Centennial IPA

Delicious Centennial Hops

First brew of the new year, and 'tis the season for rebrews. Today I'm brewing up a second batch of the Bell's Two Hearted clone but with some minor changes. First, I'll be dropping the OG just a bit for a target ABV of around 5.5%. I'm becoming a big fan of these 'session IPA' type beers and find myself gravitating toward brewing them. However, I want to keep a little malt backbone around for the Two Hearted clone to hold up the big Centennial hops flavor. The second change is moving from an English to an American ale yeast, S-04 to US-05, possibly resulting in a cleaner flavor than the last brew. Lastly, I'll be jacking up the dry hopped additions from 0.5 oz to a big ole' 3 oz. The Centennial hops I've had since March of last year are burning a hole in my freezer and I gotta use 'em up so it's time to go big. No, bigger than that. BIG! YEAH!

Brew Recipe

Brew Date: 1/5/2014
Style: American Pale Ale
Batch Volume: 5.5 gal.
Type: All Grain
Color: 5 SRM
Target Bitterness: 49 IBU
Target OG: 1.055
Estimated FG: 1.014

Grist

7 lb. Two Row

2 lb. Vienna

8 oz. Crystal 20L

8 oz. CaraPils

1.0 oz. Centennial @ First Wort (8.7% AA)

1.0 oz. Centennial @ 15 min. (8.7% AA)

1.0 oz. Centennial @ 5 min. (8.7% AA)

1.0 oz. Centennial @ 0 min. (8.7% AA)

3.0 oz. Centennial Dry Hop

1 pkg. US-05 American ale yeast

Brew Notes

Mash Temp: 152 °F
Mash Time: 60 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Fermenter Volume: 5.25 gal.
Measured OG: 1.050
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72%
Measured FG: 1.007
ABV: 5.6%
Calories: 162

Soaked mashed grain bag in ~2 gal of 170 degree water. Stirred around and added most back to boil kettle to get 5.5 gal pre-boil. Didn't need quite that much sparge water. Maybe 1-1.5 gal next time. Pitched yeast at 70 degrees. Brew went off without a hitch.

Update 1/12/14 - Racked to secondary. Gravity sitting at 1.008. Plan to dry hop in a week with 3-4 oz. of Centennial. Tastes a little dry and base-malty but hope it forms a solid foundation for the dry hopping. This was fermented during the DC cold spell when temps dropped to single digits. Basement was pretty cold, possibly affecting ferm?

Update 1/19/14 - Dry hopped with 3 oz. of Centennial pellets. Swirled the carboy around a bit to mix them in. Smelling pretty dandy.

Update 2/1/14 - Bottled today with 3.5 oz. of priming sugar. Yielded 30 12oz. bottles and seven 22 oz. bombers. Smells and tastes terrific. Very centennial grapefruity. Covered both ends of autosiphon with hop bag to prevent dry hops from getting into bottling bucket. Had to restart siphon several times but the bottling bucket ended up very clear. Final gravity was 1.007.