I went with the Zythos IPA kit from More Beer. Zythos is a new IPA style hop from New Zealand. Eager to try it. Here is the breakdown:
13lbs 2row
1lb Munich
8oz Crystal 40L
8oz Carapils
1oz Zythos 10%AA @ 60mins, 20mins, and 5mins
2oz Zythos 10%AA @ 1min and dry hop
Whirlfloc @ 10min
Servomyces @ 10 min
5 Gallons Ridgecrest filtered water
5 Gallons Distilled
16 grams Gypsum
Drop hop after 7 days for 10 days.
WLP004 x2 Irish Ale CHPPIGCCE810-13 (no starter)
Lots of changes in the Avery brewery. Let's start with this:
Ellie's sister Lizz (who BTW always messes with me when she calls herself Laura) has moved back to the US. She brought very few things and needed some furniture which Ellie and I donated. So the chairs and the table that I annexed for the use in the Brewery have left me. That didn't make me too sad. But it was cool when Ellie showed up after Christmas with four chairs and new table from Costco. Nice!
Secondly, I got a grain mill. Check it out:
I just now fired it up and it crushed grain like a boss. I think it did too good of a job as the grain looks more like powder then grain but we will go with it today and adjust the rollers next time. Here is pic of the grain milled by More Beer in the bag in the bucket with my crush. I hope you can see the difference.
Next bit of change is that I am no longer buying spring water from the store. I will now be making my own water from this point forward. I have found a nice website to help me out. They can be found at http://www.brewersfriend.com/water-chemistry/. Since I have access to the Ridgecrest water report online I was able to ask the website to give an IPA friendly water profile and then I changed around parameters until they matched up. I will need about 50% distilled water, 50% Ridgecrest water, and 16g of Gypsum . What make water IPA friendly. I guess it has a lot to do with the Sulfite to Chloride ratio. Below is a pic of the website with all the info added.
12:37 - I'm now filling one of my fermenters with 5 gallons of filtered water. Also, since I'm going to be boiling water, I figured I would calibrate my steel thermometer.
12:59 - Cars moved out. Boiled kettle has PBW in it. Will run it through the pump as soon as I have water built up.
1:41 - All is well. The water is heating up. Some quick math found that I needed 16g of gypsum for 10 gallons of 50/50 distilled/RC water. This would mean 1.6g per gallon. So I put 6 gallons in the pot and measured out .35oz which I hope is near 9g. Boiling pot is ready. Mash tun is assembled and ready. Need to get the mash tun to 166F for the dough in. I'll shoot a little high since correcting lower is way easier.
2:06 - Ellie has brought me a sandwich. I love her. I hit my mash temp. 153F. The pH measures out at 5.2ish on its own so I will not add any stabilizer. Had a leak in the mash tun when I first put the water in. That was annoying since I was sure I checked it. No matter. I got the wrench and tightened it down. Seems fine now.
2:42 - Cleaned the mill. Swept the floor. Ate my sandwich. Cracked my first beer. Ellie came back from Tracy with Black Star Double Hopped Golden Lager. It's ok. I've also fired up some Brewing Network on the headphones. The weather is nice. Life is good.
3:49 - Mash and sparge done. I put 0.5 gallons in the batch sparge first and ran it off. During this time I heated up the sparge water to boiling. I was supposed to add 4.5 gallons more but after 3 gallons the mash tun was now 170F so I ran that off and cooled the sparge water. Then I added two more gallons at 170F and ran that off. The preboil OG is 1.055.
4:39 - Hot break done. Well into the boil. Cleaned the mash tun. All is going well. I think I'm going to come in under gravity which I'm ok with. I don't want an OG 1.075 beer. So, I held back a little of the bittering hops.
5:01 - Feeling lazy today. I don't think I'm going to fire up the pumps. I'm gonna let the thing cool to 100F all on it own. Then use the ice bucket and pump the coils manually. I've also setup the boil kettle by the basin so I can have the output water run into it. I was concerned that I would light myself on fire but it hasn't happened yet. Also, I went in to give Ellie kisses and she was napping with the dog.
6:33 - All went well. Having the setup by the basin I think this is a good thing. The don't use pump method seems to work pretty good. Got a nice cold break and gave the sample to Ellie. She seems really excited about the wort. I've been working on her palette and today she nailed it. She said it was good and hits up in the back. Awesome. After I heard her feedback I instantly knew she was right. I took a sip anyway to confirm. It was smooth in the front and had a bitter finish. I look forward to seeing how this translates to the final brew.
Now that I'm thinking about it, I gave her the water I built and she gave good feedback too. She mentioned that it tasted like well water. That's not the word she used but when I said well water she said yep. Tells me a couple of things. First, if I ever start a brewery in this valley I've got to drill a well. Second, the Ellie feedback experiment is coming along well. I need someone who thinks Tapatio and lime tastes good, which is not me, to tell me what kind of beer is good beer. Up until now Tuey has been this. He says --fill in the blank-- and I go, oh yeah, I never would have gotten that. I need someone who I have access to on demand to give such feedback.
Cleaning up now. Drank all those lagers. Now onto a belgian from the "The Bruery". I getting drunk. Sometimes when this happens I get in a non-compliant mood with the wife. No longer do I pick my battles. All things are worth fighting about. I hope we just make the love and watch bad TV. We'll see.
