Monday, February 1, 2016

Double IPA

With few exceptions, my hoppy beers haven't been terribly successful. My attempts to brew double/imperial IPAs have met with outright failure. But hope springs eternal, and here I am, giving this style another shot.

I blame having a few opportunities over the past couple years to bury my face in a Pliny the Elder at Russian River's brewpub; living on this end of the country definitely has its advantages. For me, this beer still captures the best of hop flavor and drinkability that this style can offer. So, as many before me have done, I loosely modeled this recipe on the one Vinnie Cilurzo has given out freely for many years now.

That being said, I swapped Vinnie's crystal and carapils for dark Munich to add a touch of maltiness and added flaked oats for...well, because I can't help myself. With my excessively low mash temperature, I may yet regret the lack of unfermentables when I check the FG. Hey, I like a well
attenuated beer, so I guess we'll just see. I stuck with CTZ, Simcoe, and Centennial for hops, but added a significant amount of fruity Amarillo to the hop party. (I still have a bunch left over from last year, and I see a Yellow Snow-inspired IPA on the horizon to take care of that.) I also added a hell of a lot of brewing salts to the mash, chasing Tasty McDole's mineral concentrations I recorded from a Session at some point. I've been pleased with--or at least not offended by--the water manipulation I've done in the last few years, but this is another level of messing around.

While I certainly have a lot of trepidation revolving around this batch, fermentation on the Cal ale yeast cake from my recent SMaSH beer took right the hell off, but I easily kept fermentation temps low in a swamp cooler. With the first charge of dry hops in the carboy, it smells amazing; I'm fired up to see how it all turns out in the end.

BRING IT ON

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.073
Projected SRM: 5.4
Projected IBU: 110.6
Boil time: 70 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 60%   

Grains/Fermentables
69.8% - 11 lb Rahr 2-row
12.7% - 2 lb Flaked oats
9.5% - 1.5 lb Weyermann Munich II
7.9% - 1.25 lb Table sugar (primary)

Hops
1 oz Columbus (15.2%) (60 min)
1 oz Simcoe (11.6%) (10 min)
.5 oz Centennial (11.2%) (10 min)

1 oz Amarillo (10.7%) (0 min - 60 min whirlpool/hop stand)
1 oz Centennial (8.5%) (0 min - 60 min whirlpool/hop stand)
.5 oz Simcoe (11.1%) (0 min - 60 min whirlpool/hop stand)

2 oz Amarillo (dry hop #1 - 10 days)
2 oz Centennial (dry hop #1 - 10 days)
1.5 oz Simcoe (dry hop #1 - 10 days)

1 oz Amarillo (dry hop #2 - 5 days)
1 oz Centennial (dry hop #2 - 5 days)
1 oz Simcoe (11.6%) (dry hop #2 - 5 days)

Yeast
WLP001 American Ale - cake from SMaSH II 

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)

Water (mash)
Base Profile: Reno (brewersfriend.com)
114.1 Ca, 18.2 Mg, 10 Na
43.3 Cl, 264.6 SO4
Alkalinity -123.8, RA -215.8

Brewday: 17 January 2016
Mash: 146F for 70 minutes (intended 151F)
Pre-boil volume: 8 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 12.8P (1.050)
Post-boil OG (w/o sugar): 15.6P (1.062)

Salt additions (to mash): 14 g Gypsum, 6 g Epsom salts, 3 g CaCl, 12 (should’ve been 14) ml Lactic acid (88%)
Chilled to 58F.
5.6 gallons to fermenter; 45 seconds of pure O2 at pitching.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 60F ambient.

Sugar addition #1 (.75 lb): 22 January 2016

24 January 2016: moved out of swamp cooler to ambient temp (~66F).

Sugar addition #2 (.5 lb): 25 January 2016

Dry hop #1: 27 January 2016

Dry hop #2: 2 February 2016

Bottled: 6 February 2016

FG: 1.009
ABV: 8.5%
Bottled 5.5 gallons with 4.3 oz table sugar.

Tasting

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