Brewday: Playoffs IPA 2.0

It's great to be getting back into the rhythm of brewing. Even though I'm in the middle of a month off drinking alcohol, I'm enjoying producing it and the anticipation for tasting these brews is high. Yesterday I brewed up a slightly modified version of the Playoffs IPA I brewed back in April. I was really happy with how it turned out the first time and I'm excited to get this version into the bottles and drinking.

I bought 1kg bags of Simcoe and Columbus hops a while back so I went a little crazy with the hop additions. Along with a dose of Amarillo they are the stars of the beer. I also reduced the pale malt percentage a little and increased the rye and crystal malts slightly. The beer is fermenting away in the fridge at a happy 18'C and it's making the whole room smell like tropical fruit punch. I'm going to dry hop it in a day or two with 40g each of Simcoe, Columbus and Amarillo.

Big bag o' hops

This was my second go at using my urn and it went better than the first time but I still missed some of my targets. I ended up with more pre-boil liquid than I was aiming for and needed a longer boil to get the gravity near what I planned. Still, I now have 18l of a 1.060 IPA (I was aiming for 1.062) doing its thing in the fermenter so things aren't too bad. Hopefully over the next couple of batches I'll get it dialled in properly.

Now the plan is to build up a starter of my saison yeast (WY 3725) and have that ready to go as soon as the IPA is done. I can't wait to get that yeast cranking in a beer at 27 or 28'C now that I have a temperature controller and see what flavours it gives.