Easter Brewday – Atonement IPA
It’s Easter Day and what better way to celebrate the freedom that Christ’s death and resurrection has won for us than by brewing a batch of beer! As is my habit for Sunday brewdays, I mashed in just before setting off for church and with the hymns from a rousing Easter morning service still ringing in my ears, I sparged whilst enjoying Sunday lunch.
Unfortunately Fendog couldn’t join me today as he is rehearsing for this weekend’s church drama in which is is playing Legion – the man from whom Jesus cast out many demons ( a role he was born to play). Luckily, I had some help with mashing in from my new assistant brewer who is proving far more useful that Fendog ever was:
Today I went for an American style IPA, which I will be appropriately naming Atonement IPA. The recipe is a bit odd as I was just trying to use up some of the grain and hops that I had in stock, but it will hopefully produce something with a nice hoppy smack in the mouth up front and a clean bitterness throughout:
0.47kg Lager Malt 5.31kg Maris Otter 0.16kg Munich Malt 0.41kg Crystal 30L
30g Target (12.5%) @ 60 15g Centennial (11.5%) @ 20 10g Cascade (7.4%) @ 20 5g Irish Moss @15 10g Cascade (7.4%) @ 10 10g Centennial (11.5%) @ 10 10g Willamette (6.3%) @10 10g Cascade (7.4%) @ 0 10g Centennial (11.5%) @ 0 10g Willamette (6.3%) @ 0 1 sachet of US-05 15g Cascade (7.4%) – Dry 15g Willamette (6.3%) – Dry
There was an inevitable boilover, but I didn’t lose too much and ended up slightly overshooting on volume in the fermenter. Oh well, more to drink.
Also overshot on gravity. Was aiming for 1.065 and hit 1.072. I’ve been doing a few of Jamil’s recipes from “Brewing Classic Styles” lately and I had the efficiency set to 65% on ProMash in order to match his OGs (even though the recipes are meant to assume 70%?!). Anyway, I should crank that up a bit next time as I keep overshooting.
The whole brewday when extremely smoothly. Easiest one for a while. I think the key is not involving Fendog. Something always goes wrong when he’s around.
I was particular pleased with the hop strainer I made for the boiler. It clogged last time when I used pellet hops. But this time, with all whole hops, it worked a treat.