Author: Mark Linton

Today I am making an all-grain variation of C.J.’s House of the Rising Sun JPA.

Mash at 154 °F (67.8 °C) with a grist ratio of 1.25 quarts per pound for 60 minutes. Treat the mash water with 2.3 g of gypsum and 1.5 g of Calcium Chloride. Treat the boil water with 1.6 g of gypsum and 1.1 g of Calcium Chloride.

Ferment at 64 °F.

Process

I used a gallon of boiling water to preheat my mash tun. I brought 3.95 gallons of local well water to 169 °F. After draining the preheat water, I added the mash water and mixed in the crushed grains (at 60 °F) and the mash salts and closed the mash tun. After 10 minutes the temperature stabilized to 154 °F. After 1 hour, I infused an additional 3 quarts of boiling water. This brought the mash temperature to 158 °F before I vorlaufed and lautered. I batch sparged with 3.5 gallons to collect 7 gallons of 1.050 wort. I added the boil salts and started to boil the wort.

Once the wort was boiling, I added the hops and yeast nutrient according to the ingredient schedule. At the end of the boil, I allowed the late hop additions to steep for 20 minutes with the flame off before starting the chiller.

Once the wort reached pitching temperature, I removed the chiller, started a whirlpool in the boil kettle, and allowed the trub to settle for 20 minutes before draining.

Once drained to the fermenter, I aerated the wort by shaking, then pitched three activator packs of yeast. Production dates and viabilities were: 10/5/10 (59%), 11/9/10 (83%), and 11/16/10 (88%). This should be approximately 261B cells. I set the fermentation temperature for 64 °F.

Four days later (Thursday), active fermentation was nearly complete. At this point I added 1 ounce of dry hops. I also began increasing the fermentation temperature by 1 °F per day to 68 °F and occasionally rousing the yeast.

Five days later (Tuesday), I added an additional ounce of dry hops.

After fourteen days of fermentation, I transferred the beer to a keg for carbonation, adding 2 ounces of hops.

Thursday, September 2, 2010, 9:52 p.m. I made a starter with two quarts of water, six ounces (by weight) of Briess Pilsner dry malt extract, a quarter teaspoon of Brewer’s Choice™ Wyeast Nutrient Blend, and two Wyeast 1028 London Ale Activator Packs (one dated 08JUN10 lot 0815147, the other 26JUL10 lot 0816196). Shook vigorously and covered with foil.

According to The Secret to Healthy Yeast: Making a Starter, by Jamil Zainasheff:

You do not want to make a high gravity starter to grow yeast. As a ballpark measurement, use about 6 ounces (by weight) of DME to 2 quarts of water… Add ¼ teaspoon of yeast nutrient, boil 15 minutes, cool and add yeast.

Mr Malty’s Pitching Rate Calculator™, based on one pack of the newer yeast, said to use a 2.57 L (2.72 qt.) starter and estimated 70% viability.

It estimated a 36% viability for the older pack.

If I combine them I get one pack with 106% viability — it’s cool it actually lets me enter that — and I need a 1.49 L (1.57 qt.) starter.

I went with 2 quarts anyway.

Update: I shook the starter back up occasionally to knock the CO₂ out and introduce some new O₂. At 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, September 4, 2010, I put it in the fridge to drop the yeast out of suspension.

This is my take on Jamil Zainasheff’s “Bière de L’Inde” from Brewing Classic Styles. He gives the recipe on the English IPA episode of The Jamil Show. The name is French for The Beer of India, and seems like a play on the French Bière de Garde, or beer for keeping, style.

This recipe produces five gallons (19 L) of beer for packaging. I assume a loss due to trub of a half-gallon in the fermenter and another half-gallon in the boil kettle. That leaves six gallons (22.7 L) at the end of the boil. I assume a boil-off rate of about one gallon per hour, which means I need 7 gallons (26.5 L) at the start of a 60-minute full-volume boil. I use bagged pellet hops for all hop additions.

Recipe: BVB English IPA

Brewhouse Efficiency: 70% Pre-Boil Volume: 7.0 gallons (26.5 L) BG: 1.053 (13.2 °P) OG: 1.062 (15.2 °P) FG: 1.016 (4 °P) ADF: 75% IBU (Rager): 49.4 BU:GU ratio: 0.79 Balance value: 1.65 ABV: 6.4% Color (Morey): 12 SRM (23 EBC) — Deep amber / light copper Boil: 60 minutes

Step by Step

A few days ahead of time, make an appropriate starter. Shake intermittently. Cold crash and decant before pitching time.

