relax, don't worry, I'm just homebrewing
Posts tagged IPA
Big Ragin’ Belgian IPA
Dec 1st
Homebrew batch #10 was inspired by the fantastic Raging Bitch, Flying Dog’s 20th Anniversary brew. If you haven’t tried this beer yet, I suggest you drop everything and go get yourself a six-pack immediately. It’s a tremendous combo of the big, in-your-face American Imperial IPA experience and that fantastically funky, spicy, fruity Belgian yeast character. Just trust me, it works.
This was the first time I attempted to ‘clone’ a specific commercial beer that I couldn’t find a ready-made clone recipe for. I started out by checking out the info provided by Flying Dog on their own site, and then hitting up the forums for some collaborative tweakage (it’s a word).
The recipe I ended up going with wasn’t entirely a Raging Bitch clone per-se, so much as a Raging-B-inspired Belgian IPA. In addition to the info provided by Flying Dog, I also drew from Brewing Classic Styles, tips from fellow homebrewers, and my own experience. The resulting beer is actually pretty close to the Flying Dog brew in aroma and taste, but without the lingering bitterness. Color and clarity? Well, there’s some work to be done in those departments.
Adding Hops
Big Ragin’ Belgian IPA
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Style: Belgian-style Imperial IPA
Brew Date: Sunday, 2010.09.05
Bottled: 2010.10.04 (3.8oz cane sugar)
Batch Size: 6 gallons
Boil Time: 90 min
Expected IBU: 102
Expected SRM: 11
Measured OG = 1.082
Brewhouse Efficiency = 66%
FG = 1.018
ABV = 8.4%
2L Ardennes Yeast Starter
Grain Bill
———–
15.50 lb British Pale (Maris Otter)
2.00 lb Pilsner (2 Row) UK
1.50 lb Crystal 40L
1.00 lb Cara-Pils
Hops Schedule
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1.00 oz Warrior [17.20 %] @60 min
0.50 oz Amarillo [7.20 %] @30 min
0.50 oz Columbus [14.40 %] @30 min
1.10 oz Columbus [14.40 %] @15 min
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [7.20 %] @15 min
0.60 oz Columbus [14.40 %] @1 min
0.60 oz Amarillo [7.20 %] @1 min
2.00 oz Amarillo [7.20 %] Dry Hop for 11 days
Yeast
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Belgian Ardennes (Wyeast Labs #3522)
- 2L starter (2010.09.02)
Process / Notes
———————–
- Mash in with 25qt water at 170F
- Mash temp after adding grains was 150F
- 1 hour mash, then added 2gal near-boiling water to bring temp up to 165F
- 10 min rest, then recirculate & collect roughly 5.5gal wort
- Added 1.5gal near-boiling water, recirculate, collect
- Pre-boil SG = 1.065
- Fermented for 3days at 65-69F, then up to 72F for remainder
Bell’s Two-Hearted Clone
Oct 19th
Sometimes you don’t want to have to think too much about putting a recipe together, you just want to brew something tasty. In this case, I wanted to give the partial mash process another go, and I was in the mood for a good IPA. I’ve never had the opportunity to try Bell’s Two Hearted Ale, since it isn’t distributed in Maryland (yet), but I’ve heard only great things. And besides, can you really go wrong with an exclusively centennial-hopped IPA?
Well, it turns out you can go wrong, if you fail to do the math ahead of time, miscalculate your water amounts on the fly, have heat management issues with a new mini-mashtun cooler, and come in well under your expected original gravity. “Relax, don’t worry, have a homebrew”, though, right? Right. I probably could have left well enough alone, and just ended up with a low-ABV brew, but I said what the heck, and threw in 2lbs of boiled and chilled DME the following day.
Bell’s Two-Hearted Clone
Brew Date: Saturday, 2010.06.22
Bottled: 2010.07.06 (3.5oz corn sugar)
Batch Size: 5.5 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
Expected IBU: 48.6
Expected SRM: 6
Measured OG = 1.063 (1.047, pre-DME addition)
FG = 1.014
ABV = 5.3%
Grains & Malts
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6lb Light LME
2lb Vienna Malt
8oz Dextrin (CaraPils) Malt
8oz Pale Malt, 2 Row, US
5oz American Crystal 10
Hops
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1.0oz Centennial @60min
0.5oz Centennial @30min
0.5oz Centennial @15min
0.5oz Centennial @0min
.75oz Centennial @7days (dry hop for 7days)
Yeast
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White Labs California Ale V (WLP051)
I’m pretty sure that I made a 1L starter for this, but… it’s been a while, and my brewing notes are a wreck.
