A day of firsts: Our first mead - a base of orange blossom honey complimented by dried elderflowers (Named, in honor of several talented men who were pivotal to my early development: "Your Mother Was a Hamster and Your Father Smelt of Elderflowers!"), and our first all-grain brew from a recipe completely our own: The Carrie Nation IPA.As the brewcats looked on and the crab performed his semaphore dance, a collection of large stock-pots housing both wort and must were raised to their respective temperatures, coaxing the sugary essences of milled grain and honey into productive life.
The amount of honey used would shock even
King Arthur, and the amount of hops for the IPA
would surely bring Carrie Nation's hatchet to our door. And oh, do they taste good (even without the alcohol!).
Mead is a drink with a long and celebrated history. Essentially fermented honey-water, mead was initially a celebratory drink given to husband and wife on their wedding day to drink every
day for the following month (or MOON), to increase their chances of conceiving a boy. And thus the Honey-Moon was born. This mead combines the clean, floral spice of orange blossom honey with the citrus-tea-like flavor of dried elderflowers. A little acid blend to balance the sweetness (and total lack of acidity) of the honey, and (hopefully!), in about a year, this should be a clear semi-sweet mead worthy of a honeymoon.
Your Mother Was a Hamster, and Your Father Smelt of Elderflowers! (Maze Date: 5/9/10)
17 lbs Orange Blossom Honey
1 tbs. Gypsum
4 tsp. Acid Blend
1/4 tsp Irish Moss
2 oz. Dried Elderflowers
The honey, gypsum, acid blend, and irish moss were added to a large stock pot with 1.5 gallons of water and heated to ~120 degrees Fahrenheit, stirring until the honey was fully dissolved. At this temperature, added ~1 oz. dried elderflowers. Continued application of heat until must reached ~150 degrees, where it was held for 15 minutes. Filtered must into a 6.5 gallon glass carboy (removing elderflowers). Added 4 additional gallons of cold water, bringing the total to ~6 gallons of must. Added 1 oz. dried elderflowers to the cooled must and agitated to fully combine. Once must cooled sufficiently, added 1 package WyYeast dry mead/wine yeast, agitating again to fully combine.
OG: 1.091 (Taken at ~86F - OG Adjusted for Temperature: 1.094)
Notes: Depending on further gravity readings, we may add some additional honey to counteract the high activity of the dry mead yeast, making this more of a semi-sweet mead, and just waiting for the yeast to kill itself from alcohol poisoning.
On the beer front, we (mostly me, Alex, writing now, get over it...) wanted to brew a slightly strong-than-usual IPA. As I thrive on stupid puns and historical references fit for a dilettante, the "Carrie Nation IPA" seemed inevitable. Dubbing herself "Jesus' bulldog", Carrie Nation was a formidable temperance movement advocate who would enforce her teetotaling convictions with a hatchet aimed at barrooms. Because her moral legacy of Prohibition was clearly for naught, this hoppy 6.5-7% ABV dark copper brew seems a fitting tribute.
We started with a mash consisting mostly of Rahr 2-row purchased at Brooklyn Homebrew over on 8th St. and 3rd Ave. It'll be a nice resource to have so close, especially for larger and heavier things that would not apply to the flat shipping rate at Northern Brewer. I built the recipe using the beer calculator at hopville.com; we missed the target OG by about .005 points, owing to a lower mash efficiency than 75% I guess, but it should come out great nonetheless.
Carrie Nation IPA (Brew Date: 5/9/10)
12 lbs Rahr 2-Row
1 lb. Breiss Caramel (90 L)
1/2 lb. Simpsons Caramalt
First, brought about 13 1/2 qts. of strike water to 145 degrees and added grist, bringing the temperature down to 133-ish ("ish" because temps varied at different areas of the mash tun). We held this at this temp for 30 minutes.
Then, we brought 7 qts of water (about 1/2 qt. per pound) to 190 degrees and added it to the mash. Though we planned to keep the mash time at a lower temperature for a longer time (to encourage more fermentable sugars and less dextrins through more ideal conditions for beta amylase-- thanks Papazian!), the temperature didn't rise as much as anticipated (though I feel we need a more reliable thermometer also...). But (in some areas) the temp stood at around 148, which was right around the target.
Realizing I had already added 5 gallons of water, I thought to use the decoction method after all so we wouldn't have to add more water (which we would later found we could have). ANYWAY- took out about 10 qts of "thin mash", ie- mostly liquid, boiled it on the stove for 25 minutes, and added it back when the hour the up to finish conversion. It raised the temp to the requisite 158 (165ish in some areas it seems) so the impromptu half decoction seemed to be a success.
After taking the first runnings, and despite the fact that the mash had a total of 5 gallons of water in it, we only pulled about 3 1/2-4 gallons, really exposing the degree to which the grains soak up water. We sparged with a little more than 2 gallons to collect just under 6 gallons for the boil.
At 0 minutes, we added 1 oz. Simcoe hops for boiling. At 15 minutes, we added 1 oz. Centennial (whole hops). I should also add that during the 15 minute boiling hop addition, I spun the wort to create the "vortex" in which to pour the hops. True to some accounts, the vortex bubbled up quite a bit, spitting scalding wort on my fingers and the patio. Had to happen sometime I guess...
At 55 minutes, we added 1 tsp Irish Moss and at 67 minutes, we added 1 oz. Cascade hops for aroma. We cut the boil at 70 minutes.
After another successful chilling session, we strained the wort into the plastic bucket. After a little research it seems that plastic bucket vs carboy is much about personal preference, so I thought we could do the primary in here and the secondary in the 5-gallon carboy. I wanted to do a yeast starter, but, well, didn't, so I pitched the White Labs California V yeast directly into the exactly five gallons of wort. There should be room enough in the bucket to shoulder any potential blow-off, but if not, hey! Ceiling IPA!
Really saw the "cold break" separate some of the cloudiness from the proteins-- or thought I saw
Also, we plan to dry-hop with 1 oz each of Cascade and Centennial in secondary.
OH- so we took a gravity reading of 1.064 at 82 degrees, adjusted to 1.066 . Lower than the 1.071 in the recipe, but close enough.
05/31/10- Man oh man. After only conditioning for eight days, this beer is nearly fully carbonated and I think the best one yet. Amazing color, great clarity, and pretty solid head retention. Not as much hop aroma; I thought there was more from the bittering hops than aroma hops, but Rach insists that she would love to drink this beer, despite her general anti-hop proclivities. The carbonation waned a bit, but in another week, this should be perfect.
Also: The final gravity read out at 1.010, bringing the ABV to about 7.5%. We expected more body (somewhere in the 1.018-.1020) but the mouthfeel seems very nice. Could this have been superior attenuation? High fermentation temperatures in the bedroom? A higher release of beta-amylase due to lower mashing temperatures for a longer time?
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