Northwest Not-So-Imperial IPA

Today continued the tragicomedy that is my mash efficiency. I was going for an imperial IPA but, due to an abysmal 47% efficiency, it's going to be just a tad over normal strength. Just to get it to 1.057, I had to fortify with the 2.2 lbs of DME I had sitting around (I used it a couple of times to make yeast starters). So, it is what it is.

The Recipe:

11 lb 2-row pale malt
1 lb Victory malt

2 lb, 3.5 oz light DME

26 AAU (56g @ 13% AA) Nugget @ 60
5.4 AAU (28g @ 5.4% AA) Cascade @ 30
4.5 AAU (28g @ 4.5% AA) Willamette @ 30
5.4 AAU (28g @ 5.4% AA) Cascade @ 20
4.5 AAU (28g @ 4.5% AA) Willamette @ 20
5.4 AAU (28g @ 5.4% AA) Cascade @ 10
4.5 AAU (28g @ 4.5% AA) Willamette @ 10
5.4 AAU (28g @ 5.4% AA) Cascade @ 5
4.5 AAU (28g @ 4.5% AA) Willamette @ 5

1 Irish Moss tablet @ 15 min

Wyeast 1272 - American Ale II

Mashed at 152° for an hour and a quarter using about 15.5 quarts of water. Sparged with 165°-175° water until I had about 26 quarts for the boil, including one 5-minute mini-batch sparge. The latter was due to extremely fast draining during the sparge.

O.G.: 1.057
Est. IBU: 171.5

As you can see, I went all out with the hop schedule. The use of Willamette and Cascade hops is what inspired the name. I actually had originally planned only to use the Nugget and Willamette, but I was rather impressed by the Cascades when I used them in Red Nose Amber so I decided to use them in here too.

The yeast I pitched were salvaged from the yeast cake of EKG IPA. I ended up pitching about 120mL of the slurry I had, which I estimated to be about 250 billion cells. Since I didn't know what my final gravity was going to be when I pitched, I just estimated final gravity; thus, I may have over-pitched a bit. Still, I think I am decently within operational parameters. To do my pitching calculation, I used the handy Mr. Malty Pitching Rate Calculator.

Other than the efficiency disaster, this was a pretty good brew day. I can't wait to try this ludicrously over-hopped unbalanced monstrosity.