Thursday, July 30, 2009

American IPA (from kit)

If anyone has actually been reading this blog, I'm sorry for the lapse in postings. I've done a few batches since my last post, and have progressed to kegging my batches. Results are mixed so far.

Here's the latest batch I just put into primary:

American IPA
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Target Ranges:
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OG: 1.056-1.075
FG: 1.010-1.018
COLOR: 6.0-15.0 SRM
IBU: 40.0-70.0
ABV: 5.5-7.5%

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Measured Values:
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OG: 1.056 (1.054 @ 77.4F)
Color seems to match color panel displayed in Beer Smith.
No idea how to measure IBU, but Beer Smith calculates 42.7. This might be a little low for what I want, but we'll see.
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Ingredient list:
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6.6 lb. Munton's un-hopped Pale Liquid Malt Extract (2 cans)
1.0 lb. 60L Crystal Malt
0.5 lb. Victory Malt
1.0 lb. Karo Syrup (to make sure to bump up the OG)
2.00 oz. Cascade (7.90%) @ 60 minutes of boil
1.00 oz. Cascade (7.30%) added slowly from 20 to 8 minutes left in boil
1 package SafAle US-05 dry ale yeast

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Procedures:
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Used a Bayou Classic SP-10 propane burner for all heating tasks.
Used a modified 5 gallon Home Depot water cooler with false bottom. Put1.5 lbs. of grain into cooler and added 2 gallons of water at about 160F for 40 minutes.
Drained "mash" straight into brew pot.
Added both cans of liquid extract and bottle of Karo (corn) syrup.
Began boil.
Had little foaming action (most of it was at hop addition).
At 40 minutes of boil, I began slowly adding the 1 oz. of flavoring hops, continuing to do so until the pellets ran out at about 8 minutes remaining.
At 15 minutes remaining, I placed my heat exchanger in the boil to sanitize.
When I cranked the water on to cool the wort, my heat exchanger was spraying water. Luckily, I had placed the lid over the pot, so I don't think any hose water got in, but I had to go to plan "B", which was an ice bath in the kitchen sink. I try to be very careful with sanitation, but my wife accidentally spilled about 1 or 2 oz. of tap water into the wort as it was chilling. I hope it doesn't introduce a bacterial infection to the beer. It took a LOOOOONG time to cool the wort down to 110, but luckily I had 3.5 gallons of chilled spring water to bring the temp down further.
After putting the concentrated wort in the bucket, adding water to 5 gallons and taking a gravity reading, I simply covered the top of the wort with the yeast, not stirring it in.
I rigged a blow-off solution into a 1 gallon plastic water jug, and there was fairly significant activity this morning.
The goal for this beer was a nice, strong, hoppy, yet quaffable summer beer.

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