The water should have at least 50 ppm of Calcium, a residual alkalinity between 14 and 73, and a Chloride to Sulfate ratio between 0.5 and 0.77. For my starting water profile, I add 2.3 g Gypsum and 1.5 g Calcium Chloride to the mash and 1.6 g Gypsum and 1.1 g Calcium Chloride to the boil. My resulting water profile is:

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This is a single step infusion mash at 1.36 quarts/pound with a batch sparge. It will need a total of 8.3 gallons (31.5 L) of water.

Preheat the mash tun by bringing the 3.5 gallons (13.2 L) of sparge water to 170°F (77°C) and placing it in the closed mash tun while you heat the strike water.

Heat 4.81 gallons (18.2 L) of strike water to 164 °F (73.3 °C). Drain the sparge water from the preheated mash tun into the boil kettle. Add all but about a gallon of the heated strike water to the mash tun.

Mix in the crushed grain and the mash salts, making sure to break up any dough balls. Cover the mash tun and let it sit for about 10 minutes. The mash should stabilize at 152 °F (66.7 °C). Take a few readings and use the remaining strike water, boiling water, or ice water to adjust the temperature. The volume should be about 5.9 gallons (22.5 L). Cover the mash tun and let it rest. Transfer the sparge water back to the hot liquor tank.

After 60 minutes, vorlauf, and lauter. Sparge with 3.5 gallons (13.2 L) of water to bring the collected volume to about 7 gallons (26.5 L) at 1.053 SG (13.2 °P).

Add the boil salts and boil for 60 minutes. While boiling, add the remaining ingredients according to the schedule in the ingredient list.

After the boil, cool the wort to 68 °F (20 °C). The volume should be about 6.0 gallons (22.7 L) at 1.062 SG (15.2 °P). Transfer about 5.5 gallons (20.8 L) to a sanitized fermenter. Aerate the wort and pitch the yeast.

Hold at 68 °F (20 °C) until fermentation is complete. The final gravity should be about 1.016 SG (4 °P).

Transfer about 5 gallons (18.9 L) to a priming bucket and prime using 3.72 oz (105.5 g) of sugar for about 2.25 volumes of carbonation. Package in 53 12-ounce bottles.

Last Night — Crushed grains and measured out hop additions.

8:15 — Setting up brewery. Heating mash water to preheat mash tun. Heating strike water.

9:00 — Preheating mash tun.

9:23 — Strike water is hot. Draining sparge water from mash tun to hot liquor tank.

9:50 — Adjusted mash temperature to 152 °F. 50 minutes to go. Added mash salts.

Took a sample to cool for mash pH measurement. I’m calling it 5.2. (Woo hoo!)

10:40 — Starting to vorlauf and lauter the first runnings.

10:50 — Sparging. Tried to measure the first runnings gravity with my refractometer, but the screen was entirely blue. Tried it with tap water and it read 0 Brix (as expected). Don’t know what the problem is. Resorted to the hydrometer. Waiting for the sample to cool. 1.072 SG @ 92 °F. I believe my hydrometer is calibrated for 60 °F, so BeerAlchemy says the corrected gravity is 1.076.

Second runnings read 1.022 @ 113 °F which is 1.031 corrected to 60°F.

The combined wort is 1.046 @ 112°F which is 1.055 corrected to 60°F.

The expected boil gravity is 1.053. I’ve got 6.4 gallons. According to Drew Beechum’s Dilution Calculator I need to add a quart to make the adjustment.

I just broke my lab thermometer!

11:26 — Heating to boil. Added boil salts.

12:05 — Boiling.

12:07 — Added bittering hops.

12:50 — Placed wort chiller in kettle. Added yeast nutrient.

12:57 — Added flavor hops.

1:07 — Flame out. Added aroma hops. Chilling.

1:26 — Chilled to 68 °F. Removed hop bag (draining into pot) and chiller. Stirred to create whirlpool and put lid on while the trub settles.

2:03 — Draining wort into the carboy. Original gravity is 1.062. Spot on!

2:25 — Drained. Aerating.

2:39 — Wort is in the cellar.

2:50 — Decanted starter beer and pitched yeast. Cleaning up.

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p>Update: Saturday, September 25, 2010. Kegged the beer today. Refractometer read 7.8 Brix. With an OG of 1.062, that would make the FG 1.011. Hydrometer read 1.007 at 70 °F, calibrated for 60 °F. That would make the corrected FG 1.008. That would correspond to 7.2 Brix. I think I need to calibrate these. Since  went with the hydrometer to start, I’ll finish with it’s reading, too.  7.2 % ABV. 201 calories per 12 ounce serving. The keg is in the refrigerator at 45 °F under 11 PSI of CO₂. That should give me about 2.2 volumes when it reaches equilibrium.

Today I am going to make a recipe from Fred Bonjour, of the AHA Governing Committee, that he posted in a thread asking, “Is a good, low ABV IPA possible?”

I weighed and crushed my grains and set up the brewery last night. First thing I need to do today is start heating the strike water.

