Double IPA Brewday

So, in a quest to make a really hoppy beer, I finally went for a DIPA. I really wanted to see if I could get the massive hop bitterness, flavor and aroma that characterize a good Double IPA. Sadly, I don't have access to the iconic west-coast DIPAs from Russian River Brewing, since I live on the east coast of the US, but Green Flash does distribute its Imperial IPA  to this area. An approximate clone recipe for that beer was the source for my recipe below, and when I taste my recipe I can compare it a bit to the Green Flash DIPA. However, I am not going for an exact clone, as I modified the hopping schedule a little bit because I really wanted to try the "hop stand" technique, which can apparently result in some really great hop aroma and flavors.

Double IPA
3.25 gallons

8.6# US 2-Row
8oz Carapils
8oz Table Sugar
5oz Crystal 40L
5oz Crystal 60L

Mash at 152F for 60min
90min boil

1oz Summit, 17.5%, first wort
1oz Summit, 17.5%, 60 min
.3oz Nugget, 13.2%, 15min
.6oz Nugget, 13.2%, 10min
.3oz Summit, 17.5%, 5min
.5oz Nugget, 13.2%, 1min
.5oz Summit, 17.5%, 1min

.75oz Summit, 17.5%, Flameout, steep for 20min in whirlpool
.75oz Summit, 17.5%, flameout + 20, steep for 20min in whirpool, then cool wort

1.5oz Summit, dry, 7 days

US-05

Expected OG/FG/IBU/ABV: 1.081 / 1.020 / 197+ / 7.9%
(Note that the IBUs are likely above the point where additional IBUs make a difference in the taste, reportedly at around 100 IBUs.)


3/21/14 - Made a starter with some US-05 I had washed and stored in a mason jar.

Brewed 3/22/14

Hit my mash temps right on, and at the end of the second runnings I got about 4.75 gallons of 1.052 wort (no sugar added yet). With that volume, I had to be VERY careful not get a boil over. Luckily my burner can go to a low enough flame that I didn't have a problem.

Added the first hops, it smelled great. After the second addition of hops, it smelled great and was looking a little green.

At 20 minutes I put the worth chiller in to sanitize it, then connected the pump using a new set of plastic quick-disconnects I got to make cleaning and easier. I started the pump to, again to sanitize it and the tubing.

As I proceeded to add the hops, the beer started looking really green in color, but smelled awesome. The March pump did a fine job with pumping all the hoppy wort, but again my chiller was sort of tipping over. I really need to find a fix for this. After the flameout hops were added, I just let the wort continue to circulate through the pump. The wort cooled to around 170F by 20 minutes after flameout, when I added the second ounce of steeping hops. After another 20 minutes, I started the chilling procees, getting the wort down to 70F before turning the chiller and pumping the wort into the Better Bottle.

Again, having a March pump is awesome! 

Obviously, there was a huge volume of hops in the wort. I didn't use hop bags or anything to filter them out, and so all but a small bit of hop debris and trub ended up in the fermenter. I hope this won't cause a problem.

3/27/14 - The beer was fermenting, with a smallish krausen, not yet full active. Ambient temps were high 50s. I moved the beer up to an area around 66F.

3/28/14- High krausen. The fermentation was very active, making the beer cloudy with yeast and the krausen dark and thick with hop gunk, yeast, and grub. The bubbles coming out of the airlock smelled pretty hoppy, unlike the normal smell.

3/30/14 - Transferred to a secondary fermentor and added dry hops, leaving almost all of the hop debris and yeast sediment behind in the primary fermenter. Didn't get a sample of the beer, but it smelled really good.

4/7/14 - Bottled, going for 2.2 volumes of CO2.

Oatmeal Stout

Two weekends ago I brewed a low-ABV oatmeal stout, as I haven't made a session beer in quite some time, and my wife seems to prefer dark beers like porters and stouts. Also, this was the first time I used my new March pump in brewing, having recently installed a weldless fitting with a 1/2" ball valve onto my brew kettle and bought some high-temp silicone tubing. Fortunately I had tested everything the day before to ensure against leaks, etc..


Session Oatmeal Stout

About 3.2 gallons
 
4.5# US 2-Row
1# 2oz Instant Oatmeal, lightly toasted
8oz Victory Malt
6oz Chocolate Malt
4oz Crystal 80L
4oz Black Patent Malt

.3 oz Willamette, 5% AA, 60 min
.3 oz Nugget, 13% 60 min (substitution since I didn't have enough Willamette)

S-04 Yeast

Mash at 155F

Expected OG/FG/IBU/ABV: 1.048/ 1.012 / 27 / 4.7

Brewed 3/2/14

Brewed with several people who I had invited over, which was really fun but prevented me from taking gravity etc.. Also I didn't take any pictures of my new pumping set up, but I will on my next brew.

Hit my mash temps spot on. I pre-heated my MLT by putting about 1 gallon of boiling water inside for 15 minutes. I think I will do that every brew session in the future.

