Hoptologist IPA

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)

1. Made 2L starter with 200g pilsner & extra light DME
2. boiled for 15 minutes and allowed to cool overnight
3. split between sanitized growler & 2L plastic bottle & topped with foil
4. pitched @150 ml. WLP001 harvested from B-23A (Citra Pale Ale)
5. shook infrequently

Wort

6. Crushed grain in Barley Crusher (double-crushed the wheat)
7. Heated 21.25 qt. strike water to @165F and poured into mash tun
8. Added grains to tun and stirred – temp. settled at @150F mashed @ 2 hrs 40 min.
9. Ending mash temp was 148F
10. Heated 10 qts. Water to 207F and added to mash tun for mash out
11. Temp raised to 170F
12. Recirculated @ 4 qt.
13. 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
14. Opened valve slowly and then wide open and drained into kettle
15. While draining, fired burner and set heat on med.
16. Added first wort hops per above
17. When empty, filled with 2.75 gal. of 168F water, stirred mash, recirculated and drained
18. Collected a total of @ 8.5 gal. wort
19. Brought to a boil and added 31 g. Columbus pellet hops as soon as hot break fell
20. Boiled for 60 minutes, following the hopping schedule above
21. Using wort chiller, cooled to 95F in @ 15 minutes and @75F in 30 min.
22. Transferred to sanitized fermenter
23. 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

24. For yeast kick start, placed @ 3 qt. hot water in mash tun and drained
25. Boiled for 15 minutes and cooled in cold water bath
26. Cool crashed starter and added 3^rd runnings wort to starter
27. Starter was krausening within 1 hour
28. Pitched entire yeast starter @ 72F
29. Placed fermenter in ice cube cooler with frozen water bottles
30. Slight bubble activity within 3 hours of pitching, temp 70F
31. @ 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