Brew Day – Summer Strong Arm
Summer Strong Arm
Going to be brewing another batch of home brew today, 8/15/16. Calling this one Summer Strong Arm – last summer type beer I will be brewing as I will be getting back into making some of the WinterHaven Smoked Vanilla Porter and other medium to dark ales for the fall and winter festivities. I have a plan to brew a pumpkin ale this year using real pumpkin as well.
Anyway, here is the recipe I will be using and will update the post through the brew, fermentation, bottling, conditioning and drinking phases.
Summer Strong Arm Recipe/BrewDay Steps
| Style | American IPA | Date | Tue Aug 9 2016 |
| Boil Time | 60.000 min | Efficiency | 75 |
| Boil Volume | 6.230 gal | Preboil Gravity | 1.060 |
| Final Volume | 5.219 gal | Starting Gravity | 1.071 |
| IBU | 64.8 | Final Gravity | 1.014 |
| ABV | 7.4% | Estimated calories(per 12 oz) | 235 |
Instructions
| Completed | Time | Step |
|---|---|---|
| — | Add grains :
|
|
| — | Heat water :
|
|
| 75.000 min | Infusion – Conversion : Add 3.281 gal water at 173.166 F to mash to bring it to 152.000 F. Hold for 60.000 min. | |
| 15.000 min | Infusion – Final Batch Sparge : Add 4.834 gal water at 179.076 F to mash to bring it to 165.200 F. Hold for 15.000 min. | |
| 60.000 min | Start boil : Bring the wort to a boil and hold for 60.000 min. | |
| 60.000 min | Hop addition : Put 0.500 oz Chinook into boil for 60.000 min. | |
| 60.000 min | Hop addition : Put 1.000 oz Northern Brewer into boil for 60.000 min. | |
| 30.000 min | Hop addition : Put 0.500 oz Chinook into boil for 30.000 min. | |
| 15.000 min | Hop addition : Put 0.500 oz Chinook into boil for 15.000 min. | |
| 5.000 min | Hop addition : Put 0.500 oz Chinook into boil for 5.000 min. | |
| — | Flameout : Stop boiling the wort. | |
| — | Post boil : You should have 5.230 gal wort post-boil. You anticipate losing 2.800 tbsp to trub and chiller loss. The final volume in the primary is 5.219 gal. | |
| — | Pitch yeast : Cool wort and pitch Danstar – Nottingham Ale yeast, to the primary. | |
| — | Ferment : Let ferment until FG is 1.014. | |
| — | Transfer to secondary : Transfer beer to secondary. |
| Actual PreBoil Volume: | 6.7 Gallons | Actual PreBoil Gravity: | 1.038 |
| PostBoil Volume: | 5.5 Gallons | PostBoil Gravity: | 1.064 |
| Volume into fermenter: | 5.3 Gallons |
Notes
This one ended up slightly over sparged, which ended with a lower pre-boil gravity. I ended up doing a 90-minute boil to gain some of the loss back to get a 1.064 post boil gravity. I pitched Danstar Nottingham dry yeast after getting to about 67 degrees on the wort temp. Day one was minimal yeast activity. Day 2 it began to ferment fairly fervently, and the 2nd night, I awoke at 4 am to a very swollen fermentation bucket, clogged airlock and soon to be mess. Luckily I woke up and caught it in time and was able to relieve pressure without much mess and attach a blow off tube into a bucket of Star San sanitizer to control the blow off from fermentation.
Today is August 19, and it has been fermenting for 4 days and activity has slowed dramatically. One thing I’ve experience with the Danstar Nottingham yeast is it is very fast, very strong but gets done quickly. I will check the gravity on Sunday, August 21 to see if I am at the suggested final gravity of 1.014 or lower (Danstar Nottingham usually gets me to 1.010-1.012 in 4-6 days). If so, I will get ready to bottle the batch up and let it carbonate.
Even with missing the target gravities (pre-boil and post-boil) I will still get a 6.5%-7% ABV beer. The calculation can be realized using the formula of ABV = (OG – FG) * 131.25. So that becomes this: ABV = 1.064 – 1.014 * 131.25. By that calculation I will get 6.56% ABV. If the Danstar Nottingham attenuates as expected and I get lower final gravity (FG), that ABV will increase, potentially to 7% if I hit 1.010 FG. You can see from the recipe estimated to the actual, I will be out somewhere from 0.5% to 1.0% ABV – which at the end of the day on a beer over 6.5% is nominal when enjoying it.
Update 8/24
So the Danstar Nottingham gained an apparent attenuation of 93%, dropping the final gravity to 1.004 – very low and much lower than the expected 1.014. That said this will be about 7.8% ABV once carbonated and drinkable. Bottling process concluded I need a new bottle capper as mine is not functioning properly and thus took longer to perform the bottling and almost had several bottles shatter in the process. I will open one on Sunday 8/28 to test carbonation levels and see how the flavor is progressing.
Update 9/7
This one was good! It Updateas a success over the Labor Day Weekend and was enjoyed by many! It is on my list of brews for next summer.
Recent Comments