Sunday, January 15, 2012

Gettin' Some Nookie IPA


Origins:
     One of the contractors that is working at my office (Eric) is also an avid home brewer and gave me 8 oz. of extremely dense sticky Chinook hops to brew with.  I hadn't brewed an IPA in a while so that is what I decided to do with these bittering hops. Since Chinook is the only hop in this beer I decided to call it Gettin' Some Nookie IPA

Recipe Specifications:
  • Batch Size: 10.00 gal
  • Boil Size: 13.5  gal
  • Final Boil Volume: 11.25 gal
  • Predicted OG: 1.082 SG
  • Boil Time: 60 Minutes
Ingredients:
  • 30.0 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US
  • 2.00 lb GW Crystal Malt - 40 °L
  • 2.50 lb Briess Crystal Malt -10 °L
  • 2.0 lb Briess Carapils/Dextrin
Total Grain Weight: 36.5 lb
  • 8 oz Chinook, US [12-14%] (60 min) Hops
  • WLP 011 European Ale Yeast
Starter Procedure:

     Friday January 6th, 2012 made my starter. Since this was an imperial IPA I decided to add 50% to my volume bringing it up to around 1600 ml of wort after adding the DME.  I got a little crazy on adding the Fermcap-s and put in like 4 drops instead of 1 on accident.  This shouldn't have any affect on the starter. The ingredients I used in the starter were:

  • 1.5 cups DME I used volume instead of mass this time its about the same.
  • 1/4 tsp Wyeast Yeast Nutrient
  • 4 Drop Fermcap-S Foam Inhibitor
  • 1500 ml Water

This should give a starting gravity of about 1.040.


Brew Procedure:
      January 8th 2012 was brew day. First I calculated how much mash water I needed. total grain weight was 36.5 lbs. So to calculate mash water I used the following calculation:

36.5 lbs grain x 1.33 qt/lb = 48.55 qt. x 1/4 gallon/qt = 12.14

     I filled the mashtun with 12 gallons of water and began heating it to 165 °F.  After the water reached 165 °F I added the grain, this is where the trouble began.  My 15 gallon mashtun will hold EXACTLY 36.5 pounds of grain and 12 gallons of water. This measurement is so exact that you can no longer put the lid on the mashtun.  No lid on the mashtun posed a serious temperature problem since it was about 35 °F that day. I drained some wort out of the mashtun into the kettle so that I could put the lid on.  Since the grain had been sitting out in my cold back room it had reached a lower temperature that I was used to.  After adding the grain the mash temperature dropped to around 145 °F.  Proper starch extraction happens 10 °F higher so I needed to heat my mashtun up.  This poses a major problem since I have a screen in the bottom of my mashtun and proper heat transfer cant occur throughout the mash.  To fix this I turned the burner on and started to manually recirculate the wort with a bucket; letting the kettle heat up for a couple minutes then draining into a bucket and pouring it in the top.  This worked pretty to heat up the mash but I think it was too little too late. Based on the original gravity I am pretty sure full starch conversion did not happen.

Burnt propane hose
DANGER!!
     After mashing I transferred to the kettle, sparged and started the boiling process.  Once I started the boil the propane hose caught on fire because of the cheap connection.  My solution was to put it on my turkey fryer which turned out to be a bad idea.  The 15 gallon brew kettle completely covered the top of the fryer not allowing for any air circulation.  After a couple minutes of heating the kettle I smelled some burrning.  I bent down and looked under the burner to find the supports were glowing orange.  What I ended up doing that worked out pretty well was to use the hose from the turkey fryer and placed it on the brew stand so I could use my brew stand and also not melt the burner.
GREAT SUCCESS!!!
     This wasn't the perfect solutions but it let me complete my boil without any further problems.  I used the following ingredient schedule:

Hops/Ingredients Schedule:

Quantity Ingredient Boiled For
3 oz.  Chinook  Entire 60 Min. boil
3 tsp.  Gypsum  Last 15 min of boil 
2 tabs  WhirlFloc  Last 15 min of boil 
1 tsp. Yeast Nutrient  Last 15 min of boil
2 oz.  Chinook Last 5 min of boil
1 oz.  Chinook  Flame Out
2 oz.  Chinook  Dry Hopped 

     I added a teaspoon of extra gypsum because of the article I read about adding gypsum to maximize your hoppiness. I cooled the wort and pitched the yeast into two 6.5 gallon carboys adding a vial of Clarity-Ferm to each.  My friend pat hasn't really experienced a hopzilla beer before so I thought I should help him out with this one.  I purchased an oxygen stone while at the brew store to aerate the wort and aide in aerobic respiration of the yeast.  This should speed up the fermentation process and yield a healthier yeast.

INITIAL WORT GRAVITY: 1.062
     This was 20 points lower than it was supposed to be which was extremely disappointing but I think it will be OK.

UPDATE 1/12/12:
     Fermentation completed extemrely rapidly the oxygen stone appears to be extremely effective.  Hopefully I will be able to pull a couple more points out in secondary.

Gravity at Transfer
131.25*(1.062-1.018)=5.78%

UPDATE 1/24/12:



     After 12 days in secondary I kegged and bottled.  The results were a little darker than I hoped but that shouldn't affect the taste any but not exactly a "Pale Ale".  I tasted the beer and it was much less hoppy than I had anticipated.  This may have been because I didn't let it stay in eh primary long enough and dry hop since the fermentation finished so quickly.  I took a gravity measurement and it had not changed so the Final ABV was 5.78, MUCH lower than I was hoping but the beer tastes pretty good.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Brewing Better Hoppy Beers

Brew-Monkey.com has posted a outline by Vinnie Cilurzo the Brewer/Owner of Russian River Brewing Company in Santa Rosa, CA.  Russian River as you know makes Pliny the Elder, one of my favorite hop grenades.  There are some great tips in here that you should check out if you are interested in making extremely hoppy beer.  You should check it out: 10 Factors to Making Better Hoppy Beers.
Thanks Evan for showing this to me.