I'm writing this in retrospect, as this batch was actually brewed in early December. Hooray for detailed notes.
After a brief hiatus due to moving to a new apartment, I've started back up with brewing again. I brewed extract for about a year prior to moving, something like a dozen batches. This will be my first all grain batch effectively, discounting a partial mash batch way back in the beginning of last summer. Full disclosure: it wasn't supposed to be partial mash -- the extraction efficiency was so terrible (< 50%) that we had to supplement with dried malt extract later on as the wort was fermenting.
I really wish I had some pictures of the brewing process as this will likely be a bland post without them, but seeing as regret and lack of preparation were two of the major themes for this brew, it seems appropriate. With this beer, I wanted to make a full-bodied, roasty dark beer with a complementary piney, earthy bitterness from the hop schedule. Style-wise, I was going for what I consider a 'Black IPA,' though this style is somewhat ambiguous. Black IPA's go by many names: hoppy porters, American black ale, Cascadian dark ale, etc. Recipes seem varied also -- anything from stouts with a few extra IBUs, to IPAs with a pinch of Carafa for color. As a commercial reference, I was aiming for something like a roastier version of Otter Creek's Alpine Black IPA which was been a favorite of mine for a while now. I was positively giddy with the prospect of designing a grain bill for this one, and as a result the low-fermentables crept up to a large proportion of the bill.
Note that composition percentages are in terms of potential sugars, not weight.
Black IPA
Grain Bill
US 2-row: 8 lbs (82.4%)
Crystal 80L: 0.5 lbs (5.2%)
Carafa special III: 0.5 lbs (3.6%)
Chocolate malt: 0.5 lbs (4.0%)
Roasted barley: 0.5 lbs (4.9%)
Single infusion mash @ 156F for 1 hour
Hop Schedule
Columbus (14% AA): 0.5 oz, 60 min
Columbus (14% AA): 0.5 oz, 20 min
Centennial (11% AA): 0.25 oz, 15 min
Chinook (13% AA): 0.25 oz, 15 min
Centennial (11% AA): 0.25 oz, 10 min
Chinook (13% AA): 0.25 oz, 10 min
Centennial (11% AA): 0.25 oz, 5 min
Chinook (13% AA): 0.25 oz, 5 min
Centennial (11% AA): 0.25 oz, 0 min
Chinook (13% AA): 0.25 oz, 0 min
Columbus (14% AA): 1.0 oz, dry hop added after primary fermentation
Yeast
1 L starter of Wyeast 1056
(Supplemented by rehydrated Munton's ale yeast, more on that below)
Stats
SRM color: 40+
IBU: 82
OG: 1.063
Brew house efficiency: 63%
Batch size: 3.5 gal
Time-line
Brewed on 12/8/2013
Re-pitched on 12/12/2013
Dry-hopped with 1 oz of Columbus on 12/20/2013
Bottled on 1/3/2014
Tasting on 1/26/2014
Brewing notes:
I began the brew day by heating up 3.125 gal of strike water in my kettle, aiming for a 1.25 qts/lbs grist ratio. I'd recently read up a bit about the activation and denaturing temps for alpha and beta amylase, the enzymes responsible for converting starches to sugar. I wanted a full-bodied beer, so I shot high at 156F to preferentially accommodate the alpha -- in retrospect, I think the high mash temp along with the high proportion of low-fermentables led to a high finishing gravity. I used a pot (~ 1 gallon) of boiling water to preheat the tun for ten minutes, then dumped it. I added the strike water (168F) and doughed in.
After an hour of mashing everything went to hell. The first runnings, well, they didn't run. I had a nasty stuck sparge and couldn't get around it for the life of me. After some quick googling, I tried raking the grain bed and blowing through my drainage tube to get it to flow, but it barely trickled. In the midst of this disaster, my girlfriend suggested that I might dissemble the manifold, let it rip through the outlet and use a metal pasta strainer to separate wort from grain. At first I was indignant, because well... That's not how they do it online... Finally I agreed. I used a couple of spoons to reach into the hot wort and pull the elbows off the 't' piece at the outlet. We managed to get a couple gallons of first runnings.
I tried to sparge and drain the same way, but in the process of getting the first runnings, the outlet valve got gummed up with grain, and once again -- no flow. At this point, we threw the rulebook out the window and got creative. I lifted the tun and tipped it while she held the strainer, and we slowly collected the second runnings. I have to say, as an aside, it's a true sign of trust when you allow your significant other to attempt to pour 150F sticky wort in the immediate vicinity of your body.
We transferred the wort back and forth between the kettle and a bottling bucket, each time straining with a funnel and very fine mesh strainer that came with my glass carboy. I feel it would be irresponsible not to mention that doing this, for the purposes of normal brewing, is a colossally bad idea. Splashing hot wort around leads to oxidization. Oxidized wort is a time-bomb: at some point within a few months of the beer's life, it will start to taste like plastic or cardboard because of time-released flavor compounds from oxygen binding with chemicals in the wort. At this point, however, I was at war against my beer and I was not going to lose on a technicality. Somehow, despite all of this, I managed 63% brewhouse efficiency. Not great, but given the struggle I'll take it.
Seeing as I'm telling this story in hindsight, I can slip in the relevant lessons as they come. So, brewing lesson number 1: If you brew with a manifold in your mash lauter tun, face the slots downward. This is one of those things that for 95% of people would be obvious. For 4% of people, they'd be curious and find the answer online. I guess I'm the 1%.
Boiling and hop additions succeeded without incident thankfully, because at this point I was fuming (RDWHAHB be damned). The real hero of the story was the new copper immersion chiller my father and I made. In its maiden voyage, it took the wort down to pitching temp in less than ten minutes. We used about 45 feet of 3/8 inch copper, which a lot of people will tell you is overkill for 5 gallon batches, certainly for 3.5 gallon batches, but the result was phenomenal. Being used to a 25 ft commercial chiller and having to wait 30-45 minutes for chilling, I was pretty amazed.
And then things took another turn, although I wouldn't realize it for a while. About 24 hours prior, I had made a yeast starter with a pouch of Wyeast 1056. It was about a liter, with some dried malt extract in there to bring the gravity to about 1.040. I hadn't seen much activity, but I didn't really worry about it. There was definitely some slurry on the bottom prior to pitching, so the yeast had become active. Which brings me to the next lesson: When pitching yeast starters: decant the liquid and pitch or pitch the whole thing, but whatever you do, don't pitch the liquid without the slurry. In my brain, it seemed that the slurry was simply a byproduct, and that the yeast were in suspension in the fluid. While this is true to certain extent, the slurry is where the overwhelming majority of the yeast remains in the starter. If you don't pitch the slurry, you really haven't pitched any yeast.
One out of every 5 threads on every homebrew forum in existence is something along the lines of "No airlock activity!!!!!!!!! Is my beer dead??????" The kind contributors and admins (bless their hearts) will patiently explain that airlock activity is not a guarantee of fermentation activity especially in the case of plastic bucket fermenters which don't have perfect seals. Always check gravity, or at least look for kreusen to determine whether or not fermentation is in progress. In my case, my beer truly was dead in the water. No kreusen, no drop in gravity. So I scrambled, called some other home brewing friends and got my hands on some Munton's dry yeast. And so, the last lesson: Keep a supply of 'oh shit!' ingredients on hand. A couple packs of dry yeast will keep in the fridge for a long time and are super helpful in a pinch. Also, some dried malt extract can save the day if you miss your OG by a long shot.
I rehydrated and pitched the yeast, and the beer fermented down to 1.022. This final gravity is a bit high (as stated above, likely due to the high mash temp and proportion of roasted grains) but at this point, I was happy to call it beer. I added the dry hops and gave it another two weeks before bottling. As a final FU from this nightmare of a beer, my bottling spigot got stuck open during bottling and dumped quite of beer on my floor.
In honor of a truly horrific battle with this brew, I dub this recipe Frustration Black IPA.
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