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| 1st Year Centennial Hops |
Brewday wasn't smooth at all. I missed my target mash temperature (or so I thought) of 65c/149F. Turns out the calibration on my thermometer is off once again and my attempts to correct, what I thought to be a low mash temperature, were unneeded.
During the correction attempts, I depleted the water reserved for sparging. Since I don't use a sight glass, I rely on accurate strike and sparge water measurements to correctly predict final volumes into the primary (x-in, y-out). I didn't want to mess up my pre-measured water and opted to not replace the sparge water (used for mash temp correction as noted above). Since I didn't rinse the grains as well as I would have liked, the resulting pre-boil SG was lower than anticipated. I increase the boil time and strength slightly but still fell short of the desired OG (1.055 vs 1.059) and volume (22L vs 23L).
A cam-lock fitting and adapter was added to my MLT. The intent was to recirculate the wort through a pump and back over top of the grain bed to improve run-off clarity. Well, the electric leads on the pump must be poorly connected because the power would cut in and out intermittently. A frustrating experience. Troubleshooting lead to loss of temperature and wort. Given these issues, I thought it prudent to conduct a starch conversion test which proved successful. Apparently, it's really hard to mess up a mash although I gave it my best shot! To cap it off, I forgot to treat the strike water with Campden. If I have band-aid beer, I'll know why...
So, what does the recipe look like?
LowTech IPA v4
OG 1.059/ IBU ~75/ SRM ~ 5/ ~23L
84.0% OiO Domestic 2-Row
16.0% Gambrinus Vienna
30g of Columbus @ 60 minutes
120g of Cascade @ whirlpool (IBU's calculated as a 15m addition)
I plan to dry hop with a mix of Centennial, Columbus and Chinook.
BRY-97 America West Coast Ale Yeast (used 1x, making this the 2nd pitch)
I treated my mash water with 3ml of 88% Lactic Acid, 4g of Gypsum, 3.4g of Calcium Chloride and 4.5g of Epsom Salt. EZWater projected a room temp mash pH of 5.41. Sparge water was treated with Campden to remove Chloramine from the municipal water. 8g's of additional Gypsum added to the boil. Whirlfloc @ 5m to help precipitate cold break proteins. Final water numbers: Ca 100, Cl 50, S04 250
At flame-out, the pump/whirlpool was started and 120g of Cascade dumped into the near boiling wort. The intent was to whirlpool (hot) for 20m but in going with the theme of the brewday... I was distracted when a neighbour popped by for a visit, misread my timer and started the chill water @ 10m (10 minutes too early). As a result, the flame-out hops had half the hot wort contact time than I would have liked. After an additional 10m, the whirlpool was shut down and the chiller continued to drop the temperature to around 25c. At this point the BK was drained to my fermenter.
The primary was placed into the fermentation chamber, STC-1000 set for 17c. Once at 17c, the wort was well aerated with a Fizz-x for 2-3 minutes before pitching 250ml of cold, compacted BRY-97 slurry. Based on the age of the yeast (claimed Aug 1, 33% viability), Mr Malty recommends 200ml of slurry. I didn't use a starter. STC-1000 controller raised to 18c/~65F where I plan to ferment for 1 day at full krausen before ramping to 20c/68F through completion.
If this beer turns out, I am not to blame. Ha!
Update Sept. 9th
Light krausen @ 24hrs, full krausen inside 36hrs. Wort temperature peaking at 18.2c before the freezer drops it back to 17.5c.
Update Sept. 10th
The IPA has been at full krausen for 24hrs, fermentation controller set to allow IPA to free rise to 20c. Attempted to top crop the krausen/yeast
Update Sept. 11th
Temperatures rose rather quickly. At 11pm last evening the controller was reading 19.5c. Today it continues to hover around 20c. I top cropped the yeast a final time, collecting a total of 200ml of slurry. I placed my sanitized hydrometer into the pail and it sits at 1.030, would have thought it would have been further along? Perhaps something to do with the lag time after pitch and the fact the yeast had been sitting in the fridge for a month.
Update Sept 15th
Moved to secondary @ ambient, added dry hops
Update Sept 22nd
Moved back to freezer to crash cool to 1c, FG measures 1.010.
Update Sept 24th
Racked to keg, added an additional 30g of homegrown whole leaf nugget hops.
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