Briefly, I am finding myself in the midst of a SMaSHing experiment 🙂 Last batch was a pale/nugget ale that I ended up splitting between two containers to dry hop with either Nugget or Zythos. This batch will be the compliment, brewing with Zythos and them  splitting the batch to dry-hop with either Zythos or Nugget.
Recipe Type:Â BIAB
Yeast:Â White Labs WLP 001 California Ale
Yeast Starter:Â 1/3 of the yeast cake from Batch 5
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter:Â N/A
Batch Size (Gallons):Â 2
Original Gravity:Â above 1.06 (at least 55% efficiency, not tons better than last time, but I didn’t write down the OG when I tested right before pitching into the fermenter. I remember being pleasantly surprised, and OG may have been as high as 1.064, which is 1.066 corrected, giving 60% efficiency, and getting into the lower end of the BIAB efficiency reported by some)
Boiling Time (Minutes):Â 45 mins
Steep the grain in 2.25 gallons of water at 155F (Strike 168) for 90 Minutes:
5# Pale 2-row
1# Crystal 60L
This equates to a 1.5 qt/lb mash ratio.
Mash in at 168 at 8:18p (was a little high), added ~1 qt cold water and stirred down to 155 by 8:20p, put in oven preheated to 175, ~2.333 g for 6 lb grain, stirred at 8:40p, read 152* avg across a few sites, stirred 9:15p, avg read 148*, small variance, turned oven to 200. Took out 9:50p, avg temp 150, +/- 2, OG 1.041 at 150* (adjusted: 1.056)
Left with 2 gal wort after drain and squeeze, added grain to 1.25 gal 168* water, steep for 15 minutes, drain & squeeze, got 1gal wort at 1.014 G at 145* (adjusted: 1.028), added to pot, started boil
Added .25 oz Zythos (10%) at 60 min
Added .25 oz Zythos (10%) at 10 min
I conducted a 60 min boil to reduce by 1gal to 2gal final volume, also to extract slightly more alphas from Zythos to compare this batch to nugget batch (batch 5) in bitterness
Pitched at 78* onto 1/3 yeast cake from batch 5, mixed with a little water from yeast washing
The plan is to keep this in the primary for at least a week.
UPDATE 6/28/12: after 9 days primary, FG 1.014. I racked to a 1 gallon 2ndary with 0.25 oz Zythos, another 0.5 gal 2ndary with 0.25 oz nugget, 4 straight to bottles with 1.5 tsp priming sugar stirred into wort b4 bottling. I expected 2 bottles but ended up with 4, carb might be a bit weak. Taste is quite .. well … tasty 🙂 it doesn’t taste nearly as green as Batch 5 did at this stage, and the beer already tastes a bit brighter and more balanced. I’ll let this sit in the secondary for at least a week to see what it does.
UPDATE 7/10/12: tasted the non-dry-hopped Zythos, almost 2 weeks after bottling. While carb is not great, the taste is great! Malty, but balanced with the Zythos. The beer is quite clear, and the color is a rich amber. This is not really a pale ale, but amber edging almost into brown ale territory in terms of flavor. The high amount of relative crystal 60 pushed it this way, but I’d say it’s quite delicious. Yum!! Gotta try this one again, and again, I’m eager to taste the dry-hops 🙂