Steam Face IPA

This is a Blind Pig clone. Got the extract recipe from Hopville.com. This smells really good. Here's the recipe. Supplies from Brew Brothers, like always. Oh, and night brewing! Not too shabby. Outside temp was a little chilly, but luckily there was a fire to sit by. Total time was right at about 3 hours to crank this one out. And I got to enjoy some Hop Donkey IPA while getting a face full of steam from this IPA. Hence the name...I spent quite a bit of time with my face in the steam enjoying the aroma...

Malt:

7 lb 8oz Pale extract

8 oz Crystal 40L

8 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine

Steeped the Crystal and Cara-Pils for 30 minutes at 158ish.

Hops:

.5oz Simcoe for 60min

1.5oz Chinook for 60min

1.0oz Cascade for 15min

1.0oz Amarillo* for 5min

.5oz Cascade for 5min

1.0oz Amarillo* for 1min

1.5oz Simcoe for 1 min

.5oz Chinook for 7 days dry hop

.5 Cascade for 7 days dry hop

*Substituted Amarillo for Centennial since Brew Brothers was all out of Centennial.

Yeast:

Wyeast American Ale smack pack (1056)

Extras:

1 tsp of Irish Moss for last 15 of boil.

Notes:

Everything went great. The only hitch was I skipped the post-boil ice bath and then the temp was at 81 degrees. It took about 10 minutes of an ice bath to get it down to 75. First time using the Wyeast. The smack pack was pretty sweet. OG was 1.053 (I wanted 1.060, but oh well). Now the waiting game for this to ferment. I'll probably move this to secondary in about a week or so.

Check out the 7 ounces of hops boiling! There's still another ounce in the dry hop stage for a total of 8 ounces used for 5 gallon batch. My kind of ale.

Update: 2/13/11-Gravity is at 1.016 after three days. That Wyeast stuff is great. Flavor taste is amazingly good. Big hop flavor and smooth pale flavor, even at 70 degrees and flat. I'll move to secondary in a few days to let it settle for a week.

Update: 2/17/11-Gravity is at 1.012. Flavor is still great. I'll rack to secondary tomorrow.

Update: 2/18/11-Gravity is at 1.011. Racked to secondary. Brew again tomorrow!
Update: 2/21/11-FG is 1.011.  Bottled today...13 22oz and 23 12oz.  Great flavor, can't wait until it's ready.
Update 3/6/11: After two weeks conditioning this is still pretty flat.  I'm going to give it another week, and if that doesn't do the trick I'll have to open them all up and add a tiny bit of yeast to each bottle.  Hopefully it's better by next week so I don't have to deal with that.

Tasting:  Great flavor.  Great hop amount.  This has really turned out great.  I'm starting to run out, so I'll have to brew this again soon!