English IPA brew session...could have gone worse...

[Darth_Malt]

I brewed up an English IPA last night, and it almost turned into a really bad night. I mashed in around 8pm with 10# Maris Otter, 1# Victory, .5# Cara60, .25# Cara-Pils. Added 4 Gallons of 160F water, was shooting for 148F but it only got up to 142. I real quick heated the extra .5 Gal of water I had to 170 trying to get up to temp, only got to 144. So I added an extra 15 minutes to my mash, making it a 90 minute mash.

After draining, I sparged with 4.5 gallons of 168F water and let it sit for another 20 minutes. I ended up with about 7.5 gallons of 1.046 wort in the kettle.

I decided to go with a 90 minute boil instead of a 60 to try and get my OG up to the 1.055 I was shooting for. Added 1oz First Gold @60, .5oz each of EKG/Fuggle @25 and 15, and 1oz each of EKG/Fuggle @5.

Got the kettle inside, chiller going, and got it down to 80F. Drained off the wort and ended up with 5.5Gal in the carboy, at 3:15am. After this marathon session of adapting/tweaking the recipe on the fly, I was ready for bed. So ready that I didn't take my final OG reading before I tossed in the WLP013 London Ale.

But I did learn a few things. 1)Brewing outside in the cold makes getting wort to a boil quite a challenge. 2)Just because you missed mash temps doesn't mean you can't hit your target gravity (pre-boil was .001 away from predicted). 3)It is possible to fix mistakes, just RDWHAHB. Thanks Charlie!!

 

[eluterio]

Sounds like a fun night or early morning!!!!

 

[Darth_Malt]

I will say it was an adventure! And it's not stopping after pitching. I can't seem to get the air in my room cool enough for this beer to chill a bit. It's currently sitting in the mid 70s and fermenting real strong. Window is open a bit to let some of that wonderful 40 degree 'spring' air in, we'll see what's happening after work today. Either way, I'm just gonna continue on as planned. Once primary is done, gonna dry hop with a couple ounces of Fuggle and/or EKG.

 

[Valtyr]

Sounds like it could have been a mess. Glad it turned out okay.

 

[eluterio]

Fan on it with wet cold towel might work.


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[Darth_Malt]

Got home, the carboy was down to 71! Got it put back on it's shelf where the air was down to 67, wrapped up and doing it's thing. And now we wait...

 

[tootal]

Glad to hear it worked out. We've done marathon brew days too when good plans go bad! We started pre heating our mash tun so it doesn't take out so much heat. At those mash temps it should be a little thin but still very drinkable, maybe a little dangerous since you should be pretty high in alcohol!