Simcoe Select IPA

Chillin' out max. Relaxin' all cool.

Third brew weekend in a row! BOOM! Today I'll be brewing a kit from Midwest Brewing Supply called Simcoe Select IPA. I received this kit as a gift from Mike and Sheila Willey for being a part of their fantastic Tennessee wedding. Thanks guys! I've been meaning to do a Simcoe SMaSH for some time too but I think this kit is a better plan. I only had a 5 gallon fermenter available so I cut 10% of the grain bill and volume to do a 4.5 gallon batch to give it some fermentation room but kept the full hop additions. So what do I do with the extra 2lbs. of grain? Why munch on it throughout the brew day, of course.

Brew Recipe

Brew Date: 8/17/2013
Style: India Pale Ale
Batch Volume: 4.5 gal.
Type: All Grain
Color: 11 SRM
Target Bitterness: 67 IBU
Target OG: 1.063
Estimated FG: 1.014

Grist
9 lb. American Two-Row
.9 lb. Crystal 40-60L
.45 lb. Munich
.45 lb. CaraPils

1/2 oz. Simcoe 12.7% (60 min.)
1/2 oz. Simcoe 12.7% (40 min.)
1 oz. Simcoe 12.7% (20 min.)
1 oz. Simcoe 12.7% (2 min.)

1 pkg. Safale US-05 Ale Yeast

Brew Notes

Mash Temp: 155 °F
Mash Time: 60 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Pre-Mash Volume: 5.5 gal.
Post-Boil Volume: 4.5 gal.
Mash Efficiency: ?
Measured OG: 1.062
Measured FG: ?
ABV: ?
Calories: ?

Temperature was in the low 70s in the middle of August. What is this? My birthday? Anyway, executed a double brew day today with Mike and Beth Helle and their dog Oxford. Also had a meet and greet between Oxford and our two cats. They were not impressed. Mike brought over a 2nd copper coil so we put it in a cooler of ice water and ran a line from that to our wort chillers. We were finally able to bring wort temps down below 80 degrees in the summer with the help of this new contraption. FG was right on target again. Awesome.

I used four hop bags for the four hop additions but they were pellet hops so not a lot of hop material was held back. Should just reserve the hop bags for whole leaf hops. Not really worth it for pellets. Actually I've been reading about homebrewers using paint strainer bags and pouring the wort through the bags during aeration to collect hop and grain material. Sounds like a better plan than hop bags.

We now have 17 gallons of beer fermenting in the basement between my brews and Julie's so we're both very satisfied brewers now.

Update 8/30/13 - Pulled a gravity sample today and we're sitting at 1.022. Tastes good - bitter with some grapefruit or melon flavor on the back end. It's been stable at 1.022 for a few days now. Maybe when I separated the grain it wasn't mixed well and too much Crystal and Cara ended up in the mash? Whatever. I'll be racking this to secondary in a new Better Bottle I picked up from the local homebrew store. It was much cheaper than a new glass carboy and the mouth is bigger which makes me think removing a dry hop bag will be much easier in this guy.

Update 9/21/13 - Bottled 4 gallons today with 4 oz. of priming sugar. Got 42 bottles total. Final gravity was still 1.022. Julie and I are cursed with mono-Simcoe ales finishing very high. Oh, well. Some like 'em sweet.