Five Seas IPA

Yesterday I brewed up a sort of "theme" IPA using every variety of hops in my inventory beginning with the letter "C". Each hop has two additions at different points in the spectrum. It should be interesting to see how this one turns out.

The Recipe:

13 lb 2-row pale malt
1.25 lb Victory malt
1 lb Cara-Pils

22 AAU (42g @ 14.5% AA) Columbus @ 90
4 AAU (21g @ 5.4% AA) Cascade @ 20
4 AAU (8g @ 14.2% AA) Citra @ 20
4 AAU (10g @ 11% AA) Centennial @ 20
4 AAU (20g @ 5.6% AA) Challenger @ 10
4 AAU (8g @ 14.5% AA) Columbus @ 10
4 AAU (21g @ 5.4% AA) Cascade @ 5
4 AAU (8g @ 14.2% AA) Citra @ 5
4 AAU (10g @ 11% AA) Centennial @ 0 (flame-out)
4 AAU (20g @ 5.6% AA) Challenger @ 0 (flame-out)

Added the following hops on 15 June 2011:
7.25 AAU (14g @ 14.5% AA) Columbus @ 0 (dry-hop)
2.7 AAU (14g @ 5.4% AA) Cascade @ 0 (dry-hop)

1 Irish Moss tablet @ 15 min

Wyeast 1272 - American Ale II

Mashed at 148° for an hour using about 20 quarts of water. Did kind of a mini mash-out with 8 quarts at about 185°, then a further single-batch sparge at about 165°.

O.G.: 1.064
Est. IBU: 122.3

I am also considering fortifying the hop aroma with a little dry-hopping in the primary a week or two before kegging, once the main fermentation is done. I'm thinking it won't be necessary to rack to a secondary for this.

Brewing was uneventful, though when adding water for my sparge I feel like I added a bit too much, thus potentially diluting my final wort. To compensate for this I collected 2 extra quarts and then did a 90-minute boil (a first for me). The color change due to this is quite noticeable.

This was also the first time I did a mash-out, which is nice because it reduces overall sparging time (I have limited pots for heating water). I'm not sure if it was this or the aforementioned over-watering which caused my not-so-great 69% efficiency; in any case, I think I am going to adjust the rollers on my mill to give a little bit of a finer grind. I think this might help quite a lot.

Saturday Kegging

I kegged up Blackacre Butte #3 and Hail to the Spring today. The third iteration of Blackacre Butte tastes basically exactly the same as I remembered the second one tasting, despite some minor differences in gravity. Frankly, I think I need to move on to some other porter recipes; I'm glad I did this one again, but it has got some flaws that I would love to try to correct.

Hail to the Spring is a pretty bright little pale ale which I think will be a lot better once it is carbonated up. It's not bad, but it has got some interesting flavors in it and I'm looking forward to see how it develops.

I checked on Château Saison, which has been fermenting out of sight in a closet (to prevent too much ill effect from sunlight). It has a really bizarre pattern of floating material covering the surface, which I'm assuming is some fungal thing. It looks weird, but I'm sure the underlying beer is fine.

Pro-Am Results

Well, the bulk of the results for the 2011 Puget Sound Pro-Am are out, and there's good news: Two Bails Cream Ale won 1st place in the Light Hybrid Beers category! Woo!

Eleven of the sixteen participating breweries have made their selections for the "Pro" part of the Pro-Am, but Two Bails was not among them. Most will have made their selections by Wednesday, though, so I still have a little hope.