Time to IPA it up again! I’ve been doing a lot of either “fruity” hops (Citra/Mosaic) or single hop IPA experiments, so for this recipe I wanted to do an American hop blend focusing on Centennial and Amarillo (hence the name “CA IPA”). I’m also going to switch up techniques a bit–rather than dry-hopping in the keg, I’m going to dry-hop in the fermenter towards the end of the main fermentation cycle, followed by cold crashing prior to kegging.

CA IPA

• 11 lbs. 2-row malt (Rahr)
• 2 lbs. 4.8 oz. Vienna malt (Weyermann)
• 8 oz. crystal 20° malt (Briess)
• 5 oz. crystal 10° malt (Briess)
• 0.75 oz. Warrior hop pellets (15.8% alpha), 60 minute boil
• 1 oz. Amarillo hop pellets (7% alpha), 15 minute boil
• 1 oz. Centennial hop pellets (7.6% alpha), 15 minute boil
• 1 Whirlfloc tablet, 10 minute boil
• 1 oz. Amarillo hop pellets (7% alpha), 5 minute whirlpool
• 1 oz. Centennial hop pellets (7.6% alpha), 5 minute whirlpool
• 1 pkg. Burton Ale yeast (WLP023, White Labs), prepared in 1.25L starter
• 1 oz. Amarillo hop pellets (7% alpha), 5 day dry-hop in primary fermenter
• 1 oz. Centennial hop pellets (7.6% alpha), 5 day dry-hop in primary fermenter

Target Parameters

• 150° mash, 60 minutes
• 1.065 o.g., 1.015 f.g., 6.6% abv, 63 IBU, 6 SRM, 6 gallons into the fermenter

Procedure

• The morning of my brew day, I prepared the yeast in a 1.25L starter. I don’t plan on setting any aside, so I did not bother with overbuilding the starter.
• I prepared my mash water by adding a quarter Campden tablet, 8g gypsum, and 5g epsom salt to 4.75 gallons tap water. The 4.5 gallons of sparge water will be plain RO.
• I heated the mash water to 170°, added it to the fermenter, and then let the temperature settle to 161.5° before adding the grains. This hit my mash temperature right at 150.2°, pretty much exactly where I wanted it.
• Mash temperature was down to 148.5° after 30 minutes. I was visiting with some friends, so the mash ended up sitting a total of 90 minutes before I got back to it. At this point, I vorlaufed and then collected the first runnings.
• Next, I added the sparge water (at around 155°, to hit a mash bed temperature of 152°), let it sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected the remainder of the wort.
• In total, I collected 8.1 gallons of wort at a gravity of 1.050 and 78% efficiency. This is a larger volume than expected–I think this is likely because I had assumed my RO jug had 4.5 gallon exactly, and it was probably a touch more than this. I’ll measure more carefully next time! For this particular batch, I boiled a bit harder than usual to bring the volume down and the gravity up.
• Once I had the wort at a hard boil, I added the hops per the schedule, boiling for 60 minutes total. At the end of the boil, I added the whirlpool hops (in a mesh bag) and let them sit for 5 minutes before chilling the wort.
• Once the beer was down to ~75°, I transferred to the fermenter and pitched the yeast. I put approximately 5.75 gallons into the primary. I pitched the yeast, and will be fermenting at 67°. I plan to add the dry hops in 5 days.
• Starting gravity was 1.060, a bit below my target (but not surprising given the extra boil volume).
• I brewed this beer on 25 March 2017. Visible yeast activity was evident in under 24 hours.