Peter's IPA

[stonegrey]

After 12 months of brewing from kits, i finally moved up a level, not quite an AG brew yet, as it used spray maly and dextrose.

the basic recipe:

4.5kg pale malt extract (i used 1.5kgs of spray malt & 3 kgs of dextrose)
250g crystal malt

Bittering hops - 100g Challenger

Aroma: 50g Cascade.

sachet of Youngs brewers yeast.

I didn't have a pan large enough to deal with that lot & 3 litres of water, so i had to nip down to work and "borrow" the Lincat LWB4 boiler, off the shelf - at least i kow the themostat works on it

the recipe came from the "John Parkes - Home Brewing Self Sufficiency" book, but was adapted, when i realised it was going to cost £32 in spray malt, and £55 in extract.

the only thing i didn't have was the Irish Moss, and i couldn't find anywhere to get any at 4:30 yesterday afternoon. So, i'm expecting a slighly cloudy beer with a some serious flavour, but after a search online, it seems people tend to leave it out on a heavily hopped beer.

after carefully putting that in the FV and adding the cold water and yeast, (it was 9pm by now) it took it up to the spare bedroom to ferment.

i woke this morning to find the airlock bubbling nicely, and the room stinks of hops.

i'll let you know what happens when i bottle, and when it is conditioned

OG - 1054.

i'm expecting something around 6.5 - 7%

 

[jimp2003]

That's an interesting brew. I don't think I have seen a brew with twice as much sugar as extract - what brewlength did you aim for? Also did all 100g of Challenger go in for bittering? How long did you boil them for?

Sorry for all the questions I am just curious :hmm:

Jim

 

[stonegrey]

brew length was 23 litres

all 100grms of challenger were bittering, and the boil time was 1 hour (as per the recipe).

should i have gone more 50/50 or 60/40 on the malt?

 

[jimp2003]

I got a lot higher OG when I put your ingredients into some brewing software. The OG comes out at more like 1.075 and about 9% ABV beer at the end and you would have about 55 IBUs. This assumes that the cascade went in at flameout - if they went in before the boil ended they would have added a little biterness of their own.

With all that sugar and only 1.5kg spraymalt I think you will end up with a thin beer without much malt backbone to work against the bitterness. The crystal will help but I am not convinced it will be enough to give balance.

I would have stumped up for all the malt extract or at most used 500g of sugar (but probably not).

I could be wrong so let us know how this turns out....

Jim

 

[stonegrey]

I ended up with an FG of 1006.

using the Coopers calculation from their kits:

(1054-1006)/7.46 = 6.43% +0.5 for priming = 6.93%

I opened a 2 litre bottle last night, you could smell the hops at arms length. and after 4 pints, i think i'll call it Memories, as i have no recollection of going to bed!

I think if ever i do this one again, i may remove the sugar completely, and just use 2kg of spray malt. which would hopefully bring the alcohol content down to a more manageable level.

it does have good body to it, a decent head, but cloudy due to not using copper finings, and a very strong flavour, of hops and alcohol, a bit like Fullers Golden Pride, or Robinson's Old Tom.