Buzz Spiderman Rescue IPA

Named by my younger son.

Recipe

Batch size: 5 gallons

Grain bill:

  • 11 lb pale malt
  • 1 lb rye malt

Hops:

  • 1.25 oz Zeus @ 50 (15.2%)
  • 1.5 oz Willamette @ 10 (5.2%)
  • 1.5 oz Cascade @ flameout (8.6%)
  • 1.5 oz Willamette @ flameout (5.2%)
  • 1 oz Cascade dry hopping (8.6%)
  • 1 oz Willamette dry hopping (5.2%)

Yeast: Wyeast 1068 (American ale)

Prep

March 22, 2011: 2 litre starter started. I was going to brew on the 26th, but we got whacked by the sickness hammer many, many times. Went into the fridge on the 28th.

Brew Day

April 1, 2011: Did my usual mash overnight: 7 gallons/26.5 litres to 83C -- too high! Initially hit 74 C/65 F, but brought it down to 69 C/157 F by adding lots of cold water.

April 2, 2011: Brew day proper, starting at 6am. Temp fell to 59 C/138 F overnight. Hydrometer says 1.049, so I calculate I'll hit 1.059 -- lower than I wanted (target was 1.070 or so). I'll add a pound of palm sugar to bump this up.

Into the pot at 6.30am. Hit boil at 7am and I added the Zeus. Added the Willamette at 7.40 and the Cascade at 7.48, then promptly ran out of propane. Damnation! Chiller's been in 4 minutes; we'll call it good. Hit 22 C/72 F at 8.15am. Yielded 21.75 litres/5.75 gallons -- 22.75 litres/6 gallons with starter.

Gravity is only 1.059. What the hell?

Fermentation

Blew the airlock again, dammit. What a mess...set up a blowoff tube for a day, then put the airlock back in. I hope this doesn't get infected.

April 10, 2011: Dry hopped at eight days. 2 ounces of loose hops is a righteous pain to get into a carboy; I had to jam the bag in, and despite weighing it down with a butter knife the damn thing just would not sink. I have to get pellets next time.

Sample: pale, straw-coloured, still cloudy. Noticeable hop aroma, which must be strong if I'm smelling it. Definitely bitter; paranoid about infection, but I think it's probably just green. No sweetness at all, which I'm not entirely happy with...I'd prefer a bit more balance. Add some crystal next time. Is there some graininess in here too?

Bottling

April 24, 2011: Meant to bottle sooner, but here we are. 110 g of dextrose -- a bit higher than usual due to the higher volume. FG 1.011; hydrometer paper says that's 7.4% ABV, but John Palmer says it's 6.4% in "How To Brew" -- I'll trust him. (Huh: Online ABV calculators for beer say 6.4%, but one for wine says 7%. Weird.)

Sample: much the same as before. It does not have the overwhelming hoppiness I was going for (Granville Island IPA, Swan's IPA...). It definitely gets hoppier and tastier as it warms up though -- which is interesting, because it's only going from 15C to 22C or so.

I'm going to enter this in my homebrew club's competition and see what happens.

Tasting

Date: