Impudent Whelp 2: The Whelpening

After my first attempt at an IPA was extremely successful, I've focused my efforts on dialing in a recipe that will truly be a 'great' beer.  In addition, minor tweaks to the recipe will help me continue to learn the effects that various recipe changes have on the beer.  As you can see from the original post, my first attempt at the recipe consisted of primarily Pilsner malt,a pound of Caramel 60, and a mixture of CTZ, Cascade, and Centennial hops.

While I LOVED that beer, I wanted to make a few changes and see how things turned out.

First and foremost, I changed the pilsner malt to standard 2-row.  I did this because 2-row is cheaper, and because I was curious how much impact the base malt would have.  As it turns out, this was a minor, yet significant, change.  More on that later.

Next, I wanted to emphasize the citrus notes even more, so I swapped out the Centennial hops for an Amarillo variety.  Amarillo is known for its grapefruit notes, which I thought would pair very will with the Cascade.

I settled on this recipe:

12lb 2-row

.5lb Caramel 60

.5lb Carapils - I swapped out half a pound of the caramel 60 for this so that I could still get the body and residual sweetness, but without the darkened color.

1oz CTZ (60 min)

1oz CTZ (15 min)

1oz Amarillo (15 min)

1oz Cascade (15 min)

1oz CTZ (5 min)

1oz Amarillo (5 min)

1oz Cascade (5 min)

1oz Amarillo (dry hop)

1oz Cascade (dry hop)

I mashed at 151 degrees, as I wanted it to be somewhat dry, but with a hint of residual sweetness to balance out the bitterness of 113 IBUs worth of hops.

Brew day was a success - I brewed this on 1/22/12 - and only had one minor hiccup. I boiled down a bit too far and wound up with an OG of 1.064 when I was shooting for 1.059 or less.  As you can see from this picture, I collected just under 5 gallons of wort and trub.  

That's not a yeast cake at the bottom, that's purely hops that carried over from the kettle.  I'm thinking I need a better filtration system :)

After 2 weeks of fermentation using Wyeast 1056 (same yeast as last time) I wound up with a pretty - if cloudy - IPA:

Having recently put this beer on draft, I can say that there are few pleasures in the world quite like a fresh IPA on draft.  I love this beer.  It's extremely close to my first pass at it, but I've learned a few more things.

1. If I'm going to use Wyeast 1056, I need to mash warmer.  This fermented all the way down to a FG of 1.008, giving me a 7.6% beer.  Normally I don't mind that, but I was specifically trying to make it weaker than my first attempt, and I actually wound up with a beer that was stronger.  Oops.

2. 2-row just doesn't have the same complexity as pilsner malt.  The balance is off on this beer, and the hops are largely the same.  It's not something that's easily noticed unless you try the beers side by side, but this attempt at it is just a shade too bitter and is missing that complementary sweetness on the finish.

3. Amarillo and Cascade is an excellent mix.  The citrusy and grapefruit aroma is amazing, and there's just a hint of 'dank' hop aroma from the CTZ hops.

So, I think I'm close to happy with my hop bill, but the malt bill needs work.  I'm thinking about 10 pounds of pilsner malt, along with .5lb each of Caramel 60 and Carapils is where I want to go, and maybe scale back the 15 minute addition of the hops to compensate for the 2 pounds of grain I'm removing.

Either way, I'm happy with this beer.  I served it recently at a friend's baby shower, and I think it convinced one person to take up homebrewing.  That's a pretty good feeling, to know that I was able to share my passion with someone else and have it make an impact on them.  I'm going to be very happy to have this on draft for the next month or two.

I just can't resist the temptation that I know, deep down, I can make it even better!

Aroma: Grapefruit, citrus, hops and more hops.  Over the top hops.  No malt smell at all while it's this young.  But, my first attempt at this IPA has developed a very malty nose as it aged past 3 months.

Appearance: Golden, not as hazy as it appears in the picture above.  A pretty beer, with good head retention.

Taste: Smacks you in the mouth with bitterness, but quickly fades into a bouquet of hops.  Very hoppy, very IPA-ish.  Out of balance, as referenced above.  It's tough to pick out individual flavors, as it's just so... much.  I like that in an IPA, personally, but it's not for everyone.

Body: Dry, which is appropriate for an IPA.  You want to be thirsty almost immediately after you finish drinking it, which this does perfectly.  Still, it needs just a BIT more malt backbone.

