I racked to secondary today, after about a month left in the primary due to the July 15 and 22nd floods that have kept us busy. Our basement rose to about 80 degrees during that time, so I hope no odd flavors or aromas are born from that. My FG was 1.013, making my ABV 8%, due to the 60 degree pitch OG and the 77 degree secondary OG. Should be a good beer from what I’ve read but I’m concerned about the heat. Also, the beer is a lot darker that I thought, but who cares if it taste great I guess. Now I’ll let it set until early October, then dry hop for a week.
Author Archive for Steve
Bottled up the Chinook IPA. Didn’t have much body to the uncarbed beer but nice aroma. I dry hopped and secondaried the beer for 11 days @ 70°. Using T-58 for bottling yeast.
Northern Brewer Double IPA extract kit. Here is their description:
Double IPA, sometimes called Imperial IPA, is an emerging style of beer that is distinctly American. The goal is to get as many hops in the beer as possible. Making the beer to an extremely high gravity (and alcohol) makes it possible to tolerate bitterness in excess of 90 IBUs. Lots and lots of hop flavor and aroma in our recipe help disguise a thick, full-bodied amber-gold beer of barley wine stature. Recommended: 2-stage fermentation and yeast starter.
Double IPA
Extract kit from Northern Homebrewer, Milwaukee, WI
Target OG: 1.083
Malt 1: 12 lbs. Pilsen Malt LME (60 min)
(screwed up and should have been 3 lbs at 60 mins and 9 lbs at 15 mins)
Adjunct: 1 tsp Irish Moss (15 min)
Grain 1: 4 oz Briess Caramel 120
Grain 2: 12 oz Dingemas Caramel Pils
Hop 1: 1 oz Summit – (60 min)
Hop 2: 1 oz Centennial – (30 min)
Hop 3: 1 oz Cascade – (10 min)
Hop 4: 2 oz Summit – (0 min)
Hop 5: 1 oz Cascade – (dry hop in secondary for 2 weeks)
Yeast: #1056 American Ale (60°-72°F)
Boiling Schedule:
Collected 2.5 gallons of water. Steep grains at 155°F for 20 minutes. Bring to a boil. Remove water from heat and mix Malt. Bring water back to a boil. In hop tea pot add Hop 1 @ 60 minutes, Hop 2 @ 30 minutes. Add Hop 3 in primary brew pot @ 10 minutes and Hop 4 @ 0 minutes in the boil. Add Irish Moss with 15 minutes left in the boil.
Notes:
I pitch yeast @ about 67° . My fermentation temps are 70-71°. I’ll transfer to secondary fermenter after about 14 days or begin taking daily hydrometer readings – when hydrometer readings are the same on consecutive days, primary fermentation is complete. Proceed to secondary fermentation for 2months . Add Hop 5 @ 2 weeks prior to bottling. Bottle with 5 oz of corn sugar and 1 oz of table sugar. Bottle condition for up to 2 weeks.
My actual OG was 1.074. I pitched @ 67° and fermented @ 70°.
Moved to secondary. Took a FG reading and got 1.004 HOWEVER, I did realize after testing my hydrometer in water, that it is off by .002-.004. So, with a 1.048 SG and a 1.006 (corrected) FG my ABV will be ~5.6% (taking into mathematical consideration of 60 degrees reading for OG and 67 degrees for FG). Very light in color, similar to the Patersbier.
There was very subtle hoppiness to the beer, granted I needed to add my dry hop addition. (ADDITION – I dry hopped 2 days after this post). I think bigger boils are better for IPAs (see below), so maybe I wasn’t able to extract all the acids properly. Would have liked to capture those sharp Chinooks. Loved the smell. Actually let Abby taste one of the hop pellets. For the record she’s not a fan of pure hops 
For my tastes right now, I think I’m going to step up and take a swing at the Double IPA kit. It is a pricey kit but compared to a $12/6pk of great IPA beer in my basement, I’ll have 2 cases for $60. That’s ok with me.
I did learn something today after talking to NB on the phone. I was asking about a “hop tea” that is often used when doing a brew with large malt extract bill. The hop tea is a side boil just for your early addition hops that you time along with your primary boil. It is so that there is a purer extraction of the alpha acids from the hops. Otherwise, if I added the hops to the primary boil, the sugar level would be so high that chemically, the extraction process would actually be hindered quite a bit. More on this when I post the Double IPA brew day.