8:43 — Strike water is heating.

The taste of Simpson’s Golden Promise is not initially sweet, but has a nice malt flavor with a slightly sweet aftertaste.

Weyermann® Light Munich has a nuttier, grainier flavor.

Castle Aromatic is much harder with an earthy flavor.

Flaked Barley is relatively tasteless. Simple flakes of starch.

Briess Caramel 20L tastes vaguely sweet.

Briess Caramel 60L tastes of darker sugars and dried fruit. Beginning to taste slightly burnt.

I got myself a stainless steel dipper. Filled to the brim it holds a quart. It has some markings, but they appear to be in random locations.

9:22 — Mashing. I believe it is 150–152°F. I took a pH reading with some litmus papers and it looks to be about 5.0. Lower than I expected. I will not make any adjustment. I will be back out later to start the sparge water heating.

Update: It could be that “pH papers are made to be used on room temperature samples.”

The hops are supposed to be:

My Amarillo are pellets, but I use a bag and I understand the gain from the pellets over the leaf and the loss from the bag over loose cancel out. They are also 8.2% alpha acid, but the recipe makes it look like the 2 ounces was the target.

My Cascade are 4.0% AA.

10:29 — Finished infusion and vorlauf and now I am lautering. Mash is not terribly clear. Tastes sweet, but not as sweet as some I have had. The temperature dropped about 5 °F during the mash. I need to learn how to do a starch test. First runnings are 19.2 Brix (1.077 SG). Only got 2.75 gallons from the mash. I expected 3.36 gallons.

10:41 — Sparging. With second runnings the batch comes to 5.75 gallons. Expected 6.71. Almost a gallon short. Second runnings are 6.8 Brix (1.027). Vaguely sweet. Combined gravity is 12.0 Brix (1.047 SG). Should be 12.7 (1.048). Sparging more to make the boil volume would only reduce the boil gravity, so I am going to go with what I have.

10:58 — Heating to boil.

Cleaning mash tun. I scooped out the spent grain into a bowl and stuck it in the fridge so it does not spoil. Gretchen plans to make a spent grain bread.

11:23 — Boiling.

11:25 — Bittering hops are in.

12:10 — Flavor hops are in, as is the immersion chiller so it has time to sanitize.

12:24 — Aroma hops are in.

12:25 — Flame out and chilling.

1:05 — I have given up on chilling. By the way, it helps to turn on the water at the tap. I cannot get the wort below 80 °F. The ground water appears to be about 75 °F. I could be fighting the air temperature and the sun on the garden hose. I am transferring to the carboy and I will chill it further in the refrigerator. Original gravity is 14.5 Brix (1.057 SG). Target was 1.048.

I see now that when I was deciding whether to sparge more I looked at the original gravity, not the boil gravity. The boil gravity should have been 1.041. Since I do not know the volume, I cannot calculate the amount of water to add to fix it. My record stands unbroken!

5:00 — The wort has chilled to about 69 °F, I am going to call it. Pitched the yeast. I rehydrated it in a zip lock bag — something John Palmer recommended in a recent podcast. It worked well and the baggie smelled of peaches when I opened it. The carboy is sitting in the coldest corner of the basement — about 61 °F — with an airlock attached. Everything is cleaned and drying on the porch. The animals are fed and now it is time to grill some pork chops for dinner.

Happy 4th of July everybody!

Update — It is 5:44 a.m. on Tuesday (7/6). Beer is fermenting actively. Temperature is 72 °F. This one could be fruity!

Update — It is Wednesday (7/7). Beer temperature is 75 °F. This is going to be rocket fuel. =(

Update — It is Saturday (7/24). Beer temperature is 74 °F. Bottling with 4 ounces of corn sugar. There is just about 4 gallons of beer. Surprisingly, it does not taste awful. Final gravity is 6.8 Brix (1.008 FG).That seems kind of low, but maybe the insane fermentation temperatures helped it along. That works out to 6.6% ABV and 187 Calories.

Update — It is Saturday (7/31). I put one bottle in the refrigerator yesterday to check the carbonation progress. I just sampled it. It is carbonated. It pours a hazy, turbulent cascade of bubbles with a thick creamy head. It is light copper in color. It has a nice balanced aroma with a mix of citrus hops and beery malt. It is smooth on the tongue with a chewy mouthfeel. Flavor is balanced, as well, with a lasting bitter aftertaste. No sign of any of the off flavors or aromas I expected. Based on how much I messed up this batch, I am surprised it is even drinkable. Now I wonder if I ever try again and get it right, whether I will be disappointed that it does not taste like this one.

If there is anything to learn from this, it is that no matter what you do, you will make beer. It may not be what you were planning, but it will be beer. Relax. Don’t worry. Have a home brew.