Tuesday Musings

After doing some thinking, I've decided to put the Scottish Wee Heavy on hold for a bit. Instead, the next brew I make will be an American India Pale Ale.

If you read my first post, you saw that I really love a good hoppy beer. Well, after tasting my Amber and plugging in all the numbers into Beersmith, I've decided that the next two beers I've made probably won't be all that hoppy. At least to me. Like I said earlier, I was kinda brewing blind when it came to hops and how bitter they would make my beer. After I got Brewsmith and got the actual IBU's for my Amber(~27), I learned that 27 IBU's were not enough for me.

Neither the Bachelor Party Pale nor the Irish Red are any higher. So I decided to hold off on the Scotch Ale for a while. Not only that, but Scotch Ales are really more of a Winter beer. They're strong and hearty and wouldn't be very good on a hot summer's eve. I'll wait for the summer to brew that monster. By the time it gets cold, it'll be ready to drink.

So instead, I'll make an IPA. I need me some hops. And that's a real summer brew anyways. So as a new feature, I'm going to post the recipe on here in hopes that anyone with more knowledge may correct my mistakes before I make them! I made this brew at work today while on lunch, using the Beer Calculus feature on Hopville. I hadn't fined tuned this in Brewsmith, so this is just a rough draft of what this brew will be.

Malts:
6lbs 9oz of Light Liquid Malt Extract
1 lb of Caramel/Crystal Malt 10L
1 lb of Caramel/Crystal Malt 40L

Hops:
1 oz of Millenium Pellet hops boiled for 60 minutes.
1 oz of Centennial Pellet hops boiled for 20 minutes.
1 oz of Centennial Pellet hops boiled for 5 minutes.

Yeast:
I'll use Wyeast's American Ale II yeast. It should have a high enough attenuation for this brew to make it have a lower final gravity for the style.

I'll also dry hop this beer in the secondary fermenter. That just means I'll put some hops in a hopbag and place it in the beer in the secondary for about a week. This adds a lot of hop aroma to the beer. It doesn't add any bitterness to it. I'll use another ounce of Centennial Pellets for this.

Now, if I am really feeling adventurous(arrogant) about my beer, then I plan on adding a bit of fruitiness to this. The Centennial hops themselves offer a slight citrusy flavor to the beer, which helps a lot of IPA's balance the bittering effects of the beer. Like I said, if I'm really adventurous, I plan on adding about 1 ounce of orange zest to the boil with about 10 minutes left in the boil. I also plan on throwing about 2 ounces of orange peel into the secondary while I dry hop in the secondary.

I have no clue how this will come out. I have no clue if it will work. I have no clue if I'm just going to ruin a good beer. But it sounds interesting, and it may be a pretty cool beer at the end of it all. We'll see. In about 3 months.

So there we have it. Holding off on the Scottish Wee Heavy for several months, and going ahead with something lighter to drink in the summer months.

Let me know what you think!