Yeah, so you brew beer. You hop it up. Buy the pellets instead of the petals. But nothing's prepared you for this. This is off the charts.Prior to all the fun, I used a good amount of the bottling sugar to get a Safale-05 yeast starter going. 16 hours of preparation, you yeasties are still not gonna be ready for this.
Okay, here's the brewday schedule, which I messed up. I put in half of the boiling hops, and half of the near-aroma hops, because, dang, I'm not used to putting this much in!
4 gallons of water in, boil it up. Then put in 3# of amber extract. 30 mins later, in goes the first 1 oz of Cascade pellets (all at 7.5%). It should have been 2 oz. but that's Crazy!
30 more minutes, you're at the full-hour protein break. In goes another 1 oz of the Cascade, which should have been two.
15 minutes to the end of the boil, the first quarter of the 12 oz of the Hopbursted mix (from Northern Brewer) goes in to begin as aroma hops. Here's where I realize what I'd missed, and we drop in the other 2 oz of the Cascade.
So, we let the boil run and added the next two 3 oz batches of hops at 10 and 5 minutes out. Shut off the heat and added in the remainder of the 2# of bottling sugar and the final 3 oz of the Hopbursted mix.
The wort chilled quickly, but it was so full of gunk from all the hops, running it through the funnel with the microscreen took forever. Came away with about 2.5 gallons of super-hopped wort at ... get ready for this ... .1150 original gravity. Poured in the cook-pot of yeast. The garden hose provided the aeration for the next 2 gallons.
Didn't steep in anything this batch.
Extract: 6 lbs. Amber Malt, and 6 lbs. Gold Malt Syrup
Honey: .5 lbs. Clover
Bitters: 4 oz. Cluster pellets (7.5%), 12 0z. Hopbursted (proprietary) mix
Yeast: Safbrew S-05, started on bottling-sugar water 16 hours prior
Good luck all.
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5 day update:
Gave the corney a swirl and didn't get any exhale from the relief valve, so I popped 'er into the fridge. It's a low 40's in there. 5 days at approx 68-70 degrees should have done all the fermenting that is fermenting. I'll pull a final gravity when I rack here in a day or two.
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14 day update:
Okay, finally got around to racking over from the leaker fermenter into the dispensary. Did I say a day or two? I meant a week or two.
Haven't racked in a few batches, I've just been letting the brew sit on the yeast for a couple of weeks, then pushing yeast off the bottom with the Co2 and drinking it clear. My racking cane is in my guts. But not this batch. Still, it's been sitting on the yeast for long enough.
Put 30 lbs of Co2 on it with some shaking, until no more pumped in. Now I'll just let it sit for a couple of weeks. No original gravity reading, and I didn't take a final either. I'll get a final at drinking time, maybe. What a brewmasterscientist I've become.
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33 day update:
Checked for final gravity (1006) and drinkability. Bud Light, you can suck it! It's hoppy - duh! - but surprisingly balanced for IPA-on-steroids. See you in 4 weeks, muthafukas! I predict a win.
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The Bottom Line:
Took this out to the Amgen bike race tailgating party with a bunch of lite beer drinkers ... and it disappeared. Gnarly hoppiness, but man, so good.
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