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Monday, September 5, 2011

StarRaptor – Double American Red Ale

Before I left the Mr Beer Forums I decided to participate in a recipe collaboration program with another brewer, Chris aka mnstarzz13. 

Weighting the Hops
Originally I tossed out the idea of using the same base wort recipe but pitch two different yeasts.  This is something that I have done recently in my collaboration with Shawn and plan on doing more in the future when I move to 10 gallon batches.   To me it is a fascinating exercise in understanding the various flavors and aromas that are completely yeast driven.  My initial thought was to do two porters and make my version a Baltic Style with lager yeast. Along these same lines I had thoughts of using my American Farmhouse Blend (WLP670) to funk up an IPA or Pale Ale.  My counterpart however wasn’t that game for the funk.

We tossed out a few more ideas before deciding on taking the same base recipe, in this case Red Velvet (link) a red ale recipe from Donny Hummel that took a Gold Medal in the GABF Pro-Am 2010, and each tweaking it slightly for our own tastes.  For Chris that meant dialing back the IBUs to make it less bitter and for me moving the IBU/SG Ratio closer to 1.  We also each made slight adjustments to the malt and hop bills, for example with Amarillo being in short supply here I subbed it with Citra.  Understandable Chris had a hard time nailing down some Simcoe and planned on subbing it with Northern Brewer. I couldn’t allow that as there is no one to one sub for Simcoe and I’ve never seen Northern Brewer on any of the searches I ran.
Better brewing through chemistry
Originally I was calling the recipe MB Collaboration Red but became inspired into thinking it would make a great beer to name after my screen name StarRaptor.  At one point I was calling it an IRA (India Red Ale) fortunately the absurdity caught up with me and I came to the light deciding the style would be a Double American Red.

The New Rig
Brewing the beer was not without its challenges and actually took two goes at it to complete it.  This was my first brew in over two months and I was a little rusty not to mention the first time I would be using my cooler mash tun and keggle brew pot.  The first round I decided to take a pre boil gravity reading and misread the BeerSmith (Link) instructions and believed I had massively messed up the mash which resulted in stopping the boil and dumping 4 hours of work.  Later after consulting some other brewers I determined that it was an interpretation error on the brew steps and not a mash issue.

Never one to quite I simple bought more of the ingredients I used before dumping.  Fortunately I had decided to dump prior to the flavor addition so I didn’t loss that much hops.  The second round was not without its issues; I was a little low on my mash temp, had cooling issues (it was a really hot day) and only collected 4 gallons of wort.

Still it was nice to brew again and the beer is chugging along in one of my many temperature controlled chest freezers.

Cheers

-SNB


They see me boilin...
StarRaptor
Double American Red Ale
Type: Partial Mash
Date: 8/27/2011
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal (only captured 4)
Brewer: Scott Bennett
Boil Size: 6.93 gal   
Boil Time: 60 min
Equipment: Brew Pot (12.5 gal) and Igloo Cooler (10 Gal)
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %

Beer Profile
Measured Original Gravity: 1.092 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.019
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 9.1 %
Bitterness: 94.5 IBUs
Est Color: 17.0 SRM 

Ingredients

Malt
4 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM)
4 lbs Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM)
2 lbs 8.0 oz Rye Malt (4.7 SRM)
1 lbs Rice Dry Extract (7.0 SRM)
1 lbs Carared (20.0 SRM)
13.6 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM)
8.6 oz Victory Malt (25.0 SRM)
8.0 oz Munich Malt (9.0 SRM)
2.6 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)

One of the keys to great beer
Hops
0.50 oz Magnum [14.40 %] - First Wort 75.0 min
1.00 oz Simcoe [12.20 %] - Boil 20.0 min
1.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min
1.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min
1.25 oz Centennial [8.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min

Dry Hops
2.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop
2.00 oz Centennial [8.50 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop

Yeast
1.00 Starter San Diego Super Yeast (White Labs # WLP090)

Other
1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins) -
1.00 tsp Yeast Nutrient (Boil 15.0 mins)
1.00 Tbs 5.2 pH Stabilizer (Mash)

Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Light Body, No Mash Out
Total Grain Weight: 14 lbs 8.8 oz
Sparge Water: 6.44 gal
Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F

Mash Steps
Mash In Add 7.53 qt of water at 175.0 F 152.0 F 75 min
Sparge Step: Fly sparge with 6.44 gal water at 168.0 F


Kräusen Porn

3 Hours In

12 Hours In

24 Hours In



1 comment:

  1. Wow .. that is a BIG hoppy beer. Makes me thirsty reading the recipe.

    ReplyDelete

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