Typed Slowly Treatment for Southern Culture Myopia.

Brewed Slowly: American IPA

Brewed Slowly will be a continuing feature/series here on Typed Slowly in which I'll document my experiences as a relatively new homebrewer figuring out what's good about beer and how to consistently make it (the beer).

cooperative brewing

So yesterday, my friend and brewing partner, Steve, and I made an American-style IPA (India Pale Ale). If you're not familiar with this type of beer, it's traditionally known for its higher alcohol content and high hop content. IPAs are one of my favorite types of beer because of the high hop content, which gives the beer its bitterness and flowery/citrus kind of smell.

The software:

7 lbs Extra Pale Malt Extract (Liquid)

1 lb 2 row Pale Malt Grain

0.5 lb Vienna Malt Grain

1.4 oz. Magnum hops (14.2 AA)

2 oz. Chinook hops (14 AA)

Wyeast 1272 American Ale II

We started by steeping the 2 row and Vienna grains at 150 Fahrenheit in 2.5 gallons of water for 45 minutes. It actually stayed closer to 168 because I'm not so good at keeping the electric stove at a consistent temp. Then we took out the grains, brought the temp. to boiling, and added the 7 lbs of extract and the 1.4 oz. of Magnum hops. This boiled for an hour, at which time we cut the heat, added 0.9 oz. of the Chinook hops and put the pot in a sink full of ice water to cool it down. After it cooled down to about 125 F, we poured it into the fermentor, straining out the second addtion of hops, and added enough water to bring it to 5 gallons. This second addtion of water brought the temp. down to about 80 F, which is still a little high to pitch the yeast at, but we went ahead and pitched the yeast anyway (mavericks, I know).

hops that did their thing

The starting gravity was 1.050, and as of this morning(10/3), fermetation hasn't started.

I'll be updating as the fermentation starts happening.

This morning 10/5, when I got up, the airlock was bubbling. The SG is 1.045. It's going a little slow because we haven't turned on the heat and the windows are open. The temp. on the fermentor is between 66 and 68 F.

Update: (10/7) SG: 1.040

(10/13) Transferred to secondary fermentor. Dry-hopped with about 0.5oz. Chinook hops.  It's tasting pretty hoppy so far. SG: 1.012

Related Posts:

• Brewed Slowly: #3 Red Ale