Falconer's Flight IIPA (now Old Ale)

It's been quiet on the brewing front here recently; school and the rest of life have taken precedence over kettles and bottles.  Fortunately I was able to manufacture a break in the action a couple weekends ago for a double brewday.  I was coming up on the end of both of the sacks of grain (Malteurop 2-row and Weyermann rye) I bought when we moved out here, so the beers brewed were planned to come to help finish them.

The first beer through the mashtun was an imperial IPA to soothe my bitter tooth and to polish off the 2-row.  I'd planned to supplement the base with Munich anyway, but when I turned out a couple pounds short on the Malteurop sack, I included some Vienna as well.  A little cara-pils for body rounded out the grist.  I also added a pound of table sugar to primary to bump up the alcohol; even with it, this one's coming in on the lighter end of IIPAs with an OG of only 1.074.

Of course, the big player for this beer are the hops.  I read some pretty positive reviews of Hopunion's Falconer's Flight hop blend last year, and even ended up picking up a half pound of it for my friend Ted, but didn't end up trying any myself.  Hopunion has said it includes new favourites Citra, Sorachi Ace, and Simcoe, along with some experimental varieties and Northwest standards (C hops, most likely), which should result in a melange of citrus and tropical fruit, dank, and pine.  I wanted to make a big beer to get the most out of all those assertive components; given the less than favourable experiences some homebrewers have had using some of those varieties (Citra in particular, it seems) for bittering, though, I decided against a traditional bittering charge and instead first wort hopped for its smoother bitterness.  Besides, why waste the beautiful flavour and aroma these hops should bring on a bittering charge?

I also messed around with the late hopping.  While I'd usually add hops in the last fifteen minutes in five-minute intervals, this time I gave whirlpooling/hopstanding a try; I put in a large charge at flameout, then let the wort stand for fifteen minutes before starting the chilling.  Again, this is another step to enhance flavour and aroma, and will be followed up with two dry hop additions; the airlock has smelled pretty incredible throughout primary, and I'm very much looking forward to this reaching the glass to taste the results.  It has made accounting IBUs interesting; I expect the flameout hops to contribute some bitterness, though it's unclear how much would come from that fifteen minutes of standing.  If they contributed no bitterness whatsoever, it'd make for a pretty underhopped IIPA; if they gave as much bitterness as a regular 15-minute addition that would put the IBUs in the appropriate range, though more than I usually like.  The range is reflected in the recipe.

All this messing about, and this being a massively hoppy beer as it is, called for one thing: a whole lot of vegetable matter.  I planned on seven ounces of Falconer's Flight for this beast; it was kismet when that turned out to be exactly the amount I found hiding in the bottom of the hop freezer at my LHBS.

When I told our friends down the block, Craig and Cait, about this planned beer a few months back, they let me know they wanted in on an IIPA brewday.  Cait was able to make it for a while, and even added the FWH addition.  The brew was pretty smooth in general, and allowed me to finally use a couple of my Christmas presents, a digital thermometer and a 9-gallon SS brewpot.  The thermometer worked perfectly and is super easy to use, but it was really great having the new pot; even starting with seven gallons of wort, it never even approached a boilover.  The flameout hops looked pretty impressive roiling around in the near-boiling wort as well.

Fermentation has pretty well settled down at this point, and I'm looking forward to jamming even more hops into this one, possibly as early as this week.  I made the batch a bit large to account for what the hops will absorb; we'll see how much they let me keep in the end.  I'd originally planned for this brew to happen in December, but since the brewday occurred before the change of season (despite the unseasonably warm brewday) I'm sticking with my original name.

Winterhop - IIPA

Batch size: 5.75 gallons
Projected OG: 1.074
Projected SRM: 6.1
Projected IBU: 27.5 (68.4)
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 78%

Grains/Fermentables
62.1% - 9 lb 2-row
13.8% - 2 lb Vienna
13.8% - 2 lb Munich
3.4% - 8 oz Cara-pils
6.9% - 1 lb Table sugar (primary)

Hops
1.5 oz Falconer’s Flight (10.5%) (FWH)
3 oz Falconer’s Flight (0 min - Whirlpool 15 min)
1 oz Falconer’s Flight (Dry hop 7 days)
1.5 oz Falconer’s Flight (Dry hop 3 days)

Yeast
WY1450 Denny’s Favorite 50 (slurry)

Extras
1 tbsp Yeast nutrient (10 min)
1 tbsp Irish moss (10 min)

Water additions
11 qts distilled water
1 g Gypsum (mash)
2 g Epsom salt (mash)
1 g Gypsum (boil)

Brewday: 18 March 2012
Mash: 148F for 90 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 7 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 13.5P (1.055)
Post-boil volume: 5.5 gallons
Post-boil SG (w/o sugar): 16.7P (1.069)

Fermented in swamp cooler at 63F ambient

27 March 2012: Added sugar dissolved in 1 qt water - next time ½ qt should do it
Adjusted fermenter volume: 5.75 gallons
Adjusted OG: 1.074


Dry hop #1: 3 April 2012

Dry hop #2: 7 April 2012

Bottled: 21 April 2012
FG: 1.015
ABV: 8.2%
Bottled 5.4 gallons with 4.3 oz table sugar

9 May 2012: Bottling a week and a half later than I intended, most of the aromatics had dissipated.  It also seems that the hopstand added very little bitterness, so the beer is a bit cloyingly malty, even finishing at 1.015.  I've redefined this one as an old ale, given its ABV and low bittering.  Now I just have to live with the waste of all that FF hop blend.