Probably Due To Network Congestion

HopZilla IPA – Fingers crossed this is going to be a Double or Imperial IPA, 9.2% heavily bittered and mentally dry hopped, I’m quite happy it not being ready to drink for a while but I think the Dry Hopping might mean I’ll have to drink it pretty fresh so its at its height. Hopefully I’ll keep some to age too.
The bittering is mainly from German Perle hops with the late hops being a fairly classic mix of Amarillo & Cascade with Riwaka thrown in too to add some spiciness with it being of Saaz lineage. Its the dry hops that I’m not holding back on, I shall split the 200g (thats 11.1g of Hop Pellets per Litre of beer) of pellet hops in two and add to the fermenter at different times, close to or at Final Gravity in the cooling phase. For an excellent guide to Dry Hopping go to Gregs Blog.
This is the first time I’ve used Belgian Special B malt, I could smell it in the mash and while sparging, I’m hoping it might add something a little different with the Crystal Rye. Instead of just throwing a load of White Sugar in the boil I decided to make some Candy Syrup while the Mash was on.

Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 77.1%
Sugar,Belgian Candy Light – 9.3%
Carapils (Weyermann) – 5.4%
Wheat Malt – 4.5%
Special B – 1.8%
Crystal Rye Malt – 1.8%

Hops:
Perle Whole 8.2 % @ 60 mins – 50g
UK Cascade Whole 5.7 % @ 60 mins – 22g
Perle Whole 8.2 % @ 30 mins – 50g
Amarillo Whole 10 % @ 5 mins – 30g
Cascade Whole 7.9 % @ 5 mins – 30g
Riwaka (D Saaz) Whole 5.9 % @ 5 mins – 30g

Dry Hops:
Chinook Pellet – 50g
Summit Pellet – 50g
Nelson Sauvin Pellet – 50g
Motueka (B Saaz) Pellet – 50g

Final Volume: 18 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.084
Final Gravity: 1.015
Alcohol Content: 9.2% ABV
Total Liquor: 28.6 Litres
Mash Liquor: 13.9 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 125 EBU
Colour: 28 EBC
Yeast: Safale us-05 x 2 packs
Mash: 60-90mins @ 66°c
Boil: 60mins
Liquor Treatment: Pale Ale thanks to THBF water treatment calculator

The usual malts shot:

Gypsum for the Mash being weighed out:

First Wort Hops and Salts for the Boil:

I cooked up some Cane sugar with a good pinch of Citric Acid to make Candy Sugar, I cooked it down until a light amber colour then added water back to it to keep it a syrup rather than going to the Hard Crack stage:

FWHs and Mash run-off, I did a decoction to take the mash upto Mashout temperatures before roughly fly-sparging with a jug at 80°c:

Rather steamy, the late hops go in:

Hefty looking break material in the copper as the wort cools, I used a 1/2 Protafloc tablet into approx 18 litres of wort in the last 5 mins of boil:

Aiming for 1084, I got 1088 @ 20°c, weighed the fermenter (subtracting the weight of the bucket) and calculated my liquor-back volume 820ml added from HLT, giving me a final volume of 18.15 litres in the FV:

Pretty smooth brewday, yeast pitched and FV in the fermentation fridge at 20°c 🙂

*28th Jul ’12 – Gravity at 1017, soon I’ll add the first dry hops, already tasting very good 🙂

*30th Jul ’12 – Dry hopped with 25g of each pellet hop at current 21.5°c temp.

*2nd Aug ’12 – Dry hopped again 25g of each pellet hop at current 21.9°c temp, will lower temp tomorrow to 17°c then 11°c and finally 4°c.

*Bottled 11th Aug ’12 – with 50g White sugar, tastes pretty full on, a couple of weeks in the bottle should see it smooth and mellow a little.

*17th Aug ’12 – Early taster bottle… the flavours in this are very much that which I’ve had in some bought beers and I’m very happy with the hopping flavour and maltiness, it has bags of body, some alcohol on the nose but only the warming in the throat after drinking, a fair amount of sweetness goes with the body. If I were to tweak the recipe I’d throw out the Carapils, Mash a little cooler, increase the bitterness by 10-20 IBU’s (the strength of the wort obviously makes its harder for the hops to be isomerised), I think with a little more carbonation it would lift the sweet body and present the hops better. Very close, deserves a re-brew.

*5th Sep ’12 – This has dried out, the carbonation is spot on, the bitterness is coming thru, the dry hops are still a touch on the raw side, a little more time and this will be there! 🙂

*10th Sep ’12 – Maybe a week or two more, I think with the mad amount of dry hops and the strength things are taking longer than I’d expected to settle down and meld with one-another. This leads me to believe that my 17th Aug comment was far too preemptive  and all that was really needed was some time and maturation in bottle. More time will tell 😉