First AG Brew, Bosco IPA - BIAB

[seehuusen]

Brew day is over, I've cleaned up and just waiting on the wort to cool down slightly before I put it into the cube.

I did an 80 minute/ 65C mash (because I got distracted) with a 15 minute/ 78C sparge (slightly higher than I wanted, the grain retained more heat than I anticipated within the cooler mashtun)
In total, I got 15L of wort preboil, with a gravity of 1.060. After an hours boil, I had 11.5L @ 1.074

According to BrewMate, that's a 70% efficiency FINALLY!
So happy that my method was right, though disappointed that the closest HBS doesn't have good enough grain to brew AG with...

This attempt was:

87.5% Maris Otter Pale Malt
12.5% Crystal 60

60 min boil
20% Magnum @ 45min
30% Magnum @ 20min
Whirfloc @ 15min

50% Citra @ second fermentation

Will let you know how this one goes, still trying to figure out the best way to achieve my Bosco IPA recipe, enjoying coming up with my own
BTW, Bosco my new born son's nick name, so want to do the recipe justice.

I purchased a 19L Stainless pot at Big W today, that together with the 15.5L pot and my 19L cooler mashtun makes it a 3 vessel I guess
I ran the boil on a camping stove this time, because I could get it running on two burners. It wasn't quite powerful enough, I had to run it on max during the entire boil.
I'll be building a stand for all of it now I think! This hobby is too addictive

cheers
Martin

 

[seehuusen]

The second Bosco IPA was bottled up last week, I did it with no-chill as I've probably mentioned and the bitterness is very tasty
I even managed to do a bit of dry hopping, though I don't get too much of the floral components from the hops. The nearly 100 IBUs seems like a pretty fair estimate from Brew Mate...

Everyone loves pictures, and I just made some labels for a few bottles that I'm taking for a bit of a tasting with some mates

Cheers
Martin

 

[seehuusen]

Hey guys,

Well, it's been a while since I started creating my own IPA recipe, and I'm now on the fifth incarnation of this, plus a clone of Big Eye...
A few changes for this version, based on the trials I've done thus far:

• The grain bill will include Caramalt, rather than Crystal 60, the percentage is slightly less as well.
• I'm doing a longer mash time to the process, primarily to get a dryer finish. I often feel that these IPAs are a bit too sweet, and reading Mitch Steele's book on IPA, I want to get a much lower FG.
  Although I'm not quite ready to play with Brettanomyces yet, the thought has stricken me, perhaps when I start playing with some of the recipes in the book I'll order some for a 5L test batch...
• Trialling different hops and combinations of these, I've found a love for Citra. The experimentation continues, and that's just great IMO. In this case, there's going to be a bit of a bitter base hops, with citrus flavours from the Citra and Melon, Apricot and Citrus from Summer

Here's to the great hobby of brewing beer, beer experimentation and beer drinking :kooi:
Cheers
Martin
Bosco IPA 5 (American IPA)

Original Gravity (OG): 1.061 (°P): 15.0
Final Gravity (FG): 1.015 (°P): 3.8
Alcohol (ABV): 5.99 %
Colour (SRM): 5.3 (EBC): 10.4
Bitterness (IBU): 73.4 (Average - No Chill Adjusted)

96.92% Pale Malt
3.08% Caramalt

1.7 g/L Columbus (13.9% Alpha) @ 30 Minutes (Boil)
1.3 g/L Citra (13% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Whirlpool/ Cube Hopped)
1.3 g/L Summer (AU) (5.5% Alpha) (Dry Hop into Secondary)

1 Whirlfloc Tablet @ 10 Minutes (Boil)

Single step Infusion at 65°C for 90 Minutes. Boil for 60 Minutes

Fermented at 19°C with Safale US-05

 

[barabool]

I have yet to try the 'fabled' Citra - I'm just getting used to the passionfruit of Galaxy.
Must say very nice labels - bit of class.

 

[seehuusen]

haha, thanks, they're off an online website I found a while back, this one I think: http://www.beerlabelizer.com/

It's been pretty good to run through a bunch of different types of hops. I'm happy I started off on 15L batches, great size for learning and adjusting. In just over 3 months, I've made nearly 10 batches and really enjoyed it.
I'm now changing to a bigger setup, as I don't get quite as many 4 hours periods to brew as I used to...