Since August, when I was given the great gift of a homebrew starter kit by a certain little lady, I have been brewing pretty regularly.
My first batch was a rather uninteresting pale ale that turned out a bit too malty and not enough hoppy for my taste. Next, I made a chocolate-honey porter that turned out really thick and chocolatey – perfect for these winter months. Also, I just finished bottle conditioning an excellent Irish Red.
This is my first recipe that is pretty much created from scratch. I enlisted a newer variety of hop – it’s a dwarf variety that is grown around Yakima. It’s potent, with an alpha content of 16.7%. I hear it has a strong grapefruit quality to it.
Here’s the recipe:
Summit IPA:
Steep the following in 3 gallons of water at 65 °C for 30 minutes:
1 lb. Briess Organic 2-row malt
1 lb. Simpson’s medium crystal malt
Remove the grains from the wort and stir in:
6.0 lbs Northern Brewer Gold malt syrup
3 lbs Briess Golden Light Dried malt extract
2 oz of Summit hops (16.7% alpha acid)
Bring this all to a boil, then add 1 oz of Irish moss – boil the wort for 1 hour.
At the end of the boil, add 1.5oz of Centennial hops (10.5% alpha acid) for 5 minutes.
Add cooled wort to the fermenter and top with water to make a 5.5 gallon batch. Cool to 24°C and aerate. Pitch your yeast – I used Wyeast American Ale in a smack pack to ensure a quick fulminant fermentation. Let it completely ferment at 20 °C until fermentation is complete. Finally, dry hop with an additional 1.5 oz. of the Centennial hops for 3 – 5 days.
Bottle with ¾ cups of sugar for priming, and let it condition.
I’ll let you know how it turns out.
