Disclaimer**
This is not a well-balanced nor well-designed recipe, just a fun experiment by a newcomer that happened to turn out rather delicious.
This recipe will likely never be duplicated as I don’t plan on buying any kits in the near future.
******
5 gallon brew size
3 gallon boil
Partial Grain with 6 lb of liquid extract
Added 1 lb of Crystal DME
-60 min. Boil
-1oz Chinook @ 60 min
-1oz chinook @ 10 min
-.5oz Mosaic @ 10 min
-.5oz Mosaic @ 1 min
*Dry Hopping*
-1oz Chinook into Primary 3 days before racking
—racked to secondary after 9 days of fermentation (I know it’s not necessary but I wanted to free up the carboy)
-1 oz Mt. Hood and 1 oz Mosaic put directly into secondary prior to filling.
-After three days added 1oz of Cascade and 1oz Galaxy
-waited 2 more days then added 1oz Simcoe
-Total time in Secondary before bottling: 10 days
**The Breakdown**
This beer was originally supposed to be a single hop Chinook IPA kit from Northern Brewer. After reading the recipe I found it to be a bit wimpy and decided to use some of my newfound brew knowledge, what little of it there was, to pump it up a bit.
There were a few unknown variables to begin with, the largest of which being that the NB kit I got contained grains, but they were generically packaged with no mention of what they actually were or what kind of flavor profile they might impart, so my only goal going into it was to make something as vibrantly juicy and hoppy as possible, without messing up so bad it’s undrinkable. I’m not too picky so I figured it would be hard to go wrong.
I more or less followed the recipe described in the kit but based off of how it described the finished unaltered beer I then added my own hop bill to gear it more towards my own taste preferences and attempted to raise the ABV a little bit with some DME.
The biggest rookie mistake I made was not having a hydrometer at that time so I have no idea of my starting gravity, and thus no idea if I succeeded at that in the end. I did however get one soon after so I was able to monitor fermentation.
I really went crazy with the dry hopping, maybe too crazy now that I know more about how hop oils and saturation work, but I really wanted to pack on aromatics and it probably didn’t hurt.
One interesting thing to note about the dry hopping is the ounce of cascade was whole cone while the rest were pellets, I put the cones in muslin bags and allowed them to soak for a few days.
When I added the Simcoe later on I did not want all the pellets to get stuck on the bags that were floating so I decided to pull the bags out after sanitizing the area and the tongs that I would be using.
This released a massive amount of sediment pieces and concentrated liquid into the brew whenever I pulled the bags through the narrow neck of my carboy which I’m sure contributed to the overall flavor.
At the same time I’m sure it also released some oxygen into the brew, but it hasn’t manifested as an off flavor yet. I had some other issues with oxygen contamination (a poorly sealed racking cane among them) so that is my largest fear overall.
**taste**
-First Impressions
I tasted throughout the brew, most recently at bottling, and besides being flat it has turned out beautifully so far. I can’t wait to try it carbonated and fully chilled.
The aroma is very dense and dank, a heavy dose of grapefruit and citrus with subtle, underlying pine notes
Many different tropical and citrus flavors and even kind of a darker fruit note that I would call almost blackberry which interplays with a deeper layer of satisfying spruce tree bitterness that shines through to balance the higher, fruitier flavors.
**Final Thoughts**
This beer turned out way better than I ever hoped. As previously mentioned, I know I went about it in a rather lackadaisical manner with a lot of hiccups along the way, and there are a few things that I wish I had done a bit differently and known more about, but I learned a lot and had a lot of fun doing it. In the end I even got a pretty decent beer that I’m very happy with, and I suppose that in the end that is all that matters.
Eventually I will probably try to re-create the recipe without using the kit and see if it comes out similarly.
I’m very curious to see what you guys think about this, I already know that I did a bunch of stuff wrong, but I’m sure that you guys can find a few other things that I missed. Feel free to roast away and let me know your opinion.
Also, if there’s any aspect of the brewing process I forgot to mention, I would be happy to elaborate further.
