The hops I started in early May are ready to harvest at the top of the bine. It is my first time growing hops and it seems like they matured quickly. I had two pots but one rizome never got going for some reason. Would put them in the ground but the gopher situation in the backyard is out of hand.
Wanted to get out of my IPA rut so what better way then to make a rye IPA. Recipe based on Ruthless Rye only difference is used Magnum instead of Bravo. Also forgot to get 1.6 oz of Chocolate so it will be a tad paler. Using the San Diego Super Yeast. Used it on the last beer and it went completely nuts. Was bummed I wasn’t prepared to wash for reuse – there was literally 2 inches of beautiful white yeast in the cake on the bottom.
5 gallons
Estimated OG: 1.060
Estimated FG: 1.014
Estimated Color: 10 SRM
Estimated IBU: 57 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00 %
ABV: 6.1%
Grain
11 lbs 4.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US 87.6 %
13 oz Rye Malt 6.4 %
10.8 oz Caramel 40L 5.3 %
1.6 oz Chocolate 0.8 %
Schedule
14.00 g Magnum [14.00 %] – Boil 60.0 min 23.2 IBUs
24.00 g Magnum [14.00 %] – Boil 15.0 min 19.8 IBUs
24.00 g Chinook [13.00 %] – Boil 5.0 min 7.4 IBUs
20.00 g Magnum [14.00 %] – Boil 5.0 min 6.6 IBUs
28.00 g Chinook [13.00 %] – Dry Hop 7.0 Days 0.0 IBUs
28.00 g Citra [12.00 %] – Dry Hop 7.0 Days 0.0 IBUs
Whirfloc or Irish Moss 20 min
1tsp yeast nutrient 15 min
Mash and Sparge
Half RO water no additions
Half Ventura water(high bicarbonates and sulfates)
Mash in 5 gallons 164F and let stabilize to 152F for 75 min
Mash out 168F
Batch Sparge 3.25 gallons 180F
Yeast
San Diego Super Yeast
Just got back from Seattle. Although not as happening as Portland or San Diego there is a healthy number of quality breweries and beer bars. If I had more time would have visited a few breweries but did manage to sample a few locally made beers. I’m not going to get all Beer Advocate on you but here’s a quicky review. By the way, everything I had was good to excellent.
Tried three different beers –
Pike IPA – 6.3% 60 IBU
Middle of the road IPA but well balanced. Classic American hopping. Could be a tad more aggressive.
Lucille IPA – 6.8% 80 IBU
Huge hop aroma and super tasty. Put down three of these easily and could of done more. Looked on their site and they use an English yeast. That might be it. Excellent beer.
Soundkeeper Organic Pale Ale 5% 33 IBU
A sessionable pale ale. A bit on the thin side and pretty unremarkable however. Too bad I heard that Fish Tale’s beers are pretty good.
Another IPA variation with the same grain bill but a change up in hops. Warrior, Fuggles and Hallertauer this time. IBUs are a bit lower but I’m thinking this should be a bit more floral and spicy rather than citrusy.
5 gallons
Estimated OG: 1.069
Estimated FG: 1.013
Estimated Color: 4.5 SRM
Estimated IBU: 78 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00 %
ABV: 7.7%
Grain
12 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US 88.2 %
1 lbs 2.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine 7.9 %
8.8 oz Cane Sugar 3.9 %
Schedule
21 g Warrior [14.00 %] – First Wort 30.0 min
22 g Fuggles [4.50 %] – Boil 60.0 min
38 g Fuggles [4.50 %] – Boil 30.0
56 g Hallertauer [3.40 %] – Boil 0.0 min
35 g Warrior [14.00 %] – Dry Hop
56 g Hallertauer [3.50%] – Dry Hop
Whirfloc or Irish Moss 20 min
1tsp yeast nutrient 15 min
Mash and Sparge
Half RO water no additions
Half Ventura water(high bicarbonates and sulfates)
Mash in 5.3875 gallons 157F and let stabilize to 148F for 75 min
Mash out 168F
Batch Sparge 3.5 gallons 180F
Yeast
San Diego Super Yeast
Some really good seminars from the 2013 American Homebrewer’s Association Conference held in Philadelphia. Especially interesting to me was Because Not Every Beer is Stone Enjoy By IPA: Preserving Hop Aroma by Stan Hieronymus. He talks about aroma stability from first wort to dry hopping and how fermentation changes hop aromas. He also goes over a few studies done by Kirin on using hop substitutions for hard to get hops(Citra, etc) and Sierra Nevada on stability during shipping. Great stuff. Check out AHA National Homebrewers Conference Semiars.
I’ve basically hit upon a go to grain bill for my IPAs. Basically 88% 2 row, 8% Cara-pils(for mouthfeel), and 4% sugar(for dryness). I like my IPA’s dry with no caramel in them. You could make this more “English” by substituting a bit of two row with Crystal. Anyhow, now I’m trying out some different hops in the beer for aroma and dry hopping. This time will be using Summit, Galena, and Amarillo. Changed my mashing to a thinner mash. Tried going to 1.25 qt per pound grain but was getting poor efficiency. 1.5 qt per pound seems to work best with my equipment. When mashing low it’s always good to bring the mash temp up to mash out, so after an hour fire up tun and bring up to 168F slowly. This will make sure all the sugars convert.
