BIAB - Dr. Doom IPA

[Cpt.Frederickson]

Today I finally had some time, a free fermenter/brew fridge (just) and it was good and sunny down here so got this brew on. Ended up being slightly tweaked from the one I was formulating in the recipe section.

Dr. Doom IPA (English IPA)

Original Gravity (OG): 1.066 (°P): 16.4
Final Gravity (FG): 1.013 (°P): 3.3
Alcohol (ABV): 6.94 %
Colour (SRM): 10.8 (EBC): 21.2
Bitterness (IBU): 67.2 (Tinseth)

50.63% Pale Ale Malt (Crisp)
26.59% Maris Otter (Crisp)
8.33% Golden Syrup
5% Caramalt
2.69% Munich I
2.31% Brown Sugar, Dark
2.31% Brown Sugar, Light
2.13% Crystal 120

1.7 g/L Target (10.2% Alpha) @ 90 Minutes (First Wort)
0.6 g/L Challenger (6.5% Alpha) @ 20 Minutes (Boil)
0.6 g/L East Kent Golding (6.45% Alpha) @ 20 Minutes (Boil)
0.6 g/L Fuggles (4.4% Alpha) @ 20 Minutes (Boil)
1.2 g/L Challenger (6.5% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
1.4 g/L East Kent Golding (6.45% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
1.2 g/L Fuggles (4.4% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
1.2 g/L Challenger (6.5% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Aroma)
1.2 g/L East Kent Golding (6.45% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Aroma)
1.2 g/L Fuggles (4.4% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Aroma)
1.4 g/L Challenger (6.5% Alpha) @ 0 Days (Dry Hop)
1.4 g/L East Kent Golding (6.45% Alpha) @ 0 Days (Dry Hop)
1.4 g/L Fuggles (4.4% Alpha) @ 0 Days (Dry Hop)

Single step Infusion at 67°C for 75 Minutes. Boil for 75 Minutes

Fermented at 19°C with Wyeast 1098 - British Ale

Recipe Generated with BrewMate

I realised (eventually) that the extract potential I had been using for the golden syrup was wrong, and I ended up with an end of boil gravity of 1.061. Not to be deterred, I chucked in equal parts light and dark brown sugar to see what'd happen!

Sample from the tube tasted pretty good. Pitched the results of a 2 litre starter of Wy1098 into the wort, aerated and into the brewfridge.

Looking forward to how this'll turn out, will definitely need some age!

[AdyG]

looks like a very good strong English IPA with that hop combo, so look forward to hearing how it tastes.

Do you store it in a keg or bottle it? I normally stick mine in a keg just because it's easier, but I've started putting maybe 6-10 pints out of each brew into bottles to store for later as a treat to remind me of some of the better beers. I did a hoppy IPA with Simcoe, out the keg it was great, but after a couple of months in a bottle it had got even better. The hop aroma and taste were really impressive!

[Cpt.Frederickson]

Cheers AdyG. This one is destined for the bottle as I'm planning to hold some of it back for quite some time to see how it develops. And I figure it could benefit from a couple of months aging too. Besides, my (only) keg is currently full of my Flyer Pale
Plan is to rack to secondary after about 5-7 days then to dry hop for around 7-10 days before bottling.
I've yet to brew with Simcoe but definitely on my to do list.

[AdyG]

Simcoe is great for that popular US hop flavour. I didn't even use that much in my IPA combined with Columbus and Centennial and it had a very distinctive grapefruit pine taste, in fact I think I only dry hopped with 20g! I would still like to keep it English as well sometimes with a recipe like yours above.

Hand of Doom.... I can only assume that's Black Sabbath?

[Cpt.Frederickson]

I'll let you know how it turns out, I'm a huge fan of EKG flavour wise so figured it'd be fun to try to replicate the US 'hopburst' style. I've been playing around with it the last few brews, first with an interpretation of a Jaipur clone (I just tweaked the hopping rate a little) and then an all Flyer pale ale (although I only used 100g total, so maybe not 'hopburst')
Spot on with Sabbath reference too!

[AdyG]

I've just done a Jaipur clone too, but I wasn't intending to dry hop this one... it has only been fermenting a couple of days so far.

For my next IPA I'm thinking of doing about 120-150g in the dry hop, several other threads on here keep on tempting me to dry hop with series amounts.

Black Sabbath were the first live band I ever saw, but it was in about 1988 around the 'Headless Cross' album tour, so they weren't the proper early Sabbath line up unfortunately. I noticed your brewery name because I was thinking of naming the man-cave (garage) along a similar theme, maybe Sweet leaf brewery.... due to the amounts of sweet leafy hops in the beer!