This is not a well-balanced nor well-designed recipe, just a fun experiment by a newcomer that happened to turn out rather delicious.
This recipe will likely never be duplicated as I don’t plan on buying any kits in the near future.
******
5 gallon brew size
3 gallon boil
Partial Grain with 6 lb of liquid extract
Added 1 lb of Crystal DME
-60 min. Boil
-1oz Chinook @ 60 min
-1oz chinook @ 10 min
-.5oz Mosaic @ 10 min
-.5oz Mosaic @ 1 min
*Dry Hopping*
-1oz Chinook into Primary 3 days before racking
—racked to secondary after 9 days of fermentation (I know it’s not necessary but I wanted to free up the carboy)
-1 oz Mt. Hood and 1 oz Mosaic put directly into secondary prior to filling.
-After three days added 1oz of Cascade and 1oz Galaxy
-waited 2 more days then added 1oz Simcoe
-Total time in Secondary before bottling: 10 days
**The Breakdown**
This beer was originally supposed to be a single hop Chinook IPA kit from Northern Brewer. After reading the recipe I found it to be a bit wimpy and decided to use some of my newfound brew knowledge, what little of it there was, to pump it up a bit.
There were a few unknown variables to begin with, the largest of which being that the NB kit I got contained grains, but they were generically packaged with no mention of what they actually were or what kind of flavor profile they might impart, so my only goal going into it was to make something as vibrantly juicy and hoppy as possible, without messing up so bad it’s undrinkable. I’m not too picky so I figured it would be hard to go wrong.
I more or less followed the recipe described in the kit but based off of how it described the finished unaltered beer I then added my own hop bill to gear it more towards my own taste preferences and attempted to raise the ABV a little bit with some DME.
The biggest rookie mistake I made was not having a hydrometer at that time so I have no idea of my starting gravity, and thus no idea if I succeeded at that in the end. I did however get one soon after so I was able to monitor fermentation.
I really went crazy with the dry hopping, maybe too crazy now that I know more about how hop oils and saturation work, but I really wanted to pack on aromatics and it probably didn’t hurt.
One interesting thing to note about the dry hopping is the ounce of cascade was whole cone while the rest were pellets, I put the cones in muslin bags and allowed them to soak for a few days.
When I added the Simcoe later on I did not want all the pellets to get stuck on the bags that were floating so I decided to pull the bags out after sanitizing the area and the tongs that I would be using.
This released a massive amount of sediment pieces and concentrated liquid into the brew whenever I pulled the bags through the narrow neck of my carboy which I’m sure contributed to the overall flavor.
At the same time I’m sure it also released some oxygen into the brew, but it hasn’t manifested as an off flavor yet. I had some other issues with oxygen contamination (a poorly sealed racking cane among them) so that is my largest fear overall.
**taste**
-First Impressions
I tasted throughout the brew, most recently at bottling, and besides being flat it has turned out beautifully so far. I can’t wait to try it carbonated and fully chilled.
The aroma is very dense and dank, a heavy dose of grapefruit and citrus with subtle, underlying pine notes
Many different tropical and citrus flavors and even kind of a darker fruit note that I would call almost blackberry which interplays with a deeper layer of satisfying spruce tree bitterness that shines through to balance the higher, fruitier flavors.
**Final Thoughts**
This beer turned out way better than I ever hoped. As previously mentioned, I know I went about it in a rather lackadaisical manner with a lot of hiccups along the way, and there are a few things that I wish I had done a bit differently and known more about, but I learned a lot and had a lot of fun doing it. In the end I even got a pretty decent beer that I’m very happy with, and I suppose that in the end that is all that matters.
Eventually I will probably try to re-create the recipe without using the kit and see if it comes out similarly.
I’m very curious to see what you guys think about this, I already know that I did a bunch of stuff wrong, but I’m sure that you guys can find a few other things that I missed. Feel free to roast away and let me know your opinion.
Also, if there’s any aspect of the brewing process I forgot to mention, I would be happy to elaborate further.
