Brewday: Imperial IPA

A bit of a delayed write up, I did this a few weeks ago. I got here eventually!

I wanted to brew something big in both strength and taste. Last year I brewed a 10% beer that was actually pretty good even though I was using up some hops I’d had left in the freezer. This time round I used a similar malt bill but planned the hops more around what I thought would work than what I had to use up.

The malt bill was fairly straight forward: Maris Otter, Crystal and Torrified Wheat. Some dextrose was added in the last 10 mins of the boil to increase the ABV slightly but more importantly help it ferment down to a lower FG and give it a dryer quality.

For the hops I decided to go all C. They tend to work well together, are tasty and I have a lot of them! I went with Columbus for FWH and bittering. I’ve done a few Columbus heavy beers recently and so only added a bit in this for the bitterness and a touch of flavour, I’ll probably add a bit in dry hop too. Cascade and Chinook for during the boil, followed by some more of each at Flame Out along with a healthy dose of Citra. This will hopefully give a good flavour with Citra and Chinook being the main players, a combination I know works well.

The recipe looked like this:

7.5Kg Maris Otter (88.5%)
340g Crystal (4%)
335g Torrified Wheat (4%)
300g Dextrose (3.5%)

15g Columbus @ FWH
5g Columbus @ 60 mins
60g Cascade @ 15 mins
60g Chinook @ 10 mins
40g Cascade @ Flame out
70g Chinook @ Flame out
150g Citra @ Flame out

I know for high gravity brewing I tend to get worse efficiency that usual, so I moved it down to 65% (I usually get between 70% and 75%).  This gave me a target OG of 1.092 and an IBU of 74.8.

For my mash, I went long and low. I was aiming for 64C for 2 hours, but hit 65C and decided that would do the job. The idea is that we get more simple sugars from the malt so this, along with the dextrose, will help the wort ferment down to a lower gravity and thin out the beer.  I do find some high gravity beers can be too thick and cloying for my tastes.

As it was a long mash I decided to bottle my Rye beer while it was ongoing. Due to delays with this the mash ended up being 2.5 hours and the final mash temperature about 63.5C. I was not upset about this, it should just help with my low FG.

Water treatment was added as normal (when I remember!), 2 teaspoons of Gypsum and 1 teaspoon of Calcium Chloride to both the mash and the sparge. At some point I’m really going to have to look in to this and start being more precise. Maybe a Ph meter would be a good starting point.

The draining of the mash and sparge went well, they always go smoothly when I have a large amount of grain. Something to do with the larger mash tun I bought, I would think.

I boiled for a hour, adding the hops as planned. I added Irish Moss and the immersion chiller at 15 mins and the Dextrose at 10 mins before Flame Out. At Flame Out I cooled to 80C before adding the hops and then let it sit for 45 mins, stirring occasionally.

I cooled to about 20C, took a gravity reading, pitched 2 packs of US-05 and tucked it away to ferment. My OG turned out to be 1.084, much worse efficiency that I hoped for. Still if the FG is 1.008, which it was last time, then I have my 10% beer. Even if it is a slightly higher FG then it should still be >9% which is acceptable.

The fermentation was pretty vigorous at first. Although it did slow down it seemed to go on for about a week, which is a good sign. It’s over-due dry hopping now. I’m thinking mainly Chinook backed with a little Columbus and Citra.