Tag Archives: IPA

Equinox IPA

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I have been seeing a fair bit about Equinox…err, HBC 366…hops during the past year, and wanted to try them for myself. Like many of the recent American varieties, it is supposed to pack quite an aroma and flavor punch. Even if it’s totally stereotypical for a homebrewer, I do like big, aroma-rich hops, so a batch with Equinox made it onto my “brewing goals” list.

This was also an opportunity to continue my exploration of Vienna malt, so I crafted a SMaSH-ish recipe that had a decent late-hopping dose of Equinox. The only minor deviation from a true SMaSH is that I threw in a touch of de-bittered black malt for color.

Finally, I am using this batch to recalibrate some of my brewing parameters. For a few batches now, I have noticed that my wort volumes and starting gravities are a touch off, so I am going to adjust the mash and boil-off assumptions accordingly in BeerSmith. Additionally, the night before brewing, I completely disassembled and cleaned my mill (a Monster Mill 2). There was some grain dust worked into places, and as a result it wasn’t holding the gap as well as it should (hence my low mash efficiency on some previous batches). After reassembly, I set the gap to around 0.039″. As noted below, I had incredible mash efficiency (84%!), but the mash itself was a little slow to drain. So, after this brew I widened my gap to 0.041″.

equinox

Equinox IPA

  • 12 lbs. Vienna Malt (Weyermann)
  • 1 oz. de-bittered black malt (Dingemans)
  • 0.5 oz. Equinox (HBC 366) hop pellets (14.2% alpha), first wort hop
  • 0.5 oz. Equinox (HBC 366) hop pellets (14.2% alpha), 60 minute boil
  • 1 oz. Equinox (HBC 366) hop pellets (14.2% alpha), 5 minute boil
  • 1 oz. Equinox (HBC 366) hop pellets (13.4% alpha), whirlpool
  • 0.5 tsp. gypsum, added to boil
  • 1 Whirlfloc tablet, 10 minute boil
  • 2 pkg. Safale American dry yeast (US-05)

Brewing Targets

  • Mash temperature = 149°
  • Original gravity = 1.067 (actual = 1.062)
  • Color = 8.5 SRM
  • IBU = 63
  • Note that I originally targeted this for a lower gravity, ~1.058. Because I ended up with very high mash efficency (~84%), I had to adjust the recipe per the above. If I brew this again, after adjusting my mill gap, I’ll need to tweak the malt bill to reach the same gravity.

Procedure

  • I mashed in with 4.6 gallons of water at 159°, to hit a mash temperature of 151°. The mash was down to 147° after 30 minutes, and 146.5° by 60 minutes.
  • After 60 minutes, I added 0.7 gallons of water at 190°, to raise the mash bed to 148°. After 10 minute, I vorlaufed and collected the first runnings. Due to the fine crush, it took awhile to drain the mash bed.
  • I then added 3.75 gallons of water at 182°, to raise the mash temperature to 160°. I let it sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected the second runnings.
  • Wow! I collected 7 gallons of wort at a gravity of 1.055, for 84% efficiency. As a result, I adjusted my original recipe to the one above.
  • As soon as the wort was on the flame, I added hops. At the boil, I added the second addition, and everything else was dropped in at the appropriate time.
  • After flame-out, I chilled the wort to 84°. This wasn’t quite cool enough to pitch the yeast, so I transferred into my fermenter and put it all into the fermentation chamber for a few hours. Once the overall temperature had come down, I pitched in the two packets of yeast.
  • Starting gravity was 1.062, a little lower than expected (probably due to a slightly lower boil-off rate than assumed by BeerSmith). I brewed this on 27Aug2016, and am fermenting at 66°.

Beer Tasting: Centennial IPA

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20160714_204030My Centennial IPA has been in the keg and cold conditioning/dry-hopping for nearly a month. Because I’m taking off soon for a few weeks, and because IPA’s are best fresh, now is as good of a time as any to do a tasting.

