Brew Day Notes: Laurel IPA

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Today we brewed the ‘House’ India Pale Ale. The wort’s color looks much more like the picture on the right. It looked like an SRM 10 or 11 rather than the 6 that was forecast.

Julian Shrago’s Laurel IPA is the base recipe for our ‘House’ IPA. Of course we here at Flog This Dead Brewing tweaked the original recipe (which is at the bottom of this post). We wouldn’t be homebrewers if we didn’t change something about the recipe, would we? For one thing, Julian “Burtonizes” the water, and that will make the beer seem bitterer than the already mindbogglingly high 96 IBUs. To my taste, the Burtonizing the water for Beachwood BBQ Brewery’s offering gave it a tinge of diesel. And, diesel is a taste I don’t lust after.

Brewday Notes

  • My mash temperature was 8-10F too hot (temp did not drop after adding grain). The rule of thumb for heating water for mashing the milled grain is to heat it 10-12F above the desired mash temperature (e.g. 161-163F for a desired mash temp of 151F). I expected the temperature to when I added the nearly 15 pounds of grain to the heated water. It didn’t. Do you have a similar experience? Is this because of the keggle’s mass holding the heat and the weldless thermometer?
  • The pre-boil gravity calculated by BeerAlchemy is too low (perhaps by 7 points), which means my assumed evaporation is too high.
  • Total time for brew day: 7 hours. That includes set-up and clean-up.
  • Mash at 151F (needed to cool down wort to 151)
  • Measured pre-boil gravity: 1.053
  • Measured Original Gravity: 1.065
  • Target Final Gravity: 1.015
  • Target IBUs: 95
  • Expected ABV: 6.5%
  • Expected Color: 5.8 SRM (looks more in the 10-11 SRM neighborhood)

Today’s House IPA recipe

– 5 gallon batch at 70% efficiency

Grain Bill
13 lbs 15 oz Pale Malt (94.7%)
7.20 oz Carapils (Dextrin) Malt (3.1%)
5.40 oz Crystal 40L Malt (2.3%)

Hops
0.77 oz German Hallertauer Magnum – first wort hop (FWH)
1.85 oz Cascade – 60 minutes from end
0.75 oz Centennial – 30 Min From End
0.30 oz Simcoe – 10 Min From End
0.30 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) – 10 Min From End
0.20 oz Cascade – flame off
0.45 Centennial – flame off
12.12 oz Cascade – Dry-Hopped
1.30 oz Summit – Dry-Hopped
1.30 oz Centennial – Dry-Hopped

Yeast
White labs WLP001- California Ale

Mash at 151F
Target pre-boil gravity: 1.045
Target Original Gravity: 1.064
Target Final Gravity: 1.015
Expected IBUs: 95
Expected ABV: 6.7%
Expected Color: 5.8 SRM

For Extract Brewing

For an extract, try 6.9 lbs of dry light malt extract and steeping 0.4 lbs carapils and 0.3 lbs of caramel 40 at 160F for 30 minutes or so.

Mike “Tasty” McDole’s  Laurel IPA recipe  (12.5 gallon batch)

Last November while on the Brewing Network, Rodger Davis and Julian Shrago announced a Pro/Am collaboration on Julian’s Laurel India Pale Ale. Rodger (then at Triple Rock) and Julian (at Beachwood Brewing ) invited homebrewers to brew the same recipe that they would be brewing at their respective breweries.Then in December came the tasting.  The two brewers made radically different beers. Julian loves first wort hopping and Burtonizing the water. Then Triple Rock brewer, Rodger Davis does not believe in first wort hopping or Burtonizing. There were other differences. The brand of grains was different and the water was different (Berkeley vs. Long Beach).

Julian Shrago’s Laurel IPA recipe:

THE LAUREL IPA
– 5 gallon batch at 75% efficiency –

* 11.5 lbs. American 2-row malt
* 0.4 lbs. Carapils malt
* 0.3 lbs. Crystal 40 malt

Mash @ 151 degrees Fahrenheit for one hour.

90 minute boil

* 0.8 oz. Amarillo pellets (9.6% AA) for first wort hop (FWH)
* 0.55 oz. Summit pellets (18% AA) for 60 minutes
* 0.75 oz. Centennial pellets (9.2% AA) for 30 minutes
* 0.3 oz. each Simcoe (12.2) and Columbus pellets (14.0) for 10 minutes
* 0.5 oz. Amarillo pellets (9.6% AA) at flameout/whirlpool
* Dry hops: 1.3oz each Amarillo, Centennial, and Summit pellets for two weeks

Ferment with White Labs California Ale Yeast WLP001 or Wyeast 1056

OG/FG: 1.064/1.010
SRM: 5.2
IBUs: 108

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