[Cpt.Frederickson]

I think my brewing is going the same way, the Jaipur clone is pretty young and seems good but lacks a bit of punch...next time out i'm also going to dry hop rather than just late hop and 70C steep.
As to the brewery name, good choice! And I like your line of reasoning. I chose mine partly because my day job is as a drugs worker, and being a song about the evils of heroin...an amusing and appropriate choice, perhaps?

[AdyG]

I think my brewing is going the same way, the Jaipur clone is pretty young and seems good but lacks a bit of punch...next time out i'm also going to dry hop rather than just late hop and 70C steep.
As to the brewery name, good choice! And I like your line of reasoning. I chose mine partly because my day job is as a drugs worker, and being a song about the evils of heroin...an amusing and appropriate choice, perhaps?

I sit next to a chap at work who's girlfriend works for our local probation service as a drug counselor, a difficult but rewarding job. It definitely takes a certain type of person to cope with that, so lots of respect for doing it. Perhaps the goodness of hand made beer would counteract the evils of heroin, probably best not to substitute one addiction for another though...

I was a bit concerned my Jaipur would lack punch after the last three IPAs I've done with US hops, but we are brewing it for a mini beerfest party to sample some different homebrews so I wanted to go a bit more traditional IPA for this one, like you say, dry hop next time for more punch!

[Cpt.Frederickson]

Cheers mate. Its pretty ironic in a way, people seem to have an image of homebrewers as old alcoholic types (and I'm sure a few of us are!) but I enjoy the making probably as much as the drinking! Still, wouldn't recommend it to someone to get help them get clean!
This seems to be going ok, thought the Krausen has dropped already (after 3 days since pitching) so hopefully it isn't stuck. Gravity check on Friday evening I think and fingers crossed 'til then.

[AdyG]

As well as enjoying the making the beer, part of the fun of brewing for me is being able to make a great beer similar to shop bought bottles or the pub, for a fraction of the price. Also there's the great social side of it with sharing it with your mates. My mates who brew enjoy trying each others latest creations, and my mates who like brew but haven't got motivated to brew yet are in awe of the great beer you've made.

I don't think you can be a true alcoholic in the traditional sense if you are a home brewer, rather than wasting time waiting 6 weeks for your beer to reach perfect condition you would be straight down the offie at 9am for a 4 pack of strongbow super! That's my self justification anyway for brewing and drinking the beer... plus it's good for you as it only contains grain, water, hops and a little bit of yeast

[Cpt.Frederickson]

Just to update, I racked this to secondary today onto a variety of bagged dry hops;
27g Fuggles (the last of them!)
34g Challenger
31g EKG
Final gravity was 1.014, and the inital taste was good. Rich, malty overtones with a full but smooth bitterness. Was hoping for the hops to give a little more 'vooomph', but sadly no. Hopefully the dry hops will push that
In light of a recent reappraisal (and new understanding) of water treatment, evidence implies that i didn't give it the best chance of becoming what I hoped for; an English hop bomb. But next time...
Still, looks like it'll be a really satisfying brew after a bit of age, pleasing results so far

[AdyG]

So you let it ferment in the first FV for about 2 weeks, now it's into the secondary and you are planning on dry hopping for about 7-10 days still?

The hop flavour may develop with time, specially if you are dry hopping with all those hops. I think my hoppy brews stored in bottles definitely increase in hop flavour after about 6 weeks.

[Cpt.Frederickson]

That's right mate. Due to the high strength I thought it could do with the extra maturation time. I hear what you're saying about the hop flavour increasing, once all the flavours meld together it'll be a beast...

[Cpt.Frederickson]

Bottled this tonight. Looks very 'Doom' in de-labelled Fuller's bottles with black bottle caps
Somewhat disappointingly, however, there was a casualty. My first broken bottle during capping. Snapped the top off of one of the Fuller's bottles, wasting a brew.
My capper was increasingly awkward throughout this batch, so I'm sensing that the time has come to upgrade to a bench capper...

[Cpt.Frederickson]

Cracked one of these open last night, and was pretty impressed all in. Wasn't particularly hoppy flavourwise, though had a good bitterness and strong malt background without being overpowering. Will see how it develops, but tasting pretty good despite being young.

Next time around I'll look to use fresher hops (some were quite old this time) and experiment with the late additions. I'm also going to try blitzing the dry hops in a blender, as others have discussed elsewhere on here.
Lastly, I'll chuck in a different yeast. The goal with this was strong and bold English hop flavours, so maybe something like WLP090, Pacman (if I can get it) or even WY1272...