Today i kept 1.2lts for a yeast starter with a whitelabs Pacific Ale yeast that was out of date AUG-16, on the stir plate right now.
I did a starter with the same yeast, it was much older and I had to do a couple steps but it all came back to life and wow, it made a delightfully fruity XPA!
I brewed a Black IIPA on the weekend, sadly I didn't hit my numbers;
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Black IIPA (BIAB)
OG 1083
FG 1018
ABV 8.9%
IBU 103
EBC 114
VOL 24L
Grain Bill
65.5% American Ale
9.7% Aurora
9.1% White Sugar
4.8% Dark Crystal
4.8% Midnight Wheat
3.6% Carafa 3
2.4% Acidulated
Hop Schedule
40g Citra @ 60 mins
25g Chinook @ 25 mins
25g Cascade @ 25 mins
15g Centennial @ 10 mins
(Yeast Nutrient @ 10 mins - forgot!)
(Whirlfloc @ 10 mins - forgot!)
30g Chinook @ 5 mins
100g Citra @ Aroma Steep
25g Chinook @ Aroma Steep
25g Cascade @ Aroma Steep
(Haven't worked out the dry hop yet)
Mashed @ 64 degrees for 60 mins
Mash out @ 75 degrees for 10 mins (I have questions about this below)
Boil for 75 Mins
Cooled to 80 degrees and did a aroma steep for further 30 mins
Dumped to cube
WL051 California Ale V (harvested)
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The recipe calls for about 750g of sugar which I was going to syrup and add to the fermenter at high kraussen, so without that addition I was meant to hit 1.071 but only managed 1.060. I think there were two contributors to this; my LHBS don't do a very good mill of the grain (my own mill coming this week) and secondly, I think I sparged/rinsed with too much water (about 3L too much), subsequently I didn't boil down far enough either. I had forgotten that I was targeting 24L instead of my usual 26L and as I was brewing with a crowd (and a few beers under my belt) some things slipped my mind. Note to self; don't brew bigger beers with a crowd.
Anyway, I don't think it will matter too much, in terms of ABV it might just make it a IPA on the higher end of the scale. I'm wondering, with a late sugar addition how do I recalculate the ABV?
Also, as I BIAB, I typically just raise the bag, set the urn to boil, drain/squeeze followed by a light rinse of 75 degree water and final squeeze. Everytime I've done this I haven't had a problem but a mate of mine was getting in my ear about mashing out, dumping the bag back in for 10 minutes at 75 degrees. I don't know, this sorta stuffed my usual process and I think this is where I started making some mistakes - curious though, what do other BIAB'ers do in regards to mash out?
Finished brewing at about 2 am, spent the whole next day cleaning with a slight hangover. Urgh, still suffering.