Winter Sun Imperial IPA 07/12/08

[adm]

Well, in the end I got my arse in gear to get the Eureka kegged and bottled and also decided I'd get an Imperial IPA brew on to pitch onto the yeast cake while it was nice and fresh.

I ended up with this recipe for 23L:

Fermentables

UK Pale Ale Malt 7.500 kg
UK Wheat Malt 0.300 kg
UK Caramalt 0.300 kg
Dark Unrefined Muscovado Sugar 0.500 kg

Hops
UK Boadicea 7.6 % 60 g 39.4 Loose Whole Hops First Wort Hopped
NZ Cascade 8.0 % 20 g 13.8 Loose Whole Hops First Wort Hopped
NZ Cascade 8.0 % 50 g 16.0 Loose Whole Hops 15 Min From End
Australian Galaxy 15.0 % 34 g 22.5 Loose Pellet Hops 15 Min From End
US Amarillo 9.1 % 30 g 10.9 Loose Whole Hops 15 Min From End
US Amarillo 9.1 % 23 g 0.0 Loose Whole Hops At turn off
NZ Cascade 8.0 % 20 g 0.0 Loose Whole Hops At turn off

Yeast
White Labs WLP810 San Francisco Lager. No idea how much, but a big old yeast cake anyway.....

This used up 3 open packets of hops, plus used a whole 90g pack of NZ Cascade. Lots of hops.... 104 IBU at 1080 OG.

Aaaaaaanyway, it took a while to get the HLT up to temp, but I used the time to do the kegging and bottling.

Here's the pics. Less than normal, but all should be clear nonetheless:


Lots of hops. Lots of very high AA hops....


Grain bill.


Mash in. Game On!


Mash in at 67C. Ended up just flipping from 66 to 65C at the end of the 90 minute mash.


First wort hops and dry liquor salts. Water profile adjusted to the "Dry Pale Ale" setting in Graham's water calculator.


First runnings.


More first runnings.....


Coming up to the boil. More hops plus 0.5Kg of Muscovado sugar ready to go in.


Pretty pic of the burner doing its stuff


Chiller in the hop soup. It's smelling rather intense by now.


Cold break forming.


OG 1082. Ended up collecting 21l as opposed to my target of 23, but in my defence, the absorption from the hops was huge. I should have upped the number in the calculations by 2 or 3 litres. Still - I'll end up with a full corny, just no additional bottles. which is fine as I don't have any empty bottles anyway.

The run off from the kettle to FV on this beer was really slow. At least it didn't stick completely, so I just left it to go. It took about 2 hours in the end.....and ended up looking like this before the run off had even finished!


After aeration, it ended up like this:


I shouldn't have any issue with underpitching on this one! although I should probably go and read up on the bad effects of overpitching now.

[mysterio]

Good work, didnt you just brew an IIPA a couple of weeks ago or did I imagine that?

Whats your experience of FWH'ing? I've noticed bugger all difference to hopping at 60 minutes personally

[adm]

You didn't imagine it....I certainly did brew one. It's waiting for Christmas Eve. Although it seems to be.....um....."evaporating" rather quickly. Yeah.. that's it....."evaporating".

However - although it's not quite ready, and is still a bit hazy, it's rather good. I'm taking precautions though as I don't want to be without an IIPA waiting in the wings as I am sure it will all be gone by New Year and the WLP810 yeast cake was an accident just waiting to happen.

The funny thing with these ultra-hop ales is that they are very nice drunk surprisingly young so that you can get the real fresh hop flavours. This one will get 10 days in FV, then two weeks in the corny, then another week with 25g each of Amarillo and Cascade dry hopped (although I might have some more strange hops from Ross by then, so who knows....), then early in the new year it will get tipped down my neck!

As for FWH vs start of boil. I'm not sure yet. If anything, I think it gives a smoother taste. Certainly the beers I have FWHed have been less harsh than I expected for the IBUs when I have tasted the wort at pitching time. This one for example, with 104 IBU you'd think the wort would be almost undrinkable, but it tastes to me more like a typical 50 IBUish IPA - if not significantly smoother. Difficult to tell though as I have been messing around with a lot of different hops recently, so I could be comparing apples to combine harvesters.

To be honest, the Jury is still out. One thing I picked up recently was a tip from Gurgeh on single hop beers where his recipe took half the IBUs from first FWH, then the other half from the 15 minute addition. I like the sound of that, so I'm giving it a go on a few beers to see how it works.

[adm]

This was a fast starter for sure. By the time I had the lid on the FV, the airlock was already bubbling. Currently sitting at about 14C ambient and bubbling away happily.

None of these slow lag times when you pitch onto the yeast cake from the last beer, that's for sure!

[ChrisG]

Interesting putting hops in at the runoff stage, not tried that.

That looks a scary yeast!

[adm]

There's some info on first wort hopping here.

Opinion seems to be that it gives a smoother overall hop character. Although I don't have the experience to judge properly, my subjective opinion is that the worts taste smoother post boil than those of the limited number I have done with a standard 90 minute bittering addition. Of course, that could also be the fact that I started treating my water at the same time I started first wort hopping. Or it could be a bit of both!

The yeast is WLP810, which is a "lager yeast that ferments at ale temperatures" (14 to 18C recommended, although it says it will continue down to 10C). It's a top fermenter though and I thought lager yeasts were typically bottom fermenters. It's the yeast from Anchor Steam beer apparently.

On the original beer I brewed with it, it took 8 days to go from 1052 to 1014 in a room that ranged from 12 to 16C. It had a nice creamy krausen, and was very well behaved and flocculated out really nicely. On yesterday's beer though, it just went mental!

I siphoned off the original beer at about 5C, then cleaned up the "bath ring" at the top of the FV with a sanitised, then rinsed cloth and then left the FV on a tile floor for a few hours, with underfloor heating set to 20C to bring it back up to working temperature. It certainly seemed to work as the yeast was clearly fully active even while the wort was still running off!

[mysterio]

Are you sure about that yeast being a top worker? It was a bottom fermenter when I used it if my notes are right

Cracking yeast by the way, flocs out well and leaves a nice clear, smooth tasting beer.

[adm]

Are you sure about that yeast being a top worker? It was a bottom fermenter when I used it if my notes are right

Cracking yeast by the way, flocs out well and leaves a nice clear, smooth tasting beer.

To be honest - I don't know how to tell for sure.

I said it was a top fermenter as there was a nice thick yeast layer on the beer for the first 6 days or so - like you get with SO4, although creamier looking - although it stayed a bit longer before subsiding.

However.....there was a lot of yeast on the bottom as well after the first few days.

Having never used a real lager yeast, I'm not really sure. I thought the krausen was an indication of the yeast working on the top.

[mysterio]

I'm not sure why I picked you up on that, pedantic Who give a toss as long as they make beer, right ?

They both produce krausen, but the top workers will form a thick yeasty mat on top as fermentation dies down, and will often linger for a few days (US-05, most of the liquid English strains). The bottom ones will produce a foamy krausen, which will die back into the beer after fermentation, leaving the surface exposed (i.e. so4, nottingham).

[adm]

Aaaaaahhhh....

Now I get it. I had for some reason thought that all ale yeasts - including SO4, Notts etc were top workers, and that lager yeasts were bottom workers.

Thanks!

[adm]

This beer is already down to from 1082 to 1019 in 3 and a half days. That's going some in my book! 8.3% ABV so far.....

There's still quite a lot of CO2 bubbling up in the trial sample, so I'll give it a few more days and see where it ends up.

Smells and tastes good and the 104 IBU bitterness is surprisingly smooth. This could be drinkable by the New Year if I am lucky.

All in all......looking good and it definitely makes a case for pitching big beers onto the yeast cake from a previous brew.

[ChrisG]

Thanks for the info on first wort hoping. Sounds interesting.

I'm gonna get some more grain crushed so I can make a few brews over the holidays.

Probably another Summer Lighning clone, last one was excellent, but may add a few more hops

[adm]

Right.....this beer's now at 1015 and has been stable for the last few days. That's pretty good as this yeast is only meant to attenuate to 70% and it's gone to over 80% now. 8.9% ABV

I've just kegged and fined it. I'll give it a couple of weeks, then dry hop for a week in the keg with 25g each of NZ cascade and US Amarillo.

First taste impressions are very promising indeed. Hop bitterness is well integrated and extremely smooth already for 95 IBU. The bitterness is not astringent at all, and just leaves you with that "mmmmmm....more...." feeling in the back and top of the mouth. The malt is smooth and stays out of the way and the body is fairly light considering the OG. Quite nice and dry. The alcohol is nicely warming as it goes down, but not "hot" in any way......I think the cool (14-16C) fermentation has kept production of any fusels or other nasties right down.

In fact, I wish I had another hydro sample.....

Despite conventional wisdom saying 1 week per 10 points of OG to condition, I'd say this will be ready to go by New Year's Eve. Although I do have another IIPA in the fridge, so I may be able to leave it longer....]

[pantsmachine]

Good thread this one, how did the IIPA turn out then. Is it a hop bomb, indeed is there any left

[adm]

Funny you should ask.....

I'm just sampling the first pint from the corny right now.

It's not finished. I'm going to dry hop it with Amarillo and Cascade, so I had to have a pint from the corny to get enough space for the hops. I'm going to stick them in a muslin bag and put them in for a week, then whip 'em out.

However....

It's very smooth. And very bitter. Sweet first notes, but then you realise how dry it is, and then the hops kick in properly. There's an almost rasiny aftertaste. It's not a mouth puckering type of bitter, but it almost numbs the underneath of your tongue. In a good way.

The aroma is pretty subdued to tell the truth. It's a nice fresh citrus smell - towards the orangey end of citrus.

Colour is a nice pale amber. This is the first pint, so it's cloudy - but it looks as if it will be clear in the next one.

All in all, very promising indeed. When I get it dry hopped, it should boost the aroma nicely and also add a bit more orangey citrus taste up front