I thought I would start off my blogging with a summary of what I have brewed myself so far. I've always been really passionate about beer so it was a natural progression for me to start brewing my own. I aim to 'showcase' each beer I have brewed - I'll hopefully talk about the beer itself and the successes and hiccups of brew day.
July 2012 - Simcoe IPA
My favourite beers are generally hoppy beers. I used to almost exclusively drink dry hoppy bitter beers but more recently I have been getting into American style IPAs. I still love lots and lots of hops but now appreciate the caramel or biscuity addition of a good malt choice. I decided to make my own American IPA. One of the most flavoursome hop I have come across is Simcoe so I decided to make this the main focus of this ale...
Recipe:
Mash
Pale Malt 2.4kg
Crystal Malt 500g
Caramunich 275g
Carapils 275g
Vienna Malt 250g
Boil
Columbus 25g 60mins
Amarillo 25g 30mins
Simcoe 25g 10mins
Columbus 25g Dry Hop
Amarillo 15g Dry Hop
Simcoe 25g Dry Hop
Brew Day
When it came to cooling the wort, the cooler element didn't fit the tap in the bathroom so I had to think of something. Luckily, me and my mate Marc came up with a really clever idea of syphoning cold water through it. We didn't think of the fact that by the time the cold water had passed through the near boiling wort, it would be very hot... thus Marc had quite a badly burnt mouth for about a week.
The End Product
Realised from this that I didn't use enough malt. Not enough sugar therefore this ended up quite weak at about 4 and a bit percent. Once it had conditioned in the bottle though I think everything else was there... Initial sweetness followed by a bitter pineapply aftertaste, I reckon more malt (probably more Pale) and it would have had that stronger slightly caramelly taste that the American IPAs have. Next time...
October 2012 - Black Lab IPA
My take on a modern increasingly popular beer style - a black IPA. One of my favourite beer styles after tasting The Kernel Brewery's version. I'd always planned on doing one... just wanted to get a couple of beers under my belt first so I got it right.
Recipe:
Mash
Pale Malt 4kg
Caramalt 500g
Carafa III 250g
Vienna Malt 250g
Boil
Columbus 15g 60mins
Amarillo 15g 20mins
Simcoe 15g 20mins
Cascade 20g 20mins
Cascade 30g 10mins
Cascade 30g Dry Hop
Brew Day
Really annoyed when my ingredients arrived in the post. Black IPA is basically an IPA with a tiny amount of dark malt added to it. Usually, most people aim for the black colour of a stout but avoid the roasted malt taste. There is a type of dark malt called Carafa which comes in 3 types - I, II & III. You can then get 'Carafa Special' which is de-husked and thus the flavour is more subtle... I think it was probably done purposely for this type of beer. I ordered Carafa Special III, they sent me Carafa III... what a balls up.
The End Product
Due to the Carafa indident, my beer did end up tasting a bit more roasty than I would have liked... although it did have a big bitter kick at the back of the tongue. To be honest I ended up quite liking the initial roastiness, it was warming and the weather was getting cold so it was quite nice. The real satisfaction came when I bottled it with a bit of sugar. Two weeks later and the beer was completely different. The sugar almost gave it an added perfume aroma (which I like), the secondary fermentation also gave it a more alcoholic taste and changed the roastiness into a liquorice taste, almost like dandelion & burdock. That along with a nice amount of fizz.... delicious.
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