Notes
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Despite all of the brewing issues, this one turned out to be a reasonably good IPA. It’s nothing spectacular, but it sure as hell ain’t bad. The dry-hopping gave it a nice aroma, but this faded after a month or so. I would plan to use 2oz of Centennial next time around.At around three months, it seems to have developed a bit of a soapy (?) aroma, but it still tastes good. The body / mouthfeel are just the way I like them – not too dry, a bit “thick”, bit of a malt backbone.
Oh yeah, this also survived a fun fermentation snafu, when I broke a three-piece airlock, and sent a good amount of weeks-old StarSan plummeting into the brew-bucket. I was honestly expecting exploding bottles after that one.
Palilalia IPA
Aug 11th
OK… So, I have a fairly massive backlog of homebrew activity to report here, and I’m hoping to possibly get up to date over the next few weeks. Since my last post I’ve brewed seven more batches of beer – three more extract with specialty grain batches, two partial-mashes, and two all-grain brews. I’ve been keeping pretty busy, learning a lot, and loving every minute of it.
Again, I’m going to try to keep these recipe posts as short and sweet as possible, and just get the basic info logged for my own records, if nothing else. For my third batch, I went with Papazian’s “Palilalia” IPA recipe. This is meant to be a classic, well-balanced IPA:
Palilalia IPA
Brew Date: Sunday, 2010.03.21
Bottled: 2010.05.11
Recipe: Based on Charlie Papazian’s recipe from “The Complete Joy of Homebrewing”
Batch Size: 5 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
OG = 1.056
FG = 1.012
ABV = 5.9%Malts / Fermentables:
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6 lbs Amber dry malt extract
1 lb Crystal (60L)
4 oz Victory maltHops:
——-
1.5 oz Northern Brewer @ 60min
1.0 oz Cascade @1min
0.5 oz Northern Brewer @1min
1.0 oz Kent Goldings dry-hop for 20 daysYeast:
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Wyeast 1056 American Ale
– 03.19: first yeast starter using my diy stir-plate ~ 650ml H2o + 1/2 cup DME, boiled 15 min, added 1/4 tsp yeast nutrient
- 03.20: stepped up the yeast starter, uncertain of specifics (bad notes)Procedure:
————-
10:30am - 1 gal bottled water heating in small pot for specialty grain steep
steeping grains
11:30 - steeping water reached 160੦F; grain bag with Crystal & Victory added; steep 30min @ 165 – 180੦F
12:00pm - added steeped specialty grain wort to 5gal filtered water (@70੦F) in megapot
12:10 - added 6lbs amber DME; heat to boil, keeping lid on for heat retention
12:35 - boil reached; added 1.5 oz Northern Brewer hops
1:10pm - placed immersion chiller in wort to sanitize
final gravity
1:50 - wort chilled to 70੦F (15 min); began pouring wort into carboy, using funnel with built-in filter
2:10 - pitched entire yeast starter, without decanting; shook carboy for several minutes to aerate; sealed carboy; began cleanup.
Notes:
——–
- We had some ridiculously hot days following brewday. The fermometer on the outside of the carboy was reading 78F on the 22nd. It was fermenting at least 6 degrees higher than the recommended temp range for this strain of yeast, so I moved the carboy to the basement after work.
- Moved the carboy back upstairs again when temps dropped after the first few days. I have since figured out some better ferm temp controls.
- I checked in on the gravity and temps far too many times for my own good on this one.
- I found some kind of “off” aroma that I still can’t quite describe – my notes say “doughy / bready / wet dog”… but I think it may have just been green and smelling of yeast still. I have since noticed a very similar smell in a number of commercial IPAs, including Sierra Nevada’s Torpedo, which is one of my favorites.
- After a full month in primary (04.21), I racked this beer over to a secondary fermenter and dry-hopped it with 1oz of Kent Goldings, hoping to cover the mysterious off-aroma, and / or let it mellow out.
- bottled on May 11th, after a little over 7 weeks.
- Tasting notes to follow…