Centennial IPA

  • The Basics
    • Original gravity = 1.063; final gravity = 1.010; abv = 7.0%; estimated IBU = 59
  • Aroma
    • Very lightly sweet malt aroma, with a moderate hop aroma that is citrusy (slightly orange-hinted) and lightly floral.
  • Appearance
    • A hazy beer with a moderately deep gold color. The off-white head is fine and persistent, with modest lacing.
  • Flavor
    • As it should be, this is a hop-forward beer, with a smooth but assertive bitterness that fades in and then gently fades out. The bitterness has a piney note to it. The modest malt flavor tends toward the grainy side.
  • Mouthfeel
    • This is a fairly dry beer, with a relatively light body. Carbonation is moderate, as is appropriate for the style.
  • Would I brew this again?
    • This is a solid traditional American IPA–I would characterize it as squarely middle of the road; not in a bad way, just that it is tasty but not adventurous. In the original recipe, Gordon Strong noted that the recipe would be a solid base for any single hop American IPA; I agree! For this particular run, I feel like I’m getting a nice feel for what Centennial is as a hop. Compared to recent varieties such as Mosaic or Citra, Centennial is so “yesterday.” But, it has a character all its own that deservedly places it in the great pantheon of hops. I can’t say I’ll change much (other than hop variety) when I brew this again; it would definitely be OK with other American yeast varieties, but in terms of malt bill and brewing technique it’s spot-on.
  • Rating
    • 9/10

Beer Tasting: Transatlantic IPA 1.1

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TIPAI kicked the keg for this batch a few weeks back, but luckily did a tasting before that happened. Results are below.

  • The Basics
    • Original gravity = 1.060; final gravity = 1.015; abv = 5.9%; estimated IBU = 60
  • Aroma
    • Light fruity background, with the hint of peach that I would expect for Conan. Slightly citrusy with minor floral hint, too. Very nice aroma, but not overpowering.
  • Appearance
    • A decent but not overwhelming haze to the beer; this has definitely cleared up over the past few weeks, from the initially murky impression. The head pours fairly high and fine, but settles down to a moderate but uniform, ivory-colored blanket across the top of the beer. The beer is a medium-amber in color.
  • Flavor
    • This is hops-dominated, with a notable bitterness at the forefront of each sip. This persists on the finish. The hops character is fairly piney, with a bit of citrus and faint earthiness behind that. The malt character has a slight breadiness to it, but is definitely at the background (which is fine for this beer).
  • Mouthfeel
    • The beer has medium-light body and a dry finish, with moderate carbonation as appropriate for the style. The bitter finish carries through smoothly. It is maybe a touch thinner than I like, but that’s fairly minor.
  • How does it compare to version 1.0?
    • This is a pretty good beer, but I think I liked the first version just a bit better in terms of its hops character. The main difference, to me, is probably the swapping out of Simcoe and Columbus for Falconer’s Flight 7C’s and Fuggle. It’s not flawed by any means, but I think my preference tips towwards the initial combination. Simcoe just does a bit better here, for what I have envisioned in my head. Once again, the Vermont Ale yeast rocks out. I do like this strain! I can fairly safely say this recipe is a solid one. I sampled it first when it was very young–within a week or two of kegging–and can say that a few extra weeks in the keg have been a good thing. The beer is at its peak!
  • Overall rating
    • 8.5 / 10

Centennial IPA

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In preparation for my rather sporadic brewing during the summer months, I’m laying in a store of (filled) kegs for future tapping. Pannotia White IPA is going online shortly, so it seems a good idea to have another IPA waiting in the wings.

I’ve been playing a lot lately in the world of “East Coast IPA’s” (whatever those are), and three things moved me back west for this batch. First, I was getting a bit bored with the East Coast style (even though my recipe is definitely tasty!). Second, my Conan culture seemed to be wandering a bit, and I deemed it wise to dump it. Finally, I wanted to explore some classic hops–a full pound of Centennial hop pellets that recently arrived at my brewery provided incentive.

