Cascade pellets
Mashed in 7.5 gallons for 60 minutes at 150* by the black kitchen thermometer. I drew the wort off, and it measured 1.056 at ~145*. I sparged with 5 gallons of water at 170*, but when I was vorlaufing the wort was below 150*. I pulled off 1 gallon of thin mash and boiled it, returned it, mixed and vorlaufed again, this brought the wort into the mid 150s. I collected total ~8 gallons of wort at 1.05 (1.065 corrected) and 140*, then boiled.
I had some more water left over so I added it to the mash and collected 2 gallons of wort at 150* at 1.02 (1.035 corrected to 60*)
All beer was poured first into a bucket with a paint strainer bag, then from that bucket into the fermenting vessel. The volumes below indicate that I need to expect a larger boil volume in the future to account for water lost to crud in the pot (proteins, hop matter) and maybe a slightly higher boil-off rate than 1gal/hour.
pitched 1.5 qt wlp001 starter into what became 4.5 gallons iipa at < 80*
pitched entire wlp002 starter into what became 2.5 gallons iipa at < 80*
pitched .5 qt wlp001 starter into what became 2 gallons of small beer at < 80*
iipa measured in at 1.071, small beer measured in at 1.04
I ended up hopping the small beer with the 1oz centennial (8.7% a, 5% b) that I had intended for dry hopping the IIPA, so I’ll have to get some more of that 🙂 Small beer boiled for 20 minutes, with 0.5 oz centennial at 20 minutes, 0.25 oz at 10 minutes, and 0.25 oz at flameout.
63% brewhouse efficiency for the IIPA, as calculated at brewersfriend.com
Started at 8am, pitched at ~1pm, and krausen was developing in all fermenters by 7pm. Woot: starters.
UPDATE 3/6/13: krausen has been riding high on the IIPA since brew day, and airlock activity maintains a brisk pace. The small beer has what appears to be a layer of funk (maybe yeast?) on top of it, which is sitting on top of what appears to be some flocculate that I would have normally expected to drop to the bottom. It sure doesn’t look normal considering all of the other fermentations I’ve observed.
UPDATE 3/18/13: 1.004 OG (4.7% ABV) small beer, woohoo!! I’ll bottle tomorrow 🙂 The IIPA fermenters have averaged about 65* since pitching, and I’m assuming the small beer was a few degrees warmer but not many (can’t tell, liquid is way below the fermometer)
UPDATE 3/19/13: bottled the small beer. boiled 1 oz DME in 2 cups of water, cooled, mixed with beer and bottled. This yielded 16 bottles, and a halfpint left over which tasted delicious! Crisp, malty, and a little bready. Not much hop flavor but this may be due to the fact that I’m a bit stuffed-up. Quite tasty!!!
UPDATE 3/25/13: FG for the WLP001 batch was 1.007 (8.4% abv), WLP005 was 1.008 (8.27% abv). I transferred both to carboy, placing 1/3oz each Willamette and Cascade hops in the wlp005 batch, and 2/3oz each in the wlp001 batch (as the former came in >2gal, the latter >4gal). The wlp005 batch smelled SUPER funky, and I was a bit worried about infection. The wlp001 had a similar but slightly less obnoxious character, and after it aired a bit, it came through with a lot of fruity, a bit of earthy, and some really complex pungent hops character. I think I smelled a bit of what others have termed a ‘cat piss’ aroma from Citra, which mellows over time. Here’s to a hell of a hop combo with late additions. I’m very eager to see how this one plays out.
Bottled the weekend of 4/7/13
In May, it is delicious 🙂