Surly Sow IPA

Yesterday I brewed up the Surly Sow IPA. This recipe is based of the one that Vinnie Cilurzo created and won homebrew competitions with before he commercially brewed the Blind Pig IPA.

Here's the recipe:
Surley Sow IPA
14-B American IPA
Author: Wade L. Williams
Date: 4/16/2009

Size: 11.0 gal
Efficiency: 64.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 206.06 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.062 (1.056 - 1.075)
Terminal Gravity: 1.015 (1.010 - 1.018)
Color: 11.55 (6.0 - 15.0)
Alcohol: 6.09% (5.5% - 7.5%)
Bitterness: 77.7 (40.0 - 70.0)

Ingredients:
26.0 lb Pale Ale Malt
1.0 lb Malted Wheat
1.0 lb Cara-Pils® Malt
1.0 lb Crystal Malt 40°L
1.0 tsp 5.2 pH Stabilizer - added during mash
2.8 oz Chinook (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
1.0 oz Cascade (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min
2.0 oz Cascade (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
1.0 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
1.0 tsp Yeast Nutrient (AKA Fermax) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
1.0 lb Corn Sugar
2.0 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
1.0 oz Cascade (5.5%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
2.0 oz Oak Wood Chips - added dry to secondary fermenter
2.0 ea White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.2

The brew day went GREAT and I had a few guests. Brandy, her son Clayton, and her dad Bruce showed up and helped brew. OK, only Bruce helped, but Clayton just walked around looking cute until it was time for a diaper change and a nap. :-)

Bruce was a big help and we talked about beer all day long. We celebrated the end of the brew with a Sierra Nevada Big Foot Barlywine. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Also, this is the first time I was able to use a water filter for my brew water. It's a carbon filter and it took all of the "organic" flavor out of our well water. The beer turned out nice and clear with not a hint of that flavor!

Here's the pics from the day:

Filtering the water the night before.

I now use big blow off tubes instead of airlocks that can get clogged with gunk. Here they are in action:

Evil Twin - Kegged and Labeled

I kegged the Evil Twin on Sunday and had the usual problem of me being too greedy when it comes to getting every last drop of beer from the carboy to the keg. I "push" the beer with CO2 so the pressure makes kegging very fast. The problem is I don't know when to say when and I usually end up sucking up CO2 out of the carboy and bubbling it up through the beer in the keg. Oh, well. No use crying over spilled beer! ;-)

Here's a copy of the label I came up with. Bonus points to anyone who remembers this episode. Thanks to my parents, I remember EVERY episode! :-)

New Brew Club

A few of the Modesto Mashers club members decided to create a new club. Reasons behind the split are unimportant, but we will be focused more on the actual craft of brewing.

One of the items we needed was a club logo and while I'm no graphic design artist, here's what I've come up with so far: