The IPA Experiment, Part 1

So in brewing I usually finish the IPA's much faster than anything else in my supply, so I'm constantly brewing and giving away IPA's.  In the next couple batches I'm going to really test the ingredient process in my IPA's.  While I have a feeling and a hunch on how this will turn out, I figured I would try it anyways.  What I'm doing is brewing two IPA's with the same ingredients, but varying the hop addition times.  This first batch is the bitter version, the second will be the aroma addition.

This IPA has four ounces of hops, all put in during various times of the boil.  The second will have less bittering additions and more aroma/dry hop additions.  So here's the details on round one:

Grain:
12 lb GW 2-Row
1.5 lb Crystal 40L
1 lb Carapils

Hops:
1.5oz CTZ @ 60m
.5oz CTZ @ 30m
1oz Simcoe @ 5m
1oz Simcoe @ flameout

Yeast:
New packet of Wyeast 1056

Notes:
First brew day at the new house.  Not quite a luxurious as the old house (no garage at the new place), but still works well.  Took about 4 1/2 hours.  Only downside is I forgot to take a OG reading, but the pre boil was on target at 1.052, so I'm guessing final was probably about 1.062ish.  That's the one kink in my plan.  Oh well.  I'll try to brew the next batch this week.

Hop Harvest Part 2

The Bines at the Heitschmidt's.

So I went over to Ryan and Nikki's house to harvest the hops we planted out there.  Granted I had picked about 6oz of wet hops a couple weeks ago.  So the totals I got dried from our harvest this year is the following:

2 Hallertau Bines: .5oz
2 Centennial Bines: 1oz
2 Cascade Bines: 3oz

Next year we're going to plant another 6-12 bones to boost our numbers (plus Ryan and Nikki really love having the hops so they want to have more!).  Hopefully after a few years we'll start pulling the 1 pound or more per bine!

Hop Harvest Part One

The bounty on the trellises.

So my neighbors had planted hops to go over their trellises a few years ago and haven't ever used them for anything except shade and great aesthetics.  They had offered me free reign of them for brewing purposes so today I started the harvest.  I picked about 17 gallons today in about 2 hours.  There's probably another 50-70 gallons available to be picked.  I think they're mostly cascade, although we're not certain on that.  I put them on a couple screens in my blazing hot attic as well as in my grain dryer outside.  Hopefully they get good and dried out by tomorrow so I can pick more.  Now to just find someone with a vacuum sealer so I can package them.  Here's some pics of the harvest.

A portion of a bucket full.

Drying on the grain dryer.  

Tara-Dact-Ale round 2 and a bonus!

It was time for another IPA so I reverted to good old Tara-Dact-Ale since it was soooo good last time.  I had to modify the recipe since I messed up buying the hops.  I was trying to double the recipe in my head at the brewing store and I didn't buy enough hops.  Oh well, luckily I have a good supply in my freezer!

Recipe:
11 gallon batch (to split)

Grain:
22lb GW 2-Row
6.6lb Maris Otter
3.3lb Crystal 40L
2.2lb Carapils

Hops:
3.5oz CTZ for 75m
1.5oz Centennial for 75m
2oz Amarillo for 10m
2oz Simcoe for 10m
3oz Simcoe for 1m
.5oz Centennial for 1m

I'll do 2oz Simcoe and 2oz Centennial for 7 days dry hopped

Yeast:
1056 Slurry

Notes:
I ended up not being able to fit the entire grain amount and strike water in the mash so I used less water on the strike and then added water to the sparge.  It seemed to work out ok.  I still hit my gravities perfectly.  However I did end up with like 2 gallons extra from the sparge, so I added another gallon of water through the mash tun and got about 3 gallons.  I then added an ounce of Amarillo and boiled for about 45m.  I added an ounce of Simcoe towards the end for aroma.  Hopefully I get a couple gallons of bonus beer!  Original Gravity for main batch was 1.082, gravity for bonus batch was 1.042 (session beer!).
Update 9/13/11: Racked one bucket to secondary and added dry hops: 1oz Centennial and 2oz of Simcoe, cause more Simcoe is always better!  Gravity was 1.016 for an ABV of 8.7%!  The other bucket needed a few more days.  I think it was because of the warmer weather we had and the buckets were in the garage.  The Bonus Beer was also racked to secondary with an ounce of my neighbors hops thrown in for more flavor.  I'm pretty sure it's cascade.