Final stats:
Brewed: 1/22/12
Kegged: 2/7/12
Tasting: 3/1/12
ABV: 7.5% (1.064 / 1.008)
IBU: 113.3
Overall impressions:  Solid beer, slightly out of balance on the hoppy side, needs to be a bit weaker ABV-wise and have a bit stronger malt presence.  With that said - extremely drinkable, and won't last long on draft.  I just have to be careful drinking more than one of these on a work night.

Irish Red Experiment - Ale and Lager

I'm wanting to try an experiment.

It being March, I feel it's time to brew up a nice bock/Oktoberfest for the fall.  I'm a big fan of letting a lager condition for many months before drinking it.

The trick with lagers is that I need to propagate my yeast.  In other words, I need more yeast than a standard smack pack will give me at pitching time in order to brew the best possible beer.

Toward that end, I'm wanting to create something small that I can use to grow my yeast.

Something I've never had the chance to do is split a batch of beer and ferment it with two different yeasts.  I'm wondering if I can't take this opportunity to do just that - ferment 4-5 gallons of a batch with an ale yeast, while splitting off a gallon to step up my lager yeast.

First thing I need to is find a lager yeast and an ale yeast that can ferment at the same temperature, ideally somewhere in the 50's.  This is because I only have a single mini-fridge that can be devoted to fermentation, so both vessels will need to sit side-by-side at the same temperature.

I'm leaning toward Wyeast 2206 (Bavarian Lager) as my lager yeast, as it's safe up to 58 degrees, but I could easily use Wyeast Oktoberfest 2633 again - it worked very well for an Oktoberfest last year.

On the ale yeast side I have a bit of flexibility, but I'm leaning toward Wyeast 1728 Scottish ale yeast.  I've used this strain before with great success, and it ferments as low as 55 degrees cleanly.

Now that I've got that sorted out, I need to pick a recipe that will work well both as a lager and an ale.  To be honest, I don't really care if the lager portion turns out as well, since it'll be less than a gallon and primarily just as a yeast starter.  Still - if I'm going to make the effort, I might as well give it my best shot.  No point in wasting good potential beer!

My initial thoughts are to brew something that is European, with English hops and clean, crisp flavors.  I think that is a nice safe range that would really help accentuate the differences between the yeasts.  This will be hard on me, since my favorite beers usually have big, bold flavors, but I'm willing to sacrifice in the name of science.  Science!

I'm thinking an Irish style red is probably my best bet here.  Malty, lightly roasty, very little hop bitterness - a very clean beer.

A base malt of Maris Otter will give me a little malt backbone.  Some roasted barley for color and roastiness, and I'm thinking a little melanoidin malt to really emphasize the maltiness would work well.  I'm thoroughly tempted to throw in a bit of the Belgian Kiln Coffee malt I have on hand, but I'm going to save that for a darker beer.

So, the recipe I'm going with (for a 6 gallon batch):
10lb Maris Otter
1lb German Melanoidin Malt
.25lb Roasted Barley
.5oz Challenger Hops (60 min) - 10 IBU
1oz Glacier Hops (15 min) - 9.2IBU
mash temp around 155 to keep some malt backbone and sweetness

The goal is to wind up with a beer around 5% alcohol and about 20IBU with a light roasty taste, red color, moderate to low bitterness and, with luck, a very light minty/English note from the Glacier hops at the end.  I haven't had the chance to brew with Glacier hops before, but they're described as a nice middle ground between Fuggle and Willamette.  Those are both traditional English hops that would be appropriate for this style, so I'm feeling pretty safe with my choice.  Challenger is a standard English bittering hop that should provide pure bitterness and not much else.

Having spent the past hour typing this up and finalizing the recipe in my head, I have to say, I'm pretty excited about this.  I could have this turned around and drinkable by April, and this sure sounds like a nice springtime beer.  I'll update once I've had a chance to brew it.

Impudent Whelp IPA

So, I've developed a real love for IPA style beers over the past year or two. Dogfish Head's 90 Minute IPA (which we sadly can't get in Oklahoma) is probably my favorite example of the style, followed closely by Stone's Ruination IPA (which we also can't get in Oklahoma).

Last January I made an attempt at a clone of the 90 Minute, and until the Caramel Cream Ale, I was told by several of my friends that it was my best beer. I loved it as well, but the 9% ABV that it clocked in at kept me from drinking a lot of it.

This summer I took a shot at making a Black IPA. It turned out decently, but I screwed up the hop bill.

This leads us to two weekends ago. Knowing it was going to be turning cold, I seized the opportunity of a 70 degree day in November to have a brew day. I decided that this time I was going to brew the hoppiest beer I could make, while still keeping the alcohol reasonably low.

