first all-grain IPA

Last Thursday I brewed an original recipe all-grain IPA.  After two days of heated back and forth between myself and now west coast living brew partner Clemente we finally decided upon a recipe.

Ingredients:

2 row malt
Crystal 60L malt
Flaked Barley

Centennial Hops
Amarillo Hops
Cascade Hops

Safale 05 yeast

Irish moss

The grains are simple. A little crystal for color and flaked barley for head retention.  In my opinion IPA's should be about the hops.  Deciding which hops, how many, and when to add them to the boil was a tedious task and the center of discussion.  Hopefully we got it right.

This time around I wasn't distracted by making a wort chiller, so I did a much better job at maintaining the mash temperature that I wanted.

The color coming out of the mash tun was a nice light golden color.  After the boil it darkened a bit to golden/copper.

Another process improvement: I made an attachment for the wort chiller so that I do not have to hold the hose to the faucet for 45 minutes.  This was fantastic and I wish I had done it last time.  The added water pressure being hooked up to the sink as opposed to being shot through with the bottle washer cut the cooling time in half.

The IPA is now in the glass carboy for secondary fermentation.  I had a taste of it before I put it in the secondary and I have high hopes for this one.   The aroma is a little weak, so next time I will definitely increase the last bit of cascade hops a little.  Other than that it promises to be very delicious!

OG: 1.048*
FG: 1.017
ABV: ??%

In order to take the initial gravity you need to take a sample of the wort.  My method for doing this was to collect some in a cup as it poured out of the kettle and into the fermentor.  I did this because I felt it was slightly more sanitary than sticking a tube into the fermentor and extracting some of the wort (although I don't know why I was concerned considering that's how I did it 20 times before and never had a problem).  I think the issue with this is that the wort was not mixed completely when I took the sample, and I got a gravity reading far below what it should have been.  There are three possible causes for this low reading: 1. I did something horrible wrong and the actual gravity is 1.048. 2. The hydrometer is broken. 3. The reason stated above, that the wort was not mixed.  I checked the hydrometer and it is not broken, and the final gravity of 1.017 suggests that the starting gravity was actually closer to 1.063.  So I am leaning towards believing that the reading was wrong and the actual starting gravity was 1.060+.  That brings the ABV to somewhere around 6.0%.

As I am writing this I am brewing a Brown Ale and an all-grain version of the Double IPA is in progress and will be brewed next weekend.  Bottling for the IPA and the Brown will both take place next weekend as well.

Coffee Porter Tasting Notes

After 4 weeks conditioning the Coffee Porter is ready to drink!  That being said, I think this one is going to age very well, so I may lose a couple in the bottom of my closet for a while for a nice surprise when I'm looking for bottles in a month or two.

ABV: 5.1% (the original 6% didn't account for the coffee, beer math is hard)
Color: Deep, rich brown
Aroma: Coffee. Delicious, delicious coffee.
Mouth feel: Medium to light.  The color is deceiving, this is not heavy at all. You can definitely drink more than one of these if you are so inclined.
Taste: It is a nice blend of coffee and the caramel, malty flavor you expect from a porter.
Finish: Dry and crisp with lingering coffee notes.

It is not quite as full bodied as I had planned, but that has been received by many as less of a bad thing and more of a good thing (who doesn't like a beer you can drink a lot of?).   Next time around I think I will shoot for a little fuller body and malty sweetness, with an addition of a little more hops to balance the extra sweetness.  All in all I'm happy with it!


Up next: First all-grain attempt at an IPA. Hopefully brewing on Thursday.