Brewday - "Starry Night"

Notes

A Cascadian Dark Ale.  Some might call it a Black IPA or American Dark Ale, I feel the Cascadian folks of the Pacific Northwest who created the style should be paid some form of homage.  A style I love to drink (often) yet oddly enough have never tried to brew;  today should be the day.

I am shooting for the body a basic American IPA, more to the dry end of the spectrum, with solid hop bitterness, a touch or roast flavour and of course, dark brown to black colour.  The trick will be not/not turning this into a robust porter, another style I love, but alas, not a Cascadian Dark Ale.

My homebrew club provided a recipe from Homebrewtalk.com, I've more or less kept the same hop schedule but modified the grain bill to suit my tastes.

Specialty beer (23)  <I guess?>
Cascadian Dark/Black IPA/American Dark Ale
Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Fermentis US-05

Yeast Starter: Nope
Additional Yeast : Hydrated
Batch Size (Post Boil): 26L
Original Gravity: 1.062
Final Gravity: 1.014 (est)
IBU: 63.7

Boiling Time (Minutes): 65
Colour (SRM): 25 (est)
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 15 @ 66F
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 12 @ 66F 
Conditioning [Bottle] (# of Days & Temp): 21 @ 66F

Ingredients

90.0% Pale Malt (Gambrinus)
03.0% CaraAroma (Weyermann)
03.0% Wheat Malt (OiO)
03.0% Melanoidin (Weyermann)
00.8% Acid Malt (Weyermann)
(Added at Vorlauf)
200g Black Patent (Muntons)
200g Chocolate (Muntons)
100g Roast Barley (Muntons)

23 IBU Centennial @ 60 min (1oz)

1oz Centennial @ 30 min
1oz Centennial @ 20 min
1oz Cascade @ 15 min
1oz Cascade @ 0 min
1oz Willamette @ 0 min
1oz Willamette Dry-hop (12 days)
1oz Cascade Dry-hop (12 days)

Water (City tap water treated with Campden)

Acid Malt, Calcium Chloride, Gypsum and Epsom Salt added, pH 5.49

Ca-84/Mg-14/Na-18/Cl-94/S04-135

Mash Instructions
Single Infusion, 60 minutes (151F), 1.25qt/lb
Add Black Patent, Chocolate and Roast Barley @ 1st Vorlauf
Double batch sparge (170F), collected ~30L into the boil kettle

10/08/2012 - Brewed, over shot the mash temp, 152F.  Using Gambrinus malt for the first time, not sure what happened but I ended with some insane extraction efficiency.  Estimated 80% and ended with near 90%!  This means my OG was measured at 1.070 rather than the anticipated 1.062.  This has also had an impact on the IBUs.  My brew software recalculated the IBUs at 58.2, significantly lower.

The colour turned out near perfect.  Brown-black with a touch of mahogany.  At 1.070 the hydro sample was quite heavy.  I aerated the wort heavily trying to help the US-05 yeast.  I hope the FG finishes near 1.014.  Before pitching, I am thankful I took a final temperature reading, the wort was sitting at 80F, much too warm for this yeast.  I opted to let the wort sit in the primary until the next morning before pitching.

11/08/2012 - Pitched US-05.  Initially I though to hydrate the yeast before pitching, however; I was in a rush to get out the door and opted to sprinkle on top dry.

12/08/2012 - Primary showing signs of vigorous fermentation.  Air-lock very active.

26/08/2012 - Primary fermentation appears complete.  Will test and transfer to secondary soon...

27/08/2012 - Racked to secondary.  Will require some major conditioning time.  Sample was very "hot".

03/09/2012 - 1.5oz Cascade + 1/2oz Willamette Dry Hop added