AG#9 - HONK! IPA - Brewday 16th Sept '11

[Mattb]

The recipe is here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=44197

It's going to be a hop monster, and smell beautiful while it's brewing!

The mash water is on the stove, coming up to strike temperature.

18.5L at 71.5C to which I'll add 6850g of grains at 19.5C, meaning, if I've done my sums, a mash temp of 65C. It'll mash for an hour and a half, possibly losing a degree of temperature - that's as much as I've ever lost before, but there's more water and more grains that I usually use, so there's more thermal mass to retin the temp. We shall see.

Pictures forthcoming in future posts to this thread - after I've tidied the kitchen a bit!

[gnutz2]

Hi Matt, i bet thats gonna be a great beer, especially with those steeping hops at the end.

I would suggest you up your pre-boil volume by about another 4 litres, i calculated a 75 min boil will loose 3.5 litres at 10% boil off rate.

So that leaves you with .5 litres for all your losses and your going to loose a lot to all those hops.

[Mattb]

Well, thanks to Interference from My Wife, I've overshot the strike temp by a few degrees and have got to wait for it to cool down to 71.5C

In the meantime, have some photers:


My all-purpose BIAB pot on the stove, brining the mash water up to strike temp


My hops, weighed out and bagged up into separate individual additions.


My grains, maris otter in the big bag, torrified wheat and carapils in the little bags at the front.

[Mattb]

I would suggest you up your pre-boil volume by about another 4 litres

Hiya, gnutz - cheers for that. I reckon I *might* be able to squeeze another two litres into the boiler, but that'll be about it, without massive boilovers (and if I get sticky wort all over the hob again, Mrs B will go *spare*)

But I'll see what I can do.

[Mattb]

The grains in the mashing bag, and I've hit my 65C mashtemp right on the money.

90 mins of pottering now.

[Mattb]

Sparging at 76C


The wort is going to be lovely and pale.

[Mattb]

Just coming up to the boil now - pre boil volume is 30.1L

Very much in danger of boil-overs ("Sorry, love, the man on the internet said to do it.")

[stevetk189]

Looking good, nice golden colour there too. I find that a shovel round the back of the head keeps my Mrs out of the way on brewday.

[Mattb]

Getting stuck into the boil now.

[Mattb]

Boil done, aroma steep done, clearing up done, and the BIAB pot is chilling in the bathtub surrounded by cold water.

Everything gone to plan so far.

[Mattb]

All finished, and it's put to bed in the fermenter. 24L in the FV at 1.068!

Pitched S-05 at 20C and it'll sit at the top of my cellar stairs until I transfer to secondary (and possibly dry-hop for a few days, I haven't decided).




Lovely colour - absolutely spot-on what I wanted.

[gnutz2]

WOW, 1.068 OG thats gonna be a headcracker and i see your using us-05 so i bet that goes below 1.015 making an over 7% beer

I've stopped making beers over 1.060 now as i'm such a light weight and i also cant keep fermentation temps down which gives an ethanol whiff to the beer.

Are you going to keg it or bottle it? in my experience heavily hopped beers just taste better from a bottle.

[Mattb]

Are you going to keg it or bottle it? in my experience heavily hopped beers just taste better from a bottle.

The plan is to bottle 10L and keg the rest. Depending on how many bottles I have available I may bottle the lot (I agree, a beer like this is better bottled) but bottling is such a massive pain-in-the-arse, I might not. We'll see.

Fermentation is slow starting off, despite my pitching a good starter, rather than dry yeast. Hmm.

[soupdragon]

Hey Matt

What size pot have you got there? Does it need to cover a couple of burners to get a rolling boil? I've been gagging to get a bigger pot ( 15 litrs at the mo ) but am worried that the hob won't be up to the job

Cheers Tom

[Mattb]

What size pot have you got there?

It's 33 litres, I love it. I got it from a kitchenware supplier on the French eBay site, for thirty-odd quid. I'll try to dig a link out.

Does it need to cover a couple of burners to get a rolling boil?

No. It goes over the biggest burner on the hob (front left on the pics) which is about 3 inches in diameter. The burner is off-centre on the pot, because of the chimney-breast next to the hob, but that doesn't make much difference.

I've been gagging to get a bigger pot ( 15 litrs at the mo ) but am worried that the hob won't be up to the job

I was worried about that too, but took the plunge, and it worked out well. It does take quite a long time to get boiling, but once it's there, it's a good rolling vigorous boil.

My plan is to upgrade to a bigger 50l pot and brew outside over a propane burner, but that's a long way off. Need a shed first!