American IPA Summertime (Session IPA)

Mash:

6 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
12.0 oz Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain
12.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 30L (30.0 SRM)

Boil:

0.35 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min
0.50 oz Centennial [8.70 %] - Boil 35.0 min
0.50 oz Cascade [7.30 %] - Boil 20.0 min
1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins)
1 lbs 8.0 oz Extra Light Dry Extract [Boil for8 min](3.0 SRM) Dry Extract
0.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Aroma Steep 20.0 min
0.50 oz Cascade [4.70 %] - Aroma Steep 20.0 min

In Secondary: after 7 days in primary

0.50 tsp Gelatin (Secondary)
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days
0.50 oz Summit [15.80 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days

Yeast:

1 Package of Nottignham (rehydrated)

This is my favorite brew to date. Light crisp and a hop flavor that is hard to match. I'm a big fan of session IPAs and this, to me, is better than any commercial kind I've tried.

It's only a partial mash and partial boil (4 gallon boil volume) because of my equipment limitations, this could easily be upped to a 5 gallon AG full boil by dropping the DME and upping the pale US. By the same not, drop the pale US and up the extra light DME to equal same OG and a simple extract recipe is made.

Here's a pic. This beer is already gone btw. Delicious on the lake. Side by side with Founders All Day and Atwaters Grand Circus. More than just I agreed that Summertime was a much better light IPA.

This recipe looks perfect for my next batch. Reading your notes I did have a few questions:

What was your mash schedule/temp/water volume?
Did you sparge at all?
With an original boil volume of 4g, how much additional water did you add to arrive at 5g?

Thats 5.5% right? Isn't that a little high for a session beer? I'm not sure though. Looks like a delicious beer!!

@pingsc

My strike temperature was 170.

I heat in a 4 gallon kettle and pour into a 5 gallon once up to temp. So the bottom does not scorch.

Target mash temp for this brew in 150 for a dry finish.

For my set up with 8 lbs of grain. I use 2.25 gallons of water for both the mash and the sparge.

I sparge through a 5 gallon bucket with holes drilled in it into my 6.5 gallon fermentor or bottling bucket.

I typically do my hour boil of 4 gallons and end with ~3.25gallons, so I top off with about 1.75 gallons of near frozen distilled water. After cooling for ~30 minutes in an ice bath.

@chad_

Yes it was 5.5 which is perfect for this beer although I was aiming for about 5%. I overshot my normal efficiency (got 66%, normally around 63 at the time) Currently I'm able to hit 71% with this set up . Also, my yeast worked slightly harder than expected. 5.5 is by no means a normal IPA so I still call is a sessionable.