Cascade Session IPA

This recipe was inspired by The Mad Fermentationist. I had been wanting to do a "small beer" for a while and though that doing a single hop micro / session IPA would be a good way not only to get a good sense of the particular hop but also to get a good flavorful beer without a lot of alcohol.


Cascade Session IPA
Batch Size: 3 Gallons
3.5# Vienna Malt
1.0# Briess 2-Row
0.25# Briess Crystal 20

OG at 70% efficiency: 1.036
FG: 1.009
IBUs: 40
Boil Length: 60 mins

.25oz Cascade, 6.8% AA- First Wort Hop
.25oz Cascade, 6.8% AA - 20 mins
.25oz Cascade, 6.8% AA - 15 mins
.50oz Cascade, 6.8% AA - 10 mins
.50oz Cascade, 6.8% AA - 5 mins
.50oz Cascade, 6.8% AA - 1 min
.50oz Cascade, 6.8% AA - Flameout
.75oz Cascade, 6.8% AA - Dry Hop

Windsor Ale Yeast - No starter.

Mash at 151F for 60 mins, raise to 167F, batch sparge.

6/10/12
Mashed as per schedule, had to add a little bit of hot water to get it to stay at the right temp. But still got good efficiency since both batches were of approximately equal volume.

Pre-boil OG: 4.1 gallons of 1.030 wort, or 72% efficiency. Probably resulted in post-boil OG of 1.038, at least according to this calculator. In a batch size of 3 gallons I hate to pull enough wort to fill the hyrdrometer jar. One day I would like a refractometer. 

Cooled wort immediately after flameout and additional hops. Wort got to 78F, then I stopped the IC, transferred to fermenting vessel, aerated and placed in 65F ambient air temps.
 
Pitched rehydrated yeast at 68F, fermented around 65F ambient air temps and in a bin of 62F water. (Approximately, since my temperature control is primitive.) Pitched around 8PM since my brewday started late.

6/11/12
Fermentation was active and bubbling by the afternoon. Smelled good.

6/25/12
Bottled with 1 3/8 oz table sugar, aiming for 1.75 units of CO2. Pulled a small sample. The sample had a strong grapefruit smell, good bitterness, but kind of raw hop character. Down to 1.010. 

6/28/12
Bottles were sitting in ambient temps of 66F. Still some yeast in suspension but some yeast was flocculating at the bottom of the bottles. Comments online by people who have used it before suggest that this yeast tends to stay in suspension, sometimes event when chilled. Fine by me as long as the beer looks and tastes good.

7/3/12
Tasted this beer. OK but not what I was going for in terms of smooth hop taste.