Our first time boiling in our new eight-gallon boil kettle! Yay!

BeerXML for this recipe, generated by BrewTarget.

I'm calling this batch Five-D Chess, presumptuously, in imitation of one of the absolute best IPAs I've ever had, which is produced locally.

Ingredients

  • 11 lb., 3 oz. American two-row pale malt (2°L)
  • 12 oz. Caramunich malt (60°L)
  • 8 oz. white wheat malt (3.5°L)
  • 6 oz. rice hulls
  • 2.50 lb. rye malt
  • 1.00 oz. Apollo hops (17.8% A.A.) at 90 min.
  • 1.00 oz. Citra hops (12.8% A.A.) at 30 min.
  • 1.00 oz. Motueka hops (7.2% A.A.) at 30 min.
  • 1.00 oz. Kent Goldings hops (6.0% A.A.) at 20 min.
  • 0.50 oz. Cascade hops (7.1% A.A.) at 10 min.
  • 0.50 oz. Centennial hops (8.5% A.A.) at 10 min.
  • 0.50 oz. Cascade hops (7.1% A.A.) at 0 min.
  • 0.50 oz. Centennial hops (8.5% A.A.) at 0 min.
  • 1.00 oz. Ekuanot hops (12.6% A.A.) at 0 min.
  • 1 vial Inland Island INIS-006 (Eccentric Ale) yeast, expired.
  • 3 lb. Trader Joe's Mostly Mesquite honey, added 27 October 2019.
  • 1 tsp. Fermaid O, added 27 October 2019.
  • 1 oz. BSG Azacca hops (10.3% A.A.), added to bucket loose (not in sock) on 25 February 2020.
  • ⅔ c. GW (brand) light brown sugar, added to bucket on 31 March 2020 (first bottling day).
  • 1 packet Lalvin 71B, rehydrated in ½ c. tap water at 98℉, added on 31 March 2020.
  • 1 oz. (dry weight) medium-toast Hungarian oak cubes, added to the last six liters or so of braggot after first bottling on 31 March 2020.
  • ½ pouch Lalvin 71B, added to oaked version at bottling on 12 November.
  • 1 or 2 carbonation drops per bottle, depending on bottle size, added at bottling on 12 November.

Procedure

Mashed in a bag in the ten-gallon brew pot, sixty minutes at 152℉. Boiled 90 minutes in the electric kettle at 1500 watts, adding hops as scheduled. Cooled, put into a bucket, aerated with a whisk, pitched yeast, and sealed the bucket.

Wow, the measured OG is really low! What's up with that? Too many variables to tell: grain had been sitting for several months, I didn't explicitly check its grind before mashing, and we're using new equipment. Part of it is probably that the narrow kettle vents less steam during the boil because it has less surface area. No way to know for certain. at this point. (EDIT. And I'm becoming increasingly convinced I'm going to have to dive into water chemistry. Sigh.)

Brew day: 20 October 2019
Predicted original gravity: 1.0706
Measured original gravity: 1.040 (but I'm using a calculated as-if O.G. of 1.064 due to later sugar additions).
Estimated IBUs: 106.7
Predicted final gravity 1.0198
Predicted ABV: 6.6

First bottling day : 22 March 2020

Second bottling day : 12 November 2020
Final gravity: 1.004
Estimated ABV: 8%

Yield:

  • First bottling day: non-oaked version (31 March 2020)
    • 17 x 22 oz. beer bottles
    • 3 x 650mL beer bottles
    • 1 x 12 oz. beer bottle
    • approx. 2 oz. hydrometer slop
  • Second bottling day: oaked version (12 Nov 2020
    • 4 x 22 oz. beer bottles
    • 4 x 12 oz. beer bottles

Total yield:

Observations

  • 2019-10-27: Added three pounds of honey and some Fermaid O to the bucket.
  • 2020-02-25: Added dry hops to bucket.
  • 2020-03-31: Bottled the first ~3.5 gallons, yielding braggot at about 8% ABV. When the bottling wand choked on hops, poured the remaining gallon and a half or so into a sanitized 2-gallon bucket, adding oak cubes.
  • 2020-11-12: Bottled the rest of the batch.