American IPA #3

I think one of the most important abilities that any brewer needs to have is repeatability. If I brew something once and it turns out well, I need to be able to know that I can brew it again, exactly the same. Likewise, if I want to change an element of a recipe, I need to know that all other parts can be kept constant so I can compare and assess the changes I made.

With this in mind I decided to rebrew my american IPA. The last time I brewed this I overshot the O.G. so it didn't turn out perfect, but it was still a good beer. So I knew there was room for improvement, but I also had a previous batch to compare it against.

The main difference was going to be a different yeast. I decided to re-pitch the yeast from the American Amber (Wyeast 1332) to save money, but also to compare the effect of the different yeast. As this was still an american strain I expected it to have a similar neutrality, but with a little extra yeast character to WLP001.

I collected the yeast from the bottom of the fermenter after bottling, put it in a sterilised jar, and set it in the fridge to settle out. Having read a few accounts of how to do this and watched a couple of youtube videos, I was expecting to see a layer of trub at the bottom. This never really appeared, so I imagine that I ended up pitching some trub with the yeast. I used Mr Malty's yeast pitching rate calculator to decide what volume of yeast to pitch (plus a little bit extra to allow for the trub).

Unfortunately, my experiment in repeatability fell at the first hurdle, when I went to weigh out the grain and found I didn't have what I needed - AGAIN! Not only was I missing the right crystal malts but I was 3kg short on base malt. 3kg! Sometimes I amaze myself! So what began as a straightforward experiment ended with a sharp trip to the homebrew shop for malt, and a swift re-jig of the recipe. This is what I ended up with:

Ingredients

Amt Name Type # %/IBU 5.50 kg Lower Colour Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 EBC) Grain 1 85.9 % 0.35 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (118.2 EBC) Grain 2 5.5 % 0.20 kg Munich Malt (15.0 EBC) Grain 3 3.1 % 0.15 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 30L (59.1 EBC) Grain 4 2.4 % 0.10 kg Aromatic Malt (51.2 EBC) Grain 5 1.6 % 0.10 kg Wheat Malt, Bel (3.9 EBC) Grain 6 1.6 % 20.00 g Chinook [13.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 7 35.3 IBUs 32.00 g Cascade 2012 [7.50 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 8 15.1 IBUs 16.00 g Centennial 2012(2) [10.30 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 9 10.4 IBUs 20.00 g Cascade 2012 [7.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 10 4.9 IBUs 10.00 g Centennial 2012(2) [10.30 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 11 3.4 IBUs 30.00 g Cascade 2012 [7.50 %] - Aroma Steep 0.0 min Hop 12 0.0 IBUs 15.00 g Centennial 2012(2) [10.30 %] - Aroma Steep 0.0 min Hop 13 0.0 IBUs 32.00 g Cascade 2012 [7.50 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 15 0.0 IBUs 15.00 g Centennial 2012(2) [10.30 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 16 0.0 IBUs

Bit of a pancake day grist (whatever's in the cupboard), but it might turn out to be a more interesting malt character behind the very prominant hops. Time will tell.

On the upside, the brew itself went pretty well and I pretty much hit my numbers. At least that's a positive to take away for the day!