The only problem was that I didn't measure out enough sparge water, so I had to use about 1/2 gallon of hot (but not hot enough) water from the tap.

During the boil there were no leaks through the fitting. Yay!

At around 20 minutes before knockout I connected the pump, being sure to tighten the hose-clamps very tightly around the barbs so that no leaks would occur. Using hose-clamps is a pain, so at some point I'll upgrade to quick-disconnects for easier connecting of the tubing. I had also attached a ball valve to the output side of the pump so that I could if needed to control the amount of wort going through the recirculating arm.

The input to the March pump was from the kettle, and the output was to the recirculating arm of my wort chiller. After opening the ball valve on the kettle and the valve on the March pump, the boiling wort entered the pump. I then turned it on, and voila, I had boiling wort recirculating, forming a whirlpool. Awesome.

At knockout, I immediately turned on the sump-pump chilling water recirculating system, which worked amazingly well because the chilling water was just above freezing. In fact, the plastic bin was filled mostly with ice. (It has generally been really cold around here for the last two months, though it's clearly getting warmer.) The entire volume of wort went from 212F to about 55F in.... 10 to 15 minutes. Wow! That's is super fast compared to my previous chilling times, and due to the combination of ice-cold chilling water and the recirculating pump.

One thing that didn't work so well, however, was that the weight of the wort in the output tube was kind of pulling the chiller and the recirculating arm to the side, so that it wasn't standing up straight and the output of the recirculating arm was nearly above the surface of the wort. So, I kind of had to stand there and hold it straight. So now I need to find a way to hold the chiller upright or reduce the pull exerted by the output hose.

Once the wort was at 55F, I simply detached the output of the pump from the recirculating arm and pumped the wort into my sanitized carboy. Awesome. However, I rather foolishly picked up the kettle once most of the wort was in the fermenter and tipped the kettle over so that almost all of the trub wound up in the fermenter. Probably not optimal, but it probably won't hurt the beer significantly to have all that trub in there.

Pitched most of the packet of S-04, and placed the fermenter in an area of the house where it was about 64F.

So far it appears that the March pump is a great tool that can significantly ease the brew day by making it less time-consuming. Obviously I'll need to use it a bit more to really get a sense of its strengths and weaknesses. However, one upgrade that will clearly be useful if not at some point necessary is a set of quick-disconnects. 

3/5/14
A smallish krausen was present.

3/9/14
The krausen is gone, and does not appear to have ever been big or super vigorous. Probably normal for a low-gravity beer. 

3/16/14
Bottled, going for 2.2 volumes of CO2. The gravity reading was 1.024 or so. That's 10 points higher than expected, but I don't see why that should be the case. But the yeast had had 2 weeks to do its thing in the right temp range. Not sure what's happening. I just hope I don't get bottle bombs! Maybe a problem with the hydrometer?

Smoked Porter 4 Review

I've been pretty busy over the last few weeks. Went on a ski-weekend, got a tooth pulled (which sucked, so brush your teeth and floss more diligently than I have been), recovered from the tooth extraction, stewarded a home brew competition, brewed last weekend (write-up early next week) and this weekend going away. Plus, I may have a bit of a cold. So this review might not be up to my usual standards, which my army of faithful readers know are very insightful, masterfully written, and demonstrate my world-class palate, along with my humility.

Plus, this review might be slightly biased, for more than the obvious reasons. 

Appearance: Dark mahogany. Not black, especially when held up to the light, but basically opaque. Thin tan head that does not last. The head retention is a little bit disappointing.

Aroma: Smokey but not like bacon or other smoked meat. I get some roasty or chocolate notes in there. Not overpowering smokiness, but then again my sense of smell is not functioning at 100% today. I don't get much if any hop aroma, but if it's there, it's kind of earthy.

Taste: A pretty good balance of smoke, roasty notes, chocolate / coffee, and a slight sweetness in the background. Hop presence is low, but may come through a bit as a spicy or earthy note. The smokiness is pretty smooth. I think for this reason I could drink more than one glass of it, unlike the Bamberger Rauchbiers.

Mouthfeel: Pretty low carbonation, moderate body bordering on slightly thin. I think it has a thinner body than my previous smoked porter. Aftertaste is smoke, slight bitterness, and a combination of roasty sweetness. A little bit of astringency in the aftertaste.

Overall: A "balanced" smoked porter which combines smoke and roasty flavors in pretty equal portions. Slight sweetness and bitterness, but some earthy / spicy hop qualities.

Special Feature: This beer scored a 35 at a local competition, and won 3rd place in the Smoked Beer Style (Category 22). The judges' comments about the beer more or less are consistent with my own impression. I am pretty happy with the results here, though I wish I had gotten something from the judges about how I could push the score "to the next level".

For Next Time: Play around with it. Perhaps use Marris Otter malt as a base for some extra complexity. Or try some German beechwood smoked malt instead of the Cherry-smoked malt. Or perhaps use an English yeast such as S-04. We'll see.