4th All Grain (21) – American India Pale Ale (AIPA)

1 March 2009 - My thirst for hops is starting to get unhealthy. I really am enjoying these highly hopped American Style beers, so this leaves me no choice but to brew an American IPA. Recipe as follows:

• 5.5 kg Pilsner Malt
• 250g Crystal (40EBC)
• 250g Munich Malt
• 30g Horizon @ 60 min
• 25g Centennial @ 10 min
• 25g Simcoe @ 5 min
• 30g Amarillo @ 0 min
• 1 Whirfloc tablet @ 10 min
• US05 (well the cheaper one from Craftbrewer anyway)

Mashed with 18L of water at 72deg which came out at spot on 65deg. Mashed for an hour with no drop in temp.

Drained and sparged with extra 18L of water at 78deg. Ended up with a little under 28L in Kettle after drain stopped.

Boiled for around 10 min in kettle till hot break then for another hour with hop additions as above. 

Transferred to 20L cube after flameout for no-chill and was a perfect volume, this time leaving a little over in the kettle to try and leave as much break behind as possible.

I still have another week to go in the fermenter with the Aussie PA, so this one will sit in the cube for a week or so.

8 March 2009 – Added to carboy and pitched yeast 250ml rehydration at about 24deg and brought down to 19 deg over the next few hours in fermentation fridge. Yeast took off pretty quickly in about 12 – 18 hours with awesome high krausen and the “bloop bloop” going nuts!

13 March 2009 – Added 25g of late Amarillo – mmmm they smell great. Still has a good Krausen and bubbling away in the fermenter.

23 March 2009 - Finally got around to bottling after a little over 2 weeks. Sneaked a little taste….mmmmm..much smoother than I thought and at a little under 7.1% alc. thats gonna be dangerous. for interest sake the OG was 1.065 and FG 1.011.

1 April 2009 – Holy crap, chilled a long neck this afternoon as wanted to see how this was going after a little over a week in the bottle. This was stunning! beautiful citrus notes on the nose and already this is balanced and sexy as, at over 7%. This was my first dry hop with all grain and I don’t think I will ever not do this again with an American style beer…..just great…..this is so exciting my beer really is going from strength to strength at the moment….woo hoo!!!!!!!!!!

11 April 2009 - this is mothers milk. I reckon the hop aroma is fading a little now but just great all the same. Only two bottles left which I will neck tomorrow during Easter lunch