5 gallons
Estimated OG: 1.069
Estimated FG: 1.013
Estimated Color: 4.5 SRM
Estimated IBU: 101 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00 %
ABV: 7.7%
Grain
12 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US 88.2 %
1 lbs 2.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine 7.9 %
8.8 oz Cane Sugar 3.9 %
Schedule
21 g Summit [17.00 %] – First Wort 30.0 min
28 g Galena [12.00 %] – Boil 60.0 min
38 g Amarillo [8.50 %] – Boil 30.0
39 g Galena [12.00 %] – Boil 0.0 min
18 g Amarillo [8.50 %] – Dry Hop
35 g Summit [17.00 %] – Dry Hop
53 g Galena [12.00%] – Dry Hop
Whirfloc or Irish Moss 20 min
1tsp yeast nutrient 15 min
Mash and Sparge
Half RO water no additions
Half Ventura water(high bicarbonates and sulfates)
Mash in 5.3875 gallons 157F and let stabilize to 148F for 75 min
Mash out 168F
Batch Sparge 3.5 gallons 180F
Yeast
Cal Ale
This beer is based loosely on an ancient Egyptian recipe. The recipe calls for what seems to be a lot of spice but with the wheat and the Belgian yeast it all works very well together. There are no hops in this beer with the juniper acting as the bittering and preservative agent. If you must have hops I think a small amount of something piney or citrusy would be interesting. If your feeling gun shy about the spices add them at flame out. What seems overpowering at the time mellows out quite a bit through fermentation and conditioning. Try using fresh orange peel. Its far superior to the dried out stuff with the pith. Two small oranges would do for this. The honey adds yet another layer of complexity and aroma so add it after high krausen so you don’t lose any of those wonderful honey flavors and aromatics. Because of the honey, this beer will age really well, almost it giving it a champagne like quality. I would recommend aging taking place as a cold conditioning after the beer is carbonated which will clear it brilliantly.
5 gallons
OG = 1.060 (14.7 °P)
FG = 1.014 (3.6 °P)
SRM = 4–5
ABV = 6.0%
Grain
5.5 lbs. white wheat malt
7.0 lbs. pale 2-row malt
0.5 lbs rice hulls
12 oz. wildflower honey (add honey after high krausen)
Spices (all at 10 minutes)
10 g coriander seeds
10 g juniper berries
5.5 g grains of paradise
4.0 g rose hips
7.0 g bitter orange peel
Yeast
White Labs WLP500 (Trappist Ale) or Wyeast 1214 (Belgian Abbey) yeast
Mash and Sparge
Mash in 4.875 gallons 161.7 F and let stabilize to 152.0 F for 60 minutes.
Sparge 3.11gallons of 168.0 F water
Special Instructions
Boil for just 30 minutes.
Poured a light hazy golden with a nice sticky head. Beautiful lacing. I’ve used Irish Moss for years and years and finally tried out Whirfloc. Wasn’t prepared for the mass of hot break it created and ended up siphoning quite a bit of it up not wanting to have wort loss. Even after transferring to secondary still had a lot of hot break in the bottom of the fermenter that eventually ended up settling in the bottles that was creating some haze.
A wonderfully dry beer letting the hops shine through with a crisp smooth bitterness. Even at 7.5% this beer is really dangerously drinkable. First time I’ve done a first wort hopping and I think it really was key to creating a firm smooth bittering you cant get any other way. Aroma was wonderful but I was perhaps expecting more. I had late additions and a flame out addition where I let the temperature drop below 170 before adding the hops. I did use hop bags to dry hop so this could be the culprit perhaps limiting the hops’ contact with the beer. The bags did however help with the hop particulate in the finished beer. Overall a real winner. Will be doing this recipe again.
A classic IPA based on Pizza Port’s The Jetty IPA. Hop substitutions – Summit for Simcoe, Columbus for Chinook, and Cascade for Amarillo – so it definitely will be different. Used aeration stone and fermentation started 2 hours after pitching starter. Pretty impressive results justifying the use of the aeration stone.
5 gallons
Estimated OG: 1.069
Estimated FG: 1.013
Estimated Color: 4.5 SRM
Estimated IBU: 96 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00 %
ABV: 7.6%
Grain
12 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US 88.2 %
1 lbs 2.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine 7.9 %
8.8 oz Cane Sugar 3.9 %
Schedule
0.75 oz Summit [17.00 %] – First Wort 30.0 min
1.00 oz Columbus [14.00 %] – Boil 60.0 min
1.33 oz Cascade [5.50 %] – Boil 30.0
1.38 oz Columbus [13.00 %] – Boil 0.0 min
1.86 oz Columbus [13.00 %] – Dry Hop
1.86 oz Summit [17.00 %] – Dry Hop
Whirfloc or Irish Moss 20 min
1tsp yeast nutrient 15 min
Mash and Sparge
Half RO water no additions
Mash in 4.25 gallons 159F and let stabilize to 148F for 75 min
Batch Sparge 4.25 gallons 180F
Yeast
Cal Ale
Well this beer has been ready since Christmas but with the holidays and work, blah, blah, I’m just getting around to having a glass of this baby in front of me and ready to roll.
Beer pours a very dark amber verging on black. Nice tan head with a small amount of retention and nice lacing.
A beautiful roasty malt flavor hits your nose. Nice and thick on the tongue at first but a surprisingly dry finish. Has to be the water here. As I mentioned before the local water is off the charts on bicarbonates, which is excellent for dark beers. Flavors of toasty malt, chocolate and maybe a hint of coffee from the roasted malt. A little bit of sweetness upfront from the high finish, the corn, and the licorice root possibly but as I mentioned before finishes quite dry with a nice firm bitterness.
In short this beer is absolutely delicious. A keeper.
I’d like to up the salt and licorice additions on the next go around. I think it would add a bit more complexity to an already great beer.