Session IPA

While I was still under the impression that my two recent saisons hadn't turned out (which more recent taste tests have proven false), I really wanted to make something quick and straight ahead (i.e.,

nothing too weird) to have on hand. Given the substantial (for me) amount of hops and diminishing supply of base grain I had on hand, I decided to try my hand at the "session IPA" genre again.

The Mad Fermentationist provided invaluable assistance, as always. Fortunately I still had just enough Vienna malt in the house for most of the grist, complemented with oats and Belgian Caramunich for enhanced mouthfeel, residual sugar, and further depth of flavor. I also went with my first no-sparge mash to increase body and malt perception. In addition, Wyeast's West Yorkshire Ale yeast provided extra character and low attenuation to round out the package. To keep things extra international, the hops were all American, plentiful, and were hopbursted, hop stand-ed, and dry hopped.

Unfortunately my laptop died at the end of the year and I have yet to replace it, so I was without my normal brewing software, BeerSmith. However, I had pretty good experiences with resources currently available online, including Brewtoad and Brewer's Friend. I was very happy with the no-sparge technique, though due to habit I really had to fight the urge to sparge the rest of the sugars out of the grain. The mash received what seemed like a massive amount of gypsum, though it should've been the correct dosing for the volume of strike water. Less wonderful was running out of propane shortly after putting the sweet wort on to boil; the brew moved back inside to finish. Between that, my friend Doug stopping in to check out the brew and have a beer, and the normal hectic nature of the brewday, I managed to swap my 10-minute and hop stand Amarillo additions, adding quite a few extra calculated IBUs; the finished beer doesn't seem to have suffered, though.

I pulled around a half gallon for cask conditioning in a cubitainer when the rest of the batch went to secondary for dry hopping. The "cask" was really fantastic; great aroma, super fruity and balanced. It seems like some of that dropped off in the secondary, possibly because of the size of the dry hop charge. The main batch is drinking just fine, however; I have no complaints about a lack of good beer  in the house ready to go. I've already rebrewed this recipe with a couple tweaks, one major, one minor; more on that soon. For now, though, things are tasting great.

Session IPA (also available at Brewtoad)

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.039
Projected SRM: 9
Projected IBU: 49
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 59%

Grains
83.3% - 7.5 lb Weyermann Organic Vienna
11.1% - 1 lb Flaked oats
5.6% - .5 lb Belgian Caramunich 80L

Hops
2 oz Amarillo (10.7%) (10 min)
.5 oz Columbus (15.6%) (10 min)
.5 oz Centennial (11.3%) (10 min)
1 oz Amarillo (0 min) 30-min steep
.5 oz Columbus (0 min) 30-min steep
.5 oz Centennial (0 min) 30-min steep
3 oz Amarillo (Dry hop - 6 days)
1 oz Columbus (Dry hop - 6 days)
1 oz Centennial (Dry hop - 6 days)

Yeast
Wyeast WY1469 West Yorkshire Ale - no starter

Water
Profile: Reno
9 g Gypsum
3 g CaCl
2 ml Lactic acid (88%)

Brewday: 17 January 2015
Mash: 154F for 60 minutes
No sparge
Pre-boil volume: 7.5 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 8.5P (1.034)

Amarillo additions should have been 1 oz @ 10 min, 2 oz for hop stand.
Water report and chemical calculations from brewersfriend.com, using "light colored & hoppy" setting.

Fermenter volume: 5.8 gallons
Fermented at 64F, raised to 67F near the end of fermentation.

Secondary: 26 January 2015
Put some air into the beer when I had to restart the siphon mid-transfer. Extra ~1/2 gallon went into a 1-gallon cubitainer with .4 oz table sugar.

Bottled: 1 February 2015
FG: 1.013
ABV: 3.4%
Bottled with 2.2 oz table sugar.

Honorable Mention: Great Basin Brew-Off 2015 (Pale & Amber Ales)