Columbus IPA

Today I brewed my first IPA, YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's my favorite style of beer and I'm finally comfortable enough with my brewing techniques to brew it. Here's how the day went:

Here's Oliver (Ollie) the brew cat checking out the wort chiller.

Here's my first yeast starter on my homemade stir plate. It's looking mighty lovely!

I lit the burner and started heating my strike water at 8:15 am. UPS has not yet delivered my grains/hops for this brew, but I think they'll be here by 11:00. I heated the water early knowing it wouldn't lose too much temp by the time the grains got here.

Heating the strike water.

It's going to be a hot one today (104) so I'm brewing in my bathing suit (Semi-No Pants?). Several trips to the pool will be required to stay cool!

The UPS driver delivered the grains at 11:15 am and I mashed in at 11:30. The recipe for this delicious nectar is:

Grain Bill

• 12 lbs 2-Row
• 1.5 lbs Crystal 15L

Boil Schedule

• 2 oz Magnum @ 60 Minutes - Bittering
• Whirflock @ 10 Minutes - Clarifying
• Yeast Nutrients @ 10 Minutes - Helping the yeasties do their job!
  
• 2 oz Columbus @ 5 Minutes - Flavoring
• 2 oz Columbus @ 2 Minutes - Aroma

When mashing in lately the ProMash calculations for strike water temperature have been low making me miss my mash temp. ProMash recommended 163 for strike water temp, I adjusted up to 168/169. I put the strike water in the mashtun, added the grain and 1 tsp of 5.2 and nailed my mash temp at 154! Woohoo!

Mashing in!

Keeping the heat in for 60 minutes!

The mash went well. I only lost 2 degrees over an hour. The mashout went very well also. I got 5 gallons from my first runnings and 2 gallons from my second. Seems that I over mashed just a tad!

Draining the first runnings into the boil kettle after recirculating 4 times to get the grain bed to settle and the wort to run clear.

Woe is me! I turned my back to the boil kettle for a few minutes and had a nice (OK, not so nice) boilover. Sticky wort on the concrete is not what I wanted to be working around today especially because I'm not wearing any shoes!

Boilover aftermath

After the boil returned to normal, I added 2 oz of Magnum hops. The patio smelled wonderfully of wort and hops! Mmmmmm! I've said it before and I'll say it again: They should make Potpouri that smells like this! Edit: after adding 4 oz of Columbus hops to the boil I have to say they should make Potpouri that smells like this! ;-)

Oops! I must have misjudged the pre-boil volume of wort. I only ended up with 4 gallons post boil. About 3.75 will make that into the keg. :-( So much for me being comfortable with my brewing techniques! From now on I'm going to sparge into a measuring bucket so I'm right on with my wort amounts. Last time too much, this time too little, sheesh!

Sweet wort being transferred from the boil kettle to the carboy for fermentation!

Here's the wort's resting place for the next three weeks: In the basement of my wife's office. It's been warm outside so I suspect this is going to ferment a little higher than 63 degrees, probably more like 68. Still in the good beer zone!

Edit: I missed my OG by 6 points. It was 1.054 and the range for this beer is 1.060 - 1.065. I've always had low efficiency on this system. Time to get a new cooler for a mashtun (this one's all bubbled up on the inside from the hot water) and start crushing my own grain to see if that helps. Still, the gravity sample tasted mighty good!

Up next: Hopefully the kegerator! I have all the parts except the chest freezer and the temp controller. Morebeer will have the temp controller available 7/18 and I'm just hoping Craigslist comes up with a freezer for cheap!