"Dirty 30" Double IPA

Super-thick mash

Thuglas and Sean - damn it was cold!

Injecting the hop-steroids

Just some of the hops we used.

Dudes,

I'm turning 30 March 5th! Ray and I brewed this up at his place on February 1st, and Doug* was there to watch his first all-grain brew. With luck it will be ready just in time for the celebration on March 7th. This is based off of looking at a lot of IIPA recipes: Tasty's, Nate's, Jamil's, and most importantly, Vinnie's. We made hop substitutions as necessary, especially at the dry-hopping stage when we really wanted Centennial and Columbus, but had to make do with what we had.

Out of the primary this tasted great. The hops are raging, but not too bitter as I feared. You can't even taste the alcohol, so I guess making the shitty Scottish ale for a starter really paid off! (There is some sort of incredibly cloudy thing going on with that Scottish beer right now that makes it look like drinking a mudpuddle. I guess I might get some gelatin and fine it.)

Here's the recipe. Volumes we hit were:

• 13.75 in the boil kettle, plus .5 gallons for top-up halfway through the boil.
  
• 12.5 gallons post boil volume
  
• 10 in the carboys, and 9.5 total in the kegs
  

O.G. 1.078 F.G. 1.012 Calculated IBU's 208 ABV 8.9%

28 lb. 2-row pale malt

2 lb. wheat malt

1.5 lb. Carafoam

1 lb. crystal 35

2 lb. table sugar

I'm not even listing hop AA% because it's not relevant. All hops in the kettle were pellets and all mash hops were whole. We used the "Hopshot" product from Northern Brewer for even more hop impact.

4 oz. Chinook Mash Hop

2 oz. Warrior 60 min

1, 5 ml Hopshot 60 min

2 oz. Simcoe 45 min

2 oz. Northern Brewer 30 min

2 oz. Centennial 15 min

2 oz. Columbus 5 min

3 oz. Centennial 0 min

2 oz. Amarillo 0 min

Dry hops (pellets, added in large tea bags, to the keg on 2/20/09)

1 oz. Rainier

2 oz. Simcoe

2 oz. Cascade

4 oz. Columbus

.5 oz. Amarillo

Mash: It was very cold outside which is why we drastically undershot our mash temp at first.

Also, we forgot the 4 tsp. of gypsum we were going to add to the mash, so we added it to the beginning of the boil instead.

8.5 gallons of water, mashed in to 140. Pulled .5 gallons almost immediately, brought it to a boil, and added it in. We were able to raise the temp to 151ish at about the 20 minute mark. Held at 151 for 60 minutes. Total Mash time = 80 minutes.

Sparged with 11.5 gallons at 170. Collected 13.75 gallons at 1.064 + .5 gallons which we used for top-up volume halfway through the boil. Efficiency = 74%.

Boiled 60 minutes adding sugar at 60 minutes, 1 tab whirlfloc at 15 minutes, 1 tsp Wyeast nutrient at 10 min.

Chilled really well (too well!) to about 50 degrees and let the kettle settle over an hour to really drop out the hops and break. When we finally siphoned the wort it was crystal clear! We used a siphon as opposed to the spigot so we could accurately keep the trub out of our beer.

Aerated by hand for 10 minutes and pitched the yeast at 58 degrees. We used one whole yeast cake from 5 gallons of the Scottish beer (Wyeast 1056 American Ale).

Fermented for 3 weeks, gradually getting up to 68 and staying there. Racked to kegs on 2/20/09. Room temp for 1 week, then chilled and carbonated with the hop bags in until 3/7/09.

1 keg was served on 3/7/09 for the birthday party. This was an amazing beer! The fermentation was flawless, and the hop impact was incredible. The glass presentation was great, with a hazy orange glow and a lasting head. I would only ask for a little more hop aroma, which might have been achieved by a longer dry hop, and I think getting some Centennial in the dry hops would have helped increase the aroma also. I would say this beer could score in the low 40's as an imperial IPA.

3/16/09 The other keg was left on the hops longer (mainly because when Ray was trying to fish it out, the string broke!) It is now carbonated and we will bottle some of it for competition next week. I am hoping that we get a little more hop aroma from this batch.

*Thanks Doug for the helping hand and hanging out while we were brewing this one. Most importantly, you brought the Pliny and the Damnation to keep the gears lubricated!