first beer with the new cooler mash tun! I have a sub-optimal mash tun manifold, made of a single tube of 1/2″ PEX with 1/8″ slits cut every 1/2″ by a dremel with a high-speed cutter. Next time, I will have a more complex and appropriate manifold.
Recipe: http://hopville.com/recipe/1600762/american-ipa-recipes/shinken-shobu
Boiled 1.5gal 15 min, added to fermenter
Mash avg 148* for 90 min 4 gal water strike at 164 for 12.5 lb grain
Batch sparge 180* water, 2gal added
Pulled 3gal off for main boil, 1.5 gal pulled off for a second boil
Ipa og 1.043?
Boiled 3 gal 60 min
1oz cascade 15min
1oz cascade 5min
1oz citra flameout
Main boil lost .5 gal
Topped off with water to 5gal
Used 1/3 WLP001 yeast cake from holly ale (basically an imperial honey brown ale)
UPDATE: 8/9/2012 – racked to secondary, dry hopped with 1 ounce of whole-cone citra hops (est. ~4gal of wort)
UPDATE: 8/15/2012 – bottled with 4oz of priming sugar. the beer had a funky taste, yielded 39 bottles.
UPDATE: 8/31/2012 – chilled and popped a few bottles, and it is TASTY. The funky taste is almost all gone. It’s kindof a grapefruit bomb, but I like it. From readings, I expect this to mellow down a bit as it ages. It’s also cloudy, despite a whirlfloc tab at 10 minutes. Woot!! I’ll call this a delicious success, esp since Sarah smiled and said it was delicious 🙂