Busted Starter IPA

[G_Reichow]

Today was my first attempt at an IPA, first use of a starter, and first time having a helper (GG)

OST (original start time): 11:30
AST (actual start time): 2:30

Recipe:
8# Alexanders Pale LME
1 lb Munich
1/2 lb crystal

1oz chinook (60)
.5 oz centennail (60)
1/2oz centennial (15)
1/2oz mt hood (15)
1oz cascade (listed as dry, but recipe marks says at flame out?)

Yeast: WLP001 California Ale in a starter

Expected O.G. - 1.055 +/- .02
Actual O.G. - 1.054

We decided to skip the cascade and use them as a dry hop in the secondary. Recipe called for 1.5 gallons of boiling water and steeping grains for 15 min. We chose 150deg water (2 gallons) for 30 min, and the LME was added at 30 min into the 60 min boil. We had a brief boilover around 32nd minute (didn't double check amount of boil after adding LME) but all in all it was a good brew session.

blow off tube is in the carboy, and there is definately a good bit of krausen going on right now. Wait, I have big krausen in under 12 hours of pitching the yeast...so why is it the "busted starter"...well I'll let Greg tell you all that one.

-Greer

[scootertig]

Hmm... I'm not sure I've ever seen the uncertainty included in an SG calc before. ;)

Good choice on the 150 deg water, too. Otherwise, you'd have a very astringent thing going on, and that's not fun at all. How was your volume post-boil? Were you about where you hoped to be?

I hope I wasn't part of busting the starter...


aaron

[DerekT]

Adding specialty malts to water that was first brought to a boil, and then removed from heat, works well and is especially well suited to brewers who don't use thermometers, e.g., there is no guesswork during this stage of brewing. In the case of extract brewing as here AG rules often don't apply and I can personally assure there is no astringency in the finished beer so RDWHAHB. :)

As far as the Cascade at flame-out goes, that's an easy one too. Dry-hopping is defined as anything added after the heat is off, whether at flame-out or in the secondary. Back when I wrote the recipe dry-hopping as we know it wasn't all that popular, at least at home anyway where it was often viewed as a hassle, and people were also less likely to secondary ferment for similar reasons. So, I decided to KISS it. Adding the whole hops in a bag at flame-out serves to pasteurize them before transfering to the primary fermentor. In part this was done so people who only primary fermented did not feel they were prohibited from making this beer.

Either way you will be happy with the finished product. This recipe is a Tupper's Hop Pocket clone which Ron Barchet (now of Victory) and I developed back when he was still brewing for ODBC. It was one of Brew America's best selling newsletter recipes (who copyrighted it, btw) and I had forgotten about it until someone brought it in to myLHBS so I immediately made a copy for my files. So, thanks to HopMonster!

Oh, and on the +/- OG. That was intended for noobs and I use it to the day. IMO, when you are new to brewing, a recipe that says your gravity is exactly this is not helpful when you consider common mistakes like wort stratification, lack of temp correction, etc. The +/- is basically just a chill pill.

[Jay]

What's the AG recipe?

[JMUBrew]

And for those of you who are absolutely dying to know...
Greer got a phone call from me at 8:30 in the morning on Saturday because when we walked back out to our Jeep from Great Harvest, it didn't start. Just a nice loud *click*! I called up Greer and he was at my location in 30 minutes. Poor guy...spent the next 2 hours under the Jeep removing the starter (and then waiting another hour for the replacement part and then Greer took another hour or so to install the new one back in). I owe that guy a sixer to say the least!

Hence the name for the beer...then we went back to Greer's (with a now running Jeep) and brewed the beer!

Cheers,
Greg

[Jay]

ahh - lol - SO many different directions for the brew ;) BTW, just a 6er? Man, that better be a couple of cases!

[JMUBrew]

Notice it said "least"...

[G_Reichow]

I never knew that brewing beer involved turning wrenches. Under a jeep in a parking lot with no room to grab anything was *fun* :) It was really okay till dogs started coming out and I hear barking and other noises by my head while trapped under the vehicle. A set of jack stands and more tools coulda turned our job from 4 hours into less than 2 of labor, stupid no clearance :)

My neck and shoulders are still killin me :) But the beer is still bubblin away like mad on the starter, so I'm happy :)

-Greer

[JMUBrew]

Well...we were parked in between the vet and great harvest!

That one dog was funny...walked by the Jeep and suddenly Greer says something and it did a double take!

[G_Reichow]

the dog was lookin at me/jeep like "the car can talk" it was confused for a minute until it saw me move. That was funny.

I didn't hear any screams of frustration yesterday so I'm assuming its still fixed?

-Greer

[JMUBrew]

D'oh, forgot to try it last night. I'll try it tonight.

[scootertig]

...when we walked back out to our Jeep from Great Harvest, it didn't start. Just a nice loud *click*!

Ah. I'm retarded. I saw "starter" and I thought you meant that your YEAST starter was bad. I already knew about the car trouble (duh!)...

Can we say "one track mind"?

Sad that the one track all weekend was beer...


aaron

[G_Reichow]

Aug 22nd: 1.018 still barely bubbling and thin krausen (no huge bubbles, like a nice head) still on top of the beer. This is slow to me, considering the starter I pitched had yeast nutrient in it, as did the beer itself!

-Greer

[G_Reichow]

we tapped this last night, not sure my hydro is accurate as it still read 1.018 when I kegged it. Greg and I had a pint each of it...which is all we could have since I had a fitting leak and my 5lb bottle was EMPTY!!! Very tasty though, very smooth but hoppy, I enjoyed it :)

-Greer

[G_Reichow]

I'll be brewing this again this weekend :) this time AG & whole leaf hops.

-Greer

[G_Reichow]

brewed, recipe up elsewhere, but:

10lb US 2row
1lb C60
1lb munich (6L)
.5 ounce Columbus(60)
.5 ounce Centennial(60)
.5 ounce Mt Hood (15)
.5 ounce Centennial(15)
1 ounce Cascade dry hop (nothing at flame out)

yeast crack and irish moss at 15 min.

Hit pre boil at 1.043, missed FG by 5 points (wanted 1.055, got 1.050) Guess my boil wasn't vigorous enough... it was very dark while brewing. Need better light or to start earlier in day.

Photos to come.

-Greer

[G_Reichow]

This thing finished at 1.009 ish. Ended up thin, need to mash at a higher temp I believe. Good hop flavor/bitterness, but it overpowers the beer since their isn't a malt backbone. Next time I'm going to ditch the cascade dry hop and toss a 1/2 ounce of centennial as dry hop, and maybe kill the mt hood at 15 min for either more centennial or more columbus.

I ended up missing gravity by .005 points initially but I pulled over 5.5 gallons to secondary. I had the 5 gallon carboy full to the neck and still had .5 gallon or more in primary fermenter :) So a better boil would have gotten OG up and volume down.

-Greer