Skip to main content

In the Fermentor: And now for something completely different.

I promised that the next one of these articles wouldn't be Belgian, or contain candy sugar. I've kept my promise and present to you an English IPA. If you're following my Kitchen Brewing series, this is the beer that I was making in all those pictures.

This beer has a simple grain bill, but a heavy dose of two of my favorite English hops: Fuggles and Kent Goldings. The finished beer won't be the citrus bomb that is the typical West Coast IPA. This one should turn out earthy, floral and slightly woody. IPAs were made strong and heavily hopped to survive the long journey from Britain to India. With a target ABV of 6.4% and four hop additions, mine covers both bases. Here's the plan for five gallons:

Grains:
12.5 lbs Maris Otter
8 oz Victory

Hops:
2 oz Fuggles: 60 min
0.5 oz Fuggles: 20 min
0.5 oz Kent Goldings: 20 min
0.5 oz Fuggles: 7 min
0.5 oz Kent Goldings: 7 min 
0.5 oz Fuggles: Dry Hopping
0.5 oz Kent Goldings: Dry Hopping

Yeast:
Wyeast 1469 - West Yorkshire

Mash Schedule:
Saccharification Rest: 151F for 60min
Mashout: 168F for 10 minutes

Original Gravity:
1.066
Estimated Final Gravity:
1.016

IBU: 50
SRM Color: 11

Fermentation Schedule:
2 Weeks Primary
2 Weeks Secondary
2 Weeks Secondary with Dry Hops
2 Weeks Bottle Conditioning

Cost: $19 per case
Commercial Equivalent: Left Hand 400 lb Monkey: $33
Savings: $14

This is the third beer for this particular batch of West Yorkshire, which really spreads its cost out. It's previous uses were in an English Porter and a Brown Ale. I'm a big West Yorkshire fan. It's supposed to be the same strain used by Samuel Smith, brewers of one of my favorite beers of all time.

As I write this, the beer is still bubbling away in the primary fermenter. I'll report back in a few weeks on how it turns out.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

In the Fermentor: Kitchen Sink Barleywine

The Leftovers It's time for a cleanup of leftover grains and partially used packets of hops from 2012. With the exception of the 2-Row base malt, everything in the recipe below has been sitting on the shelf, or in the fridge waiting to be used. I had several open hop packages, some leftover toasted malts and a half-full bottle of malt extract too. I also had yeast cultured from my White House Honey Porter . My decision was to use almost all of my leftovers and make a partial-mash Barleywine. The finished beer will be quite strong and quite bitter. A toasted malt backbone should nicely complement pine, spice and citrus hop flavors. Because of the beer's strength, it will not be ready for at least three months and should improve with age. The recipe has been scaled up to five gallons from the 2.5 gallons I actually brewed: Grains: 9 lbs Rahr 2-Row 8.5 oz Victory 7.5 oz Brown Hops: Bittering: 0.75 oz Chinook (11.1% a.a.): 60 min 0.5 oz Colum...

In the Fermentor: Flaming Pumpkin

I'll admit that I'm not a huge Pumpkin Beer fan. I didn't have one on my brewing calendar for this year and didn't have my sights set on one for next Fall either. Then my niece came along and threw down the gauntlet. She asked me to brew her a pumpkin beer and I accepted the challenge. I did a lot of reading to see how to best go about using pumpkin in beer. Some people mash it with the grains. Others add it to the brew kettle during the boil. Some add it to the primary or secondary fermentor. The consensus from professional brewers appears to be adding it to the mash, so I took the same approach. The pumpkin was cooked ahead of time by my girlfriend to soften it, convert some of the starch and help release some of its sugars. It then joined the grains in the mash. I really want the pumpkin pie effect here, so I've thrown in all of the requisite spices toward the end of the boil. I've also gone with just enough bitterness to balance the sweetness of the ...

Out of the Bottle: Flaming Pumpkin

It's Halloween night and Flaming Pumpkin is ready to frighten away the ghosts and goblins. Hopefully it won't also frighten away the people who drink it. This is my first Pumpkin Beer, so I was flying blind outside of doing research and trying commercially available brews. I basically cobbled together suggestions I thought were the best approach to the style, with a vision in my head of what the finished product should taste like. So how did it turn out? Pretty good. My goal was pumpkin pie in a bottle. What I got is more spice than sweet, but I still like it. The pie spices are right out front, with clove and cinnamon leading the way. The sweeter flavors are muted and focused toward dark sugars from the brown sugar and dark crystal malt. Bitterness is just enough, with no hop flavors competing with the spices. And what about the pumpkin? You can taste it. It's subtle. But you can definitely tell it's there. Overall? I'm quite happy and hope that my niece l...