Friday, May 4, 2012

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
  1. Crushed grain in Barley Crusher (double-crushed the wheat)
  2. Heated 21.25 qt. strike water to @165F and poured into mash tun
  3. Added grains to tun and stirred – temp. settled at @150F mashed @ 2 hrs 40 min.
  4. Ending mash temp was 148F
  5. Heated 10 qts. Water to 207F and added to mash tun for mash out
  6. Temp raised to 170F
  7. Recirculated @ 4 qt.
  8. 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
  9. Opened valve slowly and then wide open and drained into kettle
  10. While draining, fired burner and set heat on med.
  11. Added first wort hops per above
  12. When empty, filled with 2.75 gal. of 168F water, stirred mash, recirculated and drained
  13. Collected a total of @ 8.5 gal. wort
  14. Brought to a boil and added 31 g. Columbus pellet hops as soon as hot break fell
  15. Boiled for 60 minutes, following the hopping schedule above
  16. Using wort chiller, cooled to 95F in @ 15 minutes and @75F in 30 min.
  17. Transferred to sanitized fermenter
  18. 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
  1. For yeast kick start, placed @ 3 qt. hot water in mash tun and drained
  2. Boiled for 15 minutes and cooled in cold water bath
  3. Cool crashed starter and added 3rd runnings wort to starter
  4. Starter was krausening within 1 hour
  5. Pitched entire yeast starter @ 72F
  6. Placed fermenter in ice cube cooler with frozen water bottles
  7. Slight bubble activity within 3 hours of pitching, temp 70F
  8. @ 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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