Brew Day: Simcorillo Penguin IPA (All-Grain)

I didn’t plan it this way. Truthfully, when I brewed last Monday, it was just because I wanted to brew. I didn’t have a lot of time, so I brewed an extract recipe. It was only afterward that I decided to try an all-grain version of that same recipe. I want to do a taste test between the extract and all-grain versions. OK, so technically, it’s a partial mash. But I didn’t use much extract.

I did my best to hold all of the other variables constant, but I did make an error here and there. (I’ll explain later.) I used the same hops and hop schedule. I just replaced the extract with base malt and doubled the recipe, because I wanted to do a 10-gallon batch. This brew day ended up taking about 8.5 hours. For that to be worth it, I need the 10-gallon batch, so I get 4+ cases, instead of the 2+ cases I’d get from a 5-gallon batch.

Jess, once again, took lots of pictures. (Thanks!) I’ll stick to the same format: I’ll give you the recipe first, then the pics.

The Recipe:

Name

Simcorillo Penguin IPA

Volume

10 gallons

Yeast

Wyeast 1272 American Ale II

Grain Bill

Amount	Name
2 lb	Crystal 20L (Steeped 30 min.)
1 lbs	Cara-Munich (Steeped 30 min.)
20 lbs	Rahr 2-row
2.2 lbs	Light Dry Malt Extract (Breiss) – Used to bump up gravity after somewhat low efficiency.

Original Gravity

1.073 (Estimated. I forgot to measure at the end of the boil and I didn’t want to open up the fermenter again. I did, however, measure the gravity after the mash.)

Hops

Name	Amount	Time in Wort	% Alpha Acid	IBUs
Simcoe	1.5 oz	60 min	12.2%	32
Amarillo	4 oz	20 min	7.3%	30
Amarillo	1 oz	7 min	7.3%	3
Simcoe	2 oz	7 min	12.2%	11
Glacier	1 oz	0 min (added at flameout)	6.5%	0
Glacier	2.4 oz	Dry Hopped	6.5%	0

IBUs: 76 – This is about the level I was shooting for last time. I think the (accidentally) higher gravity boil led to lower hop utilization.
(calculated with this IBU calculator)

The Process:

Previously, I had made a plan. I pretty much followed this plan throughout brew day. I have reproduced this list below, with a few edits to reflect what actually happened. Wherever I have pictures of what’s described, I have included them inline.

The Brew Day Plan:

1. Fill the boil kettle with 10 gallons, light it up
2. Mix sanitizer into a bucket and fill spray bottle with sanitizer fluid
3. Bring water to 175-180 degrees
4. Drain 6.9 gallons of water to mash tun
5. Lift mash tun to desk
6. Stir water and cool to 170 degrees
7. Add grain and stir





8. Check temp, should be 152 degrees (it was 151)



9. Adjust temp by adding hot or cold water, and stirring, if it’s too far off.
10. Add water to boil kettle to reach 10 gallons, heat to 180 degrees
11. Stir and record mash temp every 15 minutes.
12. Mash for 60 minutes.
13. Heat sparge water to ~185
14. Prepare boil additions, with time tags
15. When it’s close to sparge time, check sparge water temