Enola Gay IPA 241010

[adm]

Today I was going to brew an American Imperial IPA, but at the last minute, I scaled it back a bit to make a beer that I'd actually drink, rather than live in fear of.....so I've ended up with something that sits at the high end of a regular American IPA for ABV, with hopping in the midrange for an Imperial IPA.

Enola Gay IPA

Grist
Lager Malt 5Kg
Munich Malt 1Kg
Caramalt 0.25Kg
Wheat Malt 0.2Kg
Carafa Special III 40g
Pale Organic Cane Sugar 0.5Kg

Hop Schedule
Chinook 12.7% AA 40g First Wort
Citra 13.4% AA 20g 15 minutes
Amarillo 8.7% AA 20g 15 minutes
Citra 13.4% AA 20g 10 minutes
Amarillo 8.7% AA 20g 10 minutes
Citra 13.4% AA 20g 5 minutes
Amarillo 8.7% AA 20g 5 minutes
Citra 13.4% AA 20g 80C Steep
Amarillo 8.7% AA 20g 80C Steep

Yeast was 0.5L of US05 slurry from last week's beer that got kegged today.

Here's some pics....


Today's Grain


All mashed in and nowhere to go...


Temp was good at 66.2C, pH was spot on at 5.2. After a 90 min mash, the temperature was 66.0


Topping up the mash tun after 90 minutes


40g of Chinook hops for First Wort - and a nice cup of tea


First runnings. I had a nice easy sparging session and ended up collecting too much wort - 38L instead of 34! I need to revisit my water calculations - the last brew ended up too long as well. Oh well, I'll just boil it really hard...


Meanwhile.....keg and bottle last week's beer and harvest the yeast. 1L of nice looking slurry


Some pellet hops. 20g each of Citra and Amarillo. There's going to be a total of 4 additions identical to this.


Boiling away like a good 'un.


Some sugar to go in after the boil.


Gratuitous trub and break shot post boil and chill (used my immersion chiller again today)


Nice clear wort - but long on volume and short on gravity - I didn't boil long enough to get it to where I wanted it as I was running short on time. 1.066 instead of 1.070


The run off was good at first, but all the pellet trub combined with the leaf hops made a pretty effective barrier today. Slowed to a trickle after about 18L. I nursed it along until 24L then gave up with still 3 or 4 litres left in the kettle which I ended up chucking rather than fight it and disturb all the trub too much.


Funky yeast. It's obviously still working away and has formed a lovely barm on top of the remaining beer.


I pitched all the barm, tipped off the beer and also pitched a good slug of the settled yeast. About half a litre in all pitched at 22C. This should go off like a rocket. Tucked up in the fermenting chamber at 18C to do it's thing.....

So I ended up with 24L at 1.066 and 90 IBU. I think it'll attenuate down to 1.014 or 1.102 as this yeast went to 84% attenuation on the last beer. In that case, it should end up around 7.2% ABV which will be very drinkable. I think this will be one to drink fresh as well - maybe 1 week to 10 days in the FV and 2-3 in the keg with Citra and Amarillo dry hops for the last week. We'll see.....

[GrowlingDogBeer]

Looks great. I can't believe how clear it is. My wort always comes out of the boiler really cloudy even after using Irish Moss and letting it settle before running it off through the hop bed and filter.

[pas8280]

That looks damned good adm i'm sooo jealous over the citra will have to import some and sod the cost. Like the name as well is it a literal reference to the plane or a homage to OMD ? (some of my brews are named after songs ) perhaps it would be an idea for us to explain why we give our brews the name we do when posting recipe's and brew days

[adm]

I was going to call this beer "Yankee Bastard IIPA", but as I toned it down from the original 9% or so plan, I thought it wasn't such a bastard after all, so I'd better rename it......I'm hoping it's going to be a hop bomb delivery vehicle....so "Enola Gay" seemed appropriate. (EDIT: Oh - and Enola Gay rhymes with IPA, so it's even better!)

I kind of name my beers randomly. I quite often do a "this day in history" search on the web to get inspiration - or use something that's going on at home that day. But then I also use dog related themes quite often, also Star Wars and rocket/space/astronomy type things too.....plus a few bastardised song titles as well....

[adm]

Looks great. I can't believe how clear it is. My wort always comes out of the boiler really cloudy even after using Irish Moss and letting it settle before running it off through the hop bed and filter.

Mine has always been pretty clear (after the first couple of brews anyway...). I'm not sure if it's down to water treatment or what.... I tend to use Graham's water calculator to calculate my salt additions, plus CRS to knock the alkalinity down. Then I use Protafloc tablets and always let it settle for 30 minutes (before chilling if I'm using my plate chiller, or after chilling if I'm using the IC).

[GrowlingDogBeer]

Cheers, perhaps I'll try these Protafloc tablets to see if they work better than the Irish Moss. I'm not doing much on water treatment at the moment apart from 20ml CRS and a teaspoon of Gypsum in the Mash and the boil. I'll try the Protafloc and see if that does the trick.

[leedsbrew]

Looking good adm! should be a cracker!

Cheers, perhaps I'll try these Protafloc tablets to see if they work better than the Irish Moss. I'm not doing much on water treatment at the moment apart from 20ml CRS and a teaspoon of Gypsum in the Mash and the boil. I'll try the Protafloc and see if that does the trick.

I know some people get very good results with irish moss, fair play to them! I however have always had better results using with protofloc and a 90 minute boil! The beer would end up bright in the keg but the break would never be as good as people like adm's. I then started using protofloc and uped the boil to 90 mins! cracking results! I would definitely recomend it if you are not getting great results with irish moss.

[sllimeel]

I think the 30 min rest after cooling and a nice slow run off from the boiler gives a nice clear wort.

[adm]

One other thing that I do is to crank the burner for the last 15 minutes of the boil. In fact, I have it up high for the first 15 minutes, then turn it down a bit for an hour to save a bit of gas, but keep a decent rolling boil going, then jack it up again from once the protafloc goes in until flame out.

I just had a peek at this and the 05 has got a good thick krausen going already! Bubbling lovely fruity niffs out of the airlock too.

[WishboneBrewery]

A good ol' whack of hops there

[adm]

A good ol' whack of hops there

Let's hope so......I thought I'd play the game today. My 38 IBU regular Citra pale ale from last week tastes great - really tropical, but not enough bite for my tastes. It might be different after a few weeks in the keg, and it was very drinkable today but I wanted more hops. It tasted like a smoother Galaxy to me - I'll be interested to see how it matures.

In the end, I HAD to add the Chinook and Amarillo. You know how it is....

[adm]

Down to 1.013 this morning and still lots of yeast activity. I think this might go to 1.010 or so, in which case it'll end up around 7.5% ABV. Perfect! I jacked the fermentation temperature up to 22C to give it a little extra help to fully attenuate.

The sample smelt and tasted excellent. Lots of lovely tropical fruit flavour and surprisingly smooth for 90-odd IBU - even after only a few days. I think it'll definitely be a "drink young" US IPA....

On that subject, here's what's written on the back of bottles of Russian River's "Pliny the Elder" (which is a superb beer):

"Respect your elder. Keep Cold. Drink Fresh. Pliny the Elder is a historical figure, don’t make the beer inside this bottle one! Not a barley wine, do not age! Age your cheese, not your Pliny! Respect hops, consume fresh. If you must, sit on eggs, not on Pliny! Do not save for a rainy day! Pliny is for savoring, not for saving! Consume Pliny fresh or not at all! Does not improve with age! Hoppy beers are not meant to be aged! Keep away from heat!"

I'm not sure I agree with that, but I do like fresh strongly hopped US type IPAs. On the other hand, I also like the traditional English ones as well!

[adm]

I kegged this one this afternoon - the US05 had taken it down to about 1.008

Dry hopped with 14g each of Amarillo and Citra pellet, which was all that would fit into the little tea infusers I had. I chucked thepellets into those to try and contain the pellet trub. We'll see how it works.....

I'm going to the US for two weeks on Monday, but I'm going to launch into this when I get back!

[adm]

Well.....I'm just back from the US and have poured the first glass of this beer. It's really rather good.

The body is fairly thin (relatively speaking) as I intended and there's no cloying sweetness - also as intended. There is a good malt backbone though to balance the alcohol and the hops. This is only three weeks and a couple of days old, but is very drinkable in a fresh american IPA style. I could drink several pints quite quickly. Better not....it's still early.

Hazy dark amber colour with an off white head that fades to a good lace. Lots of hop aroma - although not as much as I would have expected from the dry hops. Maybe the pellets in the tea balls expanded and so the beer hasn't got to all the hoppy goodness yet. Still has a good burst of citrus and tropical fruit on the nose though. There's a lovely tropical hop taste - maybe passion fruit and seville orange marmalade - something like that anyway... then a really nice smooth lingering bitterness. Surprisingly smooth actually for 90 IBU.

Tasty....I'll be interested to see how this develops.

[WishboneBrewery]

Sounds good to me