With those two goals in mind, I formulated a fairly simple recipe: 12 pounds of pilsner malt, 1 pound of Caramel 60 malt. That grain bill would give me a beer between 5-6% (ideally), with a mostly clean grain/malt flavor but with just a bit of residual sweetness and a slight tan color. On top of that, I threw in the three bags of hops you see here:

From left to right:
Bag 1: 1oz Cascade, 1oz Centennial. Added with 5 minutes left in the boil, this should provide a flowery and citrusy aroma, and some flavor notes.
Bag 2: 1oz Cascade, 1.5oz Centennial, 1oz Zeus. Added with 15 minutes left in the boil, this is where the majority of the flavor of this beer will come from. This amount of hops at this stage will contribute a decent amount of bitterness, but a whole heck of a lot of herbal, citrusy, and flowery flavors.
Bag 3: 1 oz of Zeus, added with 90 minutes left in the boil. This contributes almost pure bitterness.

Brew day went well, and I wound up with an Original Gravity of 1.065 - basically, I wound up with enough sugars from the grain to get up to almost 7% alcohol if the yeast can really chew through it. But, due to the Caramel 60 and the fact that I mashed a bit warm, it shouldn't exceed 6% and be left with a residual sweetness.

Based on the calculations used to determine IBUs (International Bittering Units), this beer has exactly 100 IBUs worth of bitterness from the hops. I've heard (but haven't verified) that a beer is incapable of truly absorbing more than 100IBUs of bitterness, so in theory this beer is as hoppy as it possibly can get. Someday I plan to test this hypothesis, but for now I'll be happy with 100 IBU :)





It's now been 11 days since I brewed this beer, and it's done fermenting. I've gone from bitter sugar water to a bitter beer, and it's time to try it. To the left, see the beer in my 'fermentation chamber' - a mini-fridge that I hooked a temperature controller to. This investment was WELL worth the money, as keeping fermentation temps consistent and low helps to create a clean and fresh beer.








This brings me to the third picture. In the background you can see the sample I just pulled from the fermenter. It looks like beer! In the foreground you see a bag filled with green leafy stuff - I'll get to that in a second, I promise.

Drinking a warm, flat, somewhat yeasty sample can sometimes make it difficult to detect what a beer is eventually going to taste like once it's cold, carbonated, and all the yeast is completely out of suspension. But in this case, I really have high hopes for this beer. The aroma is pure fruit - I'd have to say I think grapefruit dominates, but there's hints of pure lemony citrus and even some papaya. The taste is like a punch of bitterness, followed by fruity and flowery flavors - EXACTLY what I wanted from a IPA.

I took this chance to measure my final gravity - how much sugar is still remaining that didn't get turned into alcohol. The number I got was 1.011, which means this beer is actually a 7.1% ABV beer. Oops. That's significantly higher than I was shooting for. I really wanted something I could sip on all winter. I can explain why that occurred, but I'll save that for another post.

Finally, I told you I'd come back to the zip lock baggie of foliage that's in the third picture. That's 1oz each of Cascade and Centennial hops. I plan on adding those to a bag and throwing them directly in the keg of this beer when it's in the kegerator. This will provide extra hop aroma to the beer as it's served from the keg, and really provides that extra punch of hoppiness that's found in a really fresh IPA. I've read online that you don't want to keep a beer 'dry hopped' for more than 14 days, but by keeping the hops in the keg, and keeping the keg at serving temperature (less than 40 degrees), I've never had a problem keeping the hops in there for literally months.

All that remains at this point is to get this beer in a keg, get it carbonated, and drink it! Hopefully I'll have that done within the next few days here, and I'll post a follow-up post on that process (assuming people are interested).

Ladies and Gentlemen... I give you... Impudent Whelp IPA.

Note: I had posted an earlier version of this on my Google+ feed, naming the beer Chuck Norris' Tears.  I decided I liked the name Impudent Whelp better for this beer, hence the change.
Update: killed this keg on 12/27/11, so it only lasted about a month. This is by far the fastest I've ever killed a keg, and that speaks to how happy I was with this beer. I fully intend to take another shot at this beer in the next couple months, but probably with a different hop combination - I do have six ounces of Amarillo sitting around...

Update 1/17/11: Had one of these out of the bottle this weekend, and it's aging decently, but I can start to see it sliding past its prime.  I'm surprised with how quickly this beer went through its 'premier' period - I can't recall another beer I've made changing so dramatically in the space of a couple months.

I can't decide if I want to tweak the recipe to help this beer hold up longer, or tweak the recipe so that it's even better when it's young.