Centennial Hop Pellets

It’s been over three years since my last record of brewing with Centennial, and that seems like a bit of a shame. They are such a classic within the annals of American craft brewing (one of the “3 C’s” along with Cascade and Columbus), and I don’t really know them as well as I should. Time to rectify that with a single-hop brew.

The recipe is modified from one of Gordon Strong’s, in his excellent book Modern Homebrew Recipes. I’ve been really pleased with the beers from the book I’ve done so far, and wanted to try out another one. Ironically, this is his “East Coast IPA”–my main modifications have been in the yeast (Safale US-05 instead of Wyeast 1272 / White Labs WLP051) and also the hopping schedule. Given how the East Coast IPA “style” has developed, I can’t say I would consider his recipe to really be in the spirit of that right now. The hops and yeast are squarely West Coast (in my opinion), although arguably the malt bill could be East Coast (again, whatever that means).

Last year’s crop of Centennial from YCH Hops was on the low end of alpha acids for the variety (7.6% alpha vs. the 7 to 12% alpha considered typical for YCH). So, I modified the timing of the hop additions to get into the ballpark IBU for the recipe. Additionally, I will add a small dry hop charge (1 oz.) upon kegging, just to bump up the hop aroma a touch more.

Centennial IPA

  • 10.5 lbs. 2-row malt (Great Western Malting Co.)
  • 1.75 lbs. Vienna malt
  • 0.5 lbs. Caravienne malt
  • 0.25 lbs. Carahell malt
  • 1 oz. Centennial hops pellets (7.6% alpha, 3.6% beta), first wort hop and 90 minute boil
  • 1 oz. Centennial hops pellets (7.6% alpha, 3.6% beta), 15 minute boil
  • 1 oz. Centennial hops pellets (7.6% alpha, 3.6% beta), 10 minute boil
  • 1 oz. Centennial hops pellets (7.6% alpha, 3.6% beta), 1 minute boil
  • 1 oz. Centennial hops pellets (7.6% alpha, 3.6% beta), 5 minute steep
  • 2 oz. Centennial hops pellets (7.6% alpha, 3.6% beta), dry hop in keg
  • 0.5 tsp. gypsum (added to boil kettle)
  • 1 tsp. Irish moss (10 minute boil)
  • 0.5 tsp. BSG Fermax yeast nutrient (10 minute boil)
  • 1 pkg. Safale American ale yeast (US-05)

Brewing Targets

  • Mash temperature = 149°
  • Original gravity = 1.062 (actual = 1.048)
  • Color = 6 SRM
  • IBU = 59

Procedure

  • I mashed in with 4.3 gallons of water at 160.5°, to hit an initial mash temperature of 150°. The mash was down to 146.8° after 45 minutes.
  • After 60 minutes, I added 1 gallon of water at 200°, which brought the mash temperature up to 156°. I let this sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected the first runnings. At this point, the first ounce of hops were in the hop spider.
  • Next, I added 3.75 gallons of water at 185°, to raise the mash bed up to 168°. This sat for 10 minutes, at which point I vorlaufed and collected the second runnings.
  • All told, I collected 7 gallons of wort with a gravity of 1.052, for 76% mash efficiency.
  • I started the boil, adding the hops and other ingredients per the schedule. The wort had boiled down to 6.1 gallons after one hour.
  • After the full 90 minute boil, I removed the hop spider, added the final ounce of hops (in a small hop sack), let it sit for a minute or two, and then started to cool the wort. Once it was down to 75°, I transferred it to the fermenter. I then cooled it down to 68° in the fermentation chamber (which took ~2 hours) and pitched the yeast.
  • I brewed this beer on May 28, 2016. The starting gravity is 1.063, and I am fermenting at 66°.