Anglo-American IPA Brew Day (First Post)

Having not blogged in many years, I'm not sure how exactly one kicks off a blog. The hope with Midnightclay is that it it will be a place to keep a diary of our homebrewing recipes and exploits (lest we forget all our mistakes!) Commercial craft beers, music, art and culture may also make appearances.

Our brew day the last weekend was our sixth batch, meaning we are very much still in the learning phase. After a string of all-grain brews, we had returned to extract brewing for the last couple batches, the prime reason being time (a scarce commodity in Hong Kong). In this case, I was in a rush to catch the new Star Wars film that evening.

We had a pack of White Labs WLP002 English Ale yeast waiting in the fridge, and it seemed time to use it. Having long been fans of more balanced or malt-forward American IPAs (such as Firestone Walker's wonderful Union Jack IPA), we decided to shoot for something in the same vein. The hop schedule was largely pilfered from a particularly tasty looking recipe from the Mad Fermentationist, and we previously had luck with Briess' Bavarian Wheat DME in our session IPA. We were also intrigued by Special B from a fellow homebrewer's beer, and so in a bit went.

It will be interesting to see how the WLP002 attenuates. While the attenuation is listed by White Labs at 63%-70%, various homebrewers suggest it can be closer to 80% or higher. The alpha acid content listed on the hops also seem a bit off. We'll see how it turns out in a few weeks.

Anglo-American IPA

Recipe Specifics

Batch Size (Gal): 4.00
Total Grain (Lbs): 7 lbs 4.0 oz
Anticipated OG: 1.060
Anticipated SRM: 13.3
Anticipated IBU: 76.4
Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Steeping Grains/Extract

8.00 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (6.9 %)
8.00 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (6.9 %)
4.00 oz Special B Malt Grain (3.4 %)
3.00 lbs Briess Pilsen Light DME (41.4%)
3.00 lbs Briess Bavarian Wheat DME (41.4%)

Hops

1.50 oz Centennial (pellet, 8.20% AA) – First wort hop
2.00 oz Amarillo (pellet, 8.90% AA) @ 0 min
1.50 oz Centennial (pellet, 8.20% AA) @ 0 min
1.00 oz Galaxy (pellet, 14.00% AA) @ 0 min
2.00 oz Amarillo (pellet, 8.90% AA) @ dry hop
1.00 oz Centennial (pellet, 8.20% AA) @ dry hop

Yeast

WLP002 White Labs English Ale Yeast

Mash Schedule

Steep specialty malts - 152 F for 30 min.

Notes

Brewed 19 December 2015.

Steeped milled specialty malts in 5 gallons of tap water at 152F for 30 minutes. Post boil volume of approx 3.4 gal. Topped up with chilled sanitised filtered water to reach 4.0 gal. Measured OG at 1.062.

Shook briefly to aerate, pitched the yeast directly from the package. Chilled to 66F overnight.

21 December 2015: The yeast was a slow starter, but now seeing vigorous airlock activity and a thick krausen.