Imperial IPA

We found a new home brew shop that we are in love with! Wilmington Homebrew just opened off College Rd. in Wilmington and I think we'll be buying ingredients from them whenever we pass through on the way to the beach. They are extremely knowledgeable but also fun to hang out around. They offer free tastings on Fridays and demonstrations on Saturdays.

Since our last beer was sweet and mild, we decided to go hoppy this time. We got the High-Gravity Imperial IPA kit developed by the WHB folks and we upgraded some of our equipment.

There weren't a whole lot of steeping grains in this batch but we steeped in the full 6 gallons of water because we got an AWESOME NEW POT!We also had much better temperature control because we got an AWESOME NEW DIGITAL THERMOMETER!

8 Gallon Aluminum Stock/Steamer Pot

One of the advertised uses for the pot is steaming lobsters, so the pot came with a shelf, basically that sits about 2 inches above the bottom of the pot. We converted a coat hanger into a handle for the shelf so we could remove it post-steeping. We can also rest the thermometer on the shelf to get a more accurate reading than if it was touching the bottom or sides of the pot. There are pots you can get that have spigots near the bottom for easy removal of the liquid inside, but those are much more expensive. We decided to get the cheapest large pot we could find to make sure we liked brewing with it and our stove (thankfully gas) is capable of heating that much water.

Shelf with thermometer and coat hanger handle.

One thing we learned from this first 6 gallon batch is to measure and filter the water the day before brewing-- especially if you're brewing on a week day. I think we'll try to plan better in the future to avoid  weekday brewing. The IPA recipe called for the smallest batch of steeping grains we have used and it looked really miniscule in the huge new pot!

.75 lb Vienna, .25 lb Biscuit, .25 lb Crystal 40

We steeped the grains for 1 hour at 155° and were able to keep the temperature very steady due to both the new thermometer and the higher volume of water (that doesn't change temperature as easily). Then, we brought the water up to a boil but turned off the heat prior to adding the malt.

Lots of Malt!!

We added all the liquid malt (6.6 lb Golden Light Liquid Malt Extract) easily then hoped and prayed while we added the dry malt (4 lb Golden Light Dry Malt Extract). John, at Wilmington Homebrew, said the best way to add the dry malt was to put it in a bowl first then slide the entire amount in quickly before the steam can make it clump to the bowl. Then, STIR and STIR some more! John also added in the extra 4 lb Golden Light DME to make the recipe super High Gravity. It should come out somewhere around 8.5 - 9% ABV!

It looks like milk for a while!

This IPA is going to be extremely Hoppy. We added 5 ounces of various kinds of hops throughout the boil:

• 1 oz Warrior at 60m for Bittering
• 1 oz Columbus at 40m for Bittering and Flavoring
• 1oz Simca at 20m for Flavoring
• 1oz Chinook and 1 oz Columbus at 0m for Aroma 

That is a lot of hops. During the boil, we actually had to keep the pot covered to keep it boiling. We definitely couldn't boil any higher volume than 6 gallons!

Lots of hops. Lots.

 We again used the wort chiller to drop the temperature of the wort down to about 70°. Its still SO much faster than trying to use an ice bath. We also used the digital thermometer which was a huge help!

So easy and fast!

We tried liquid yeast for the first time with this batch. Unfortunately, it sort of exploded when L opened it and when I yelled he reflexively moved the yeast over the bucket. As it spewed out of the vial, it ran down the outside of both the vial and his hand before dropping into the bucket. We could have our first contamination!!

Because this is such a high gravity recipe, we actually stuffed a large tube over the bottom part of our three piece air lock to prevent any spillage. The other end of the tube rested in a pitcher filled with sanitizer water. It stayed in primary fermentation for two full weeks and will be in secondary for another week.

We're actually planning on bottling a lot more of this batch than we normally would because its going to be so hoppy. We went to the mountains this weekend and L, my brother, Z, and I had some really tasty craft beer and kept the bottles for the IPA. We also stole some of Z's roommates empty bottles, which is pretty gross. 3 boys in one house is not a sanitary thing. We've got quite the collection of bottles now and about 12 full ones in the fridge so we should be set for this weekend. To clean the bottles, we generally dishwasher them twice, scraping the labels after the first cycle.

Cleaning the bottles.

We're bottling the IPA this weekend and brewing a British Nut Brown from Appalachian Homebrew. We're also contemplating brewing again the following weekend as a present for L's Aunt's Birthday/4th of July so watch out for some exciting more posts!! ha.