Beringea IPA

Continuing to ramp up brewing for my kegging outfit, I would like a nice IPA on tap later this month. In addition to using up the end of my 50 pound bag of 2 row malt, I also wanted to finish out a partly-used bag of Chinook hops as well as continue working through my supply of South Dakota-grown Cascade hops. Finally, I really like the aroma of Simcoe hops, but I didn't dry hop my last recipe with them long enough, so the aroma on that batch was a little underwhelming. I decided to give Simcoe another try, with a longer dry hopping period this time around. Note added later: I ended up changing my mind and going with Amarillo hops, which I haven't used for dry-hopping previously. Simcoe will get saved for later!

At any rate, I've designed a recipe that I'm hoping will hit the target for maltiness and hoppiness. The name refers to the adjacent parts of North America and Asia across which many an organism has migrated between continents over the millenia. We'll see how this recipe works out!

Beringea IPA

• 10.4 lbs. 2 row malt
• 1 lb. Carapils malt
• 0.75 lb. 60° L crystal malt
• 0.15 lb. chocolate malt
• 1.25 oz. Chinook hops pellets (11.4% alpha; 3.4% beta), 60 minute boil
• 1 oz. Cascade whole hops (est. 5.5% alpha), 15 minute boil
• 2 oz. Simcoe hops pellets (13.0% alpha; 4.5% beta) Amarillo hops pellets (8.2% alpha, 5.7% beta), 2 weeks dry hop
• California Ale Yeast (White Labs WLP001), prepared 2 days in advance with 1.5 L starter
• 1 tsp. Irish moss (10 minute boil)

Anticipated statistics

• 1.060 s.g., 1.013 f.g, 6.2% abv
• 56.9 IBU
• 12.4 SRM

Procedure

• I mashed in with 3.9 gallons of water at ~173°; the mash stabilized at 155° after 5 minutes, and was down to 154° after 30 minutes. After an hour, I added .75 gallons of water at 190°, let it sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected ~3.1 gallons of wort.
• Then, I added 3.14 gallons of 185° water to the mash tun, which brought the mash up to 165°. I let this sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected the rest of the wort. This came to a total of 6.75 gallons, with a gravity of 1.049 at 60°, which works out to 75% efficiency.
• I brought the wort to a vigorous boil, and added the Chinook hops.
• Because the original wort volume (6.75 gallons) was on track to be more than I anticipated, I aimed for a very vigorous boil to clear out the excess. I was down to 6.25 gallons after 30 minutes, and ~5.75 gallons after 60 minutes of boiling.
• After 45 minutes, I added the Cascade hops.
• After 50 minutes, I added the Irish moss.
• After 60 minutes, I turned off the flame and used my wort chiller to cool the wort. Prior to chilling, I took a sample of wort for specific gravity. This is a minor change in my procedure--by taking the sample now, I figure I reduce the risk of contamination or wort loss due to clumsiness later.
• I chilled the wort in two stages. The first was by running tap water through the wort chiller. After the wort temperature was around 82°, I siphoned around 3.5 gallons of ice water through the chiller, which brought the temperature down to around 68°.
• The wort is a beautiful deep copper color, with a smooth bitterness and pleasant flavor. Starting gravity was 1.060 at 60°, exactly on target.
• I transferred the beer into the carboy while aerating with the Venturi pump, and pitched the yeast starter. I'm fermenting the beer at 65°, in my usual temperature controlled fermentation chamber.
• This batch was brewed on 3 January 2014.