Dry-hopping and first taste of the imperial red

Sittin' pretty with some lovely FF dry hops

As indicated by my Twitter, yesterday I racked the Imperial Red to secondary and added an ounce of Falconer's Flight hops into the vessel to give the beer that extra fresh hop flavor and aroma that one can only achieve through dry-hopping.  My first taste of the beer was wonderful.  The specific gravity is down to 1.018, so this baby is almost fully attenuated and the taste will be pretty indicative of the finished product.  The up-front flavor is a delicious, citrusy hop bomb, but differently from your average IPA, this one has some serious biscuity, caramelly malt backing hop all of that bright hoppy flavor.  It is really tasty already and I can't wait to taste it after its two weeks of dry-hopping.  The beer is deceptively smooth for around 7.5% ABV, no nasty fusel alcohols or excessive esters, and I attribute that to the nice cool fermentation temperature (thank you, air conditioning).  Either way, this beer will be a great one to enjoy over the hot summer, and will almost definitely be one that I will re-do in the near future.  It's always nice to have a hoppy beer around for drinking, and this one will be no exception.

Cicada Imperial Red Ale

First brew in the new apartment!

Long brew day today...did all of the work myself since my lovely assistant had to work today.  I got started around 9 this morning to do the mash indoors.  It was great to have the convenience and comfort of doing an indoor mash, and it seems I finally have my cooler system down.  Held that guy at 153° for an entire hour and didn't lose a single degree!  Now that is good stuff.  Instead of the usual mashout/sparge method that I do, I did a double sparge, which can be seen in this excellent YouTube video by Don Osborn (I love Don Osborn!).  This was meant to increase my system efficiency and help me to get the maximum amount of extract out of this batch, since it is a pretty high gravity beer.  Good news is that it worked, and I hit 75% efficiency, up from my usual 70%.

After collecting the runnings, I headed outside with my turkey fryer and propane tank to get the boil rolling.  It started up great, coming to a boil in about 15 minutes, so I went ahead and added my first hop addition.  For this beer, I wanted to do a 90 minute boil so that I could achieve the right bitterness levels but also get a nice subtle caramelization, since this is an amber ale after all.  About fifteen minutes in--alas!--the flame started to die down, indicating that my propane tank was just about empty.  Welp, I decided to just take the brewpot off the turkey fryer, put it in a safe place, then put the rest of my stuff in the car and drive to get a refill.  It was a quick and easy trip, and I made it back to resume the rest of today's brewing.  The rest of the boil went smoothly, and I even caught one of the many obnoxious cicadas in my boiling wort this will not affect the taste at all (in fact, Jamil Zainasheff has had black widow spiders fall into the boil on same recipe of stout...on separate occasions!), but it sure as hell gave me a catchy--and appropriately ironic--name for the beer: the Cicada Imperial Red.  It will remind me of my scant few triumphs over those nasty cicadas during this summer.  As promised, here is the recipe for this beauty of an amber ale:

Recipe Specifics (All-Grain)
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Batch Size (Gal): 5
Total Grain (Lbs): 14
Anticipated OG: 1.073
Actual OG: 1.075
Anticipated SRM: 16
Anticipated IBU: 72.0
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70 %
Wort Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Grain
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11 lbs. Muntons English Pale Malt (2.5°L)
1 lb. Munich Malt (10°L)
1 lb. Crystal Malt (40° L)
0.5 lbs. Special 'B' Malt (140°L)
0.5 lbs. Belgian Biscuit Malt (25°L)

Hops
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1.0 oz. Columbus (Pellet 13% AA) @ 90 min. (gotta use these for more than just bittering sometime...nice aroma on 'em)
1.0 oz. Falconer's Flight (Pellet 10.5% AA) @45 min.
1.0 oz. Falconer's Flight (Pellet 10.5% AA) @ 5 min.
2.0 oz. Falconer's Flight (Pellet 10.5% AA) @ 0 min/flame out
1.0 oz. Falconer's Flight (Pellet 10.5% AA) dry hop 14 days in secondary

Extras
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1 tsp. Irish moss @ 15 Min.

Yeast
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Wyeast 1764 Rogue Pacman Yeast with an 800 mL starter made 48 hours ahead of time on a stir plate

Mash Schedule
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Sacch Rest 60 min @ 153

5/29/11 Brewed by myself at Lee apartments in Nashville, TN
8/2/11 Review

Picture may not look like much, but it sure was nice to be able to do the mash in my pajamas

Yeast starter for Imperial Red (Amber) Ale

After the weeks of graduation hustle and bustle, I am finally able to get in a brew day again!  Yesterday, I got the yeast starter going (first yeast starter in the new apartment), which was much easier on a gas burner than on the McTyeire electric stove.  I made use of another one of my Rogue Pacman re-harvested yeast cultures, which was a little slower to start than the previous (yeasts lose some of their viability over time, so cultures that have been sitting around for awhile can be slower to start, but once they start going they're as good as when they're new), but sure enough was really moving by this morning.  I got a lot of satisfaction out of the $7.00 that I saved on this batch, which is high gravity and therefore slightly more expensive anyway.

My other mission yesterday was buying a whole truckload of Falconer's Flight hops to give this batch the amazing hoppy flavor for which it calls.  I also got my next recipe, a Belgian Table Beer similar to this one for summer that has got me really excited.

Basically, your average American Amber Ale (Fat Tire, Red Seal, etc...there are MANY) will have a nice hop character similar to an American Pale Ale, along with a little more caramel malt flavor to balance it out and an ABV of around 5%, of course with a beautiful reddish color.  The brew that I'll be churning out tomorrow is inspired by that tradition, but has been amped up in the style of a West Coast Red Ale and then turned up even a bit more from that style, meaning higher ABV (mine should land at around 7.5%) and LOTS more hop character.  Think IPA (India Pale Ale) when compared to a pale ale...bigger, bolder, hoppier.  This beer will be similar to a double/imperial IPA in strength and hop character, but with a lot more caramel sweetness and malt background.  Stay tuned for brew day highlights and the recipe to be posted on this blog tomorrow!

Even when just making a yeast starter; relax, don't worry, and have a homebrew!