I had an epic triple brew day last week. I brewed an IPA, a Saison and a Hefeweizen. The first batch was an IPA that was inspired by Bell’s Hopslam. What an absolutely wonderful beer! Hopslam is probably my favorite commercial beer. It only comes out as a winter seasonal and if you don’t pick some up within a week of release, then you are usually out of luck. This year we got it for $25/6 pack. Drinking some Hopslam this winter (okay, we didn’t really have a winter in Central Virginia this year) inspired me to brew a hop bursted IPA. I’ve never used Simcoe hops, which is the featured hop in Hopslam, so I thought I’d go that route.
One thing new that I have started doing is crash cooling and decanting my starter and then running an extra @2 qt. water through the mash, collecting, boiling and cooling it, and then I pour it into the yeast starter vessel to give the yeast a little jump start. It has really seemed to do the trick as the starter is typically active before I pitch it and the batch usually shows signs of fermentation much quicker.
Brew Date: 4/28/2012
Beer Number: B24
Beer Name: “Hoptologist IPA”
Type: IPA
Primary Fermenter: 6 ½ gal. glass carboy (? days)
Secondary Fermenter: ? (? Days)
Volume: 6 gal.
OG: 1.073
FG: ?
Expected IBU: 61
Expected SRM: 11
Expected Alcohol %: 7.5%
Ingredients:
14 lbs. Briess 2 row pale
1 ½ lbs. white wheat malt
¾ lb. Crystal 40L
¾ lb. Crystal 60L
8 oz. rice hulls
2 lb. clover honey
1.09 oz. (31g) Columbus pellet hops (14% AA) @ 60 min
½ oz (14g) Simcoe pellet hops (13% AA) FWH
½ oz. (14g) Amarillo pellet hops (8.5% AA) FWH
0.564 oz. (16g) Simcoe pellet hops (13% AA) @ 15 min.
0.529 oz. (15g) Amarillo pellet hops (8.5% AA) @ 15 min.
0.776 oz. (22g) Simcoe pellet hops (13% AA) @ 5 min.
½ oz. (28g) Amarillo pellet hops (8.5% AA) @ 5 min.
2 oz. Simcoe leaf hops (13% AA) keg hop
1 oz. Amarillo pellet hops (8.5% AA) keg hop
WLP001 California Ale yeast
Step by Step Process:
Yeast Starter (4/21/12)
- Made 2L starter with 200g pilsner & extra light DME
- boiled for 15 minutes and allowed to cool overnight
- split between sanitized growler & 2L plastic bottle & topped with foil
- pitched @150 ml. WLP001 harvested from B-23A (Citra Pale Ale)
- shook infrequently
Wort
- Crushed grain in Barley Crusher (double-crushed the wheat)
- Heated 21.25 qt. strike water to @165F and poured into mash tun
- Added grains to tun and stirred – temp. settled at @150F mashed @ 2 hrs 40 min.
- Ending mash temp was 148F
- Heated 10 qts. Water to 207F and added to mash tun for mash out
- Temp raised to 170F
- Recirculated @ 4 qt.
- Experienced a stuck mash (manifold detached from drain); poured mash into auxiliary cooler cleaned out and re-attached manifold and returned mash to mash tun
- Opened valve slowly and then wide open and drained into kettle
- While draining, fired burner and set heat on med.
- Added first wort hops per above
- When empty, filled with 2.75 gal. of 168F water, stirred mash, recirculated and drained
- Collected a total of @ 8.5 gal. wort
- Brought to a boil and added 31 g. Columbus pellet hops as soon as hot break fell
- Boiled for 60 minutes, following the hopping schedule above
- Using wort chiller, cooled to 95F in @ 15 minutes and @75F in 30 min.
- Transferred to sanitized fermenter
- Forgot the honey at end of boil so brought @ 2 cups water to boil; shut off burner and disolved 2 lbs. Food Lion clover honey by stirring constantly; added to fermenter
Yeast Starter #2
- For yeast kick start, placed @ 3 qt. hot water in mash tun and drained
- Boiled for 15 minutes and cooled in cold water bath
- Cool crashed starter and added 3rd runnings wort to starter
- Starter was krausening within 1 hour
- Pitched entire yeast starter @ 72F
- Placed fermenter in ice cube cooler with frozen water bottles
- Slight bubble activity within 3 hours of pitching, temp 70F
- @ 2 days vigorous activity with krausen blowing through the airlock; affixed blow off assembly; temp. 63F
Notes:
- Preboil gravity = 1.050
- Postboil gravity before honey = 1.063
- Postboil gravity after honey = 1.073
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