“Poor Lyla" Belgian IPA

Brew date: Dec. 23, 2013

My office window for the day.

#23 - 6.5 gal

A beautiful, snowy brew day, but one beset by problems.

Lesson number one: Don't leave your pump outside during the winter. Mine froze, so I was forced to do some heavy lifting to transfer the wort between kettles during the sparge. No spillage, thankfully.

Lesson number two: Get a handle on efficiency. I was way off on this batch. Looking for an original gravity of 1.077, but came in at just over 1.060. What happened? That's less than 60% efficiency! In the future, I'll be doing an iodine test to check for starch conversion of the mash. I'll also give my batch sparge a little longer to sit. Maybe 15 min. Still not sure how my calculations were so far off the mark...

Lesson three: ALWAYS use a blow off tube the first 48 hours of fermentation. If you don't, you'll scare the piss out of your brother-in-law's dog when the airlock inevitably gets clogged, blows off the carboy and hits the ceiling like a gunshot. Needless to say, I was wiping yeast off my basement ceiling, while everyone else was cleaning the urine out of the carpet. Sorry, Lyla, this one's for you.

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Ingredients:

• 9.5 lb belgian pilsner malt
• 6.5 lb briess pale ale malt
• 0.5 lb aromatic malt
• 0.5 lb caramel 60L malt
• 1 t gypsum (pre-boil)
• 2 t Irish moss (10 min)
• 1 lb candi sugar (5 min)
• 1 oz cascade (7.1% A) (FWH)
• 0.5 oz saaz (3.0% A) (FWH)
• 0.5 oz columbus (16.3% A) (60 min)
• 0.5 oz centennial (8.7% A) (45 min)
• 1 oz cascade (7.1% A) (15 min)
• 1.5 oz saaz (3.0% A) (1 min)
• Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardennes starter

Jan. 6, 2014

• 1 oz cascade (7.1% A) (dry hop)



Apple popsicles.

• 1.5 oz saaz (3.0% A) (dry hop)

Target OG: 1.077

Target FG: 1.019

Target ABV: 7.65%

Target IBU: 70

Schedule:

• Mash in 6 gal water @ 156F
• Rest @ 145F (60 min)
• Heat to 155F and rest (15 min)
• Mash out @ 168F (10 min)
• First runnings: 3 gal wort
• Sparge 4.5 gal
• Second runnings: 4.5 gal wort
• Total: 7.5 gal wort
• Boil 60 min

Observations:

• First runnings: 3 gal @ 1.070
• Second runnings: 4.5 gal @ 1.031
• Pre-boil: 7.5 gal @ 1.045
• Post-boil: 6.5 gal @ 1.060
• Added 0.25 lb candi sugar to bump OG to 1.063