Homebrewing Adventures!

Before my car accident a week ago Sunday I planned on brewing up a brew last week. After the accident I wasn’t in a mood to brew and had a lot of insurance calling/emailing to get all my ducks in a row. Due to the holiday (tomorrow is July 4th) I had a few days off this week and decided I would brew not one but TWO beers!

The first I decided would stretch my abilities to build a recipe (made so much easier by the internet and BeerSmith software) and stretch my equipment.I decided to brew two gallons of an Imperial IPA.

Label made with BeerLabelizer.com

I won’t say it was my easiest brew. My brew kettle was a bit small so I had a small boil over and then right before it was time to chill the wort I dropped my thermometer and shattered it. I did manage to take a couple photo’s during the process!

Here is the mash:

All grain mashed for 75 minutes.

After the sparge here is the boil (with the first wort hop’s already in):

Wort boiled for 60 minutes

My recipe called for four hop additions (and I will be dry hopping). Being an Imperial IPA it should be bitter and hoppy. BeerSmith tells me that I should expect 105 IBUs (International Bitterness Units) and an ABV of 9.2%.

I was REALLY excited that (after correction for temperature) I hit my Target Gravity on the nose! As long as those miniature miraculous organisms called yeast (to be specific White Labs WLP001 California Ale Yeast) eat, drink and reproduce as expected I’ll have the biggest beer I’ve ever brewed. The total fermentation time is going to be around 28 days, so I won’t be able to taste my work for about a month and a half with bottle conditioning. It’s going to be hard to wait because I’m REALLY excited about this bad boy!

I’m hoping that by the next time I brew another two gallon batch I have a bigger brew kettle (maybe this one will magically appear at my apartment) as it would have meant a lot less mess!

Tomorrow I will be returning to a one gallon brew with what I am going to call my “Red, White & Blue Brew” (a Blue Moon Clone).