Chinook IPA

Taking a shot at all-grain with Dew. His new mash tun had a hard time with the Oatmeal Stout we brewed up in January (not logged, in fact, we poured out 5 gallons of it tonight to make room for the 5 gallons of this). With improved tubing, the tun drained really well. We were a little gun shy and steeped the Sacch rest in a pillow slip (heh) but did the mashout out of the bag. Worked great both times.

Mash:
10 lbs Rahr 2-row Pale
.75 lbs. Belgian Caramel Pils
.25 lbs. Briess Caramel 120

Hops
11.8% alpha, 3% beta Chinook 1 oz. (60 mins)
.5 oz (20 and 5 mins)
Another ounce waiting in the wings for dry hopping.

Sacch rest for an hour at 160. 10 minute mashout. Added a 6 ounces of honey and skimmed when the aroma hops went into the boil.
Started with 5 gallons of water, had 2.5 to cool. Pitched Safale 05 and just filled up the rest with good ol' Bako tap.
Don't have an OG reading, dropped and broke my hydrometer. Hope this all turns out well - we were drinking Sierra Nevadas and Double Barrel Ales from bottles. Poor nutrition for brewing.

Day 7: Racked off the yeast and dry hopped. 1010 final gravity, right on the money. Taste test showed a bit of yeast flavor (that should step back into the shadows), a heavy hop bite (which should step forward into the light with knuckles bared), and a bit of the honey sweetness hovering overhead (which should take the other two by the scruffs and collide their skulls together). High hopes for this batch.
In other news, the leaky fermenter I used for the transfer tonight smelled like ass when opened. Cleaned it out pretty well, but it needs a heavy dose of BLC.

Day 14:
Racked off the dry hops. Out into a leaker corney, and back into the Doc's Cellar fermenter. Taste and aroma are both good. Some sharp hop overtone, which we hope will subside with conditioning. Color and body are all good. Should be a winner in a month.

Final Notes:
The consensus was that this was a winner - we hit the mark we were aiming at with a light body (I would say "watery," but I was feeling more like nutritious beer all month) and good spicy hop punch. We finished off all of it at the Amgen in Hart Park, perfect for a sunny biker day.

What I'd change? The simple grains and single hop was a bit too simple for me. I'll mix it up a bit (and have, with the RyePA we just brewed) by adding some other hops for complexity.