I got a coupon and picked up Gordon Strong's Brewing Better Beer: Master Lessons for Advanced Homebrewers for $5. The tone can be a bit preachy and the pace is sometimes slow but it has some great ideas. I highly recommend it.
The first project I decided to try is from the "Mastering Ingredients" chapter. To evaluate hops, Gordon suggests trying a single hop IPA recipe from Sierra Nevada called 22 Bines. It is 90% Pilsner and 2 Row, 10% Munich, 1.065OG. 50IBU - 1oz at 15 and 2oz at 2 minutes, 1-2oz dry hop, for 5 gallons, fermented with WY1056/WLP001, or a similar Pale Ale - 1.050OG, 35 IPU half the late addition and no dry hopping.
22 Bines - Brew Like a Punk Edition
I decided to go with the Pale Ale so that I could safely re-pitch the yeast. I am doing this to hop aroma and taste, I don't need 5 gallons so I decided to cut it in half. I also went all extract for a shorter brew day.
Boil 2.5 gallons, target 2 gallons, 60 minute boil.
- 1.75 lbs Briess Light DME
- 0.5 lbs Briess Amber DME
- 0.4 oz hops 15 Minutes
- 0.8 oz hops 2 Minutes
If I try this again, I might go with Extra Light DME, Light DME, and Munich DME. I planned on using Extra Light DME that I had. It turned out I had Light DME so I went with that. I chose the Briess Amber because I thought it was Base, Munich, maybe some Crystal and Carapils. Turns out it's a secret.
The First Brew
The first hop that I wanted to try was Amarillo with 7% Alpha Acid. In order to get the 35 IBUs, I added a 0.1 oz addition at 60 minutes.
I planned on re-pitching WLP1056, and fermenting in a 2 gallon jug that I had. After boiling and cooling the wort, I cleaned up the yeast that I had, poured it into the jug and started pouring the wort in, I stopped when the jug was as full as I wanted it to be so that it wouldn't blow off too much.
A good amount, maybe half of wort was left in the kettle. It turned out that I had a 1 gallon jug. Obviously, planning is not my forte. However, I can be creative, and am frugal and wasting a gallon of wort, even this wort didn't seem right, so I sterilized a growler, but I needed yeast. Luckily, I had harvested some WY1318 London Ale yeast, so I pitched some that into the growler.
In hind sight this works out great. I get to try the hops with both a clean American yeast, and a more estery British yeast plus I can compare the yeasts. I bought another gallon jug so that I can get nearly a gallon of each from now on.
I'll report back on how this experiment turned out when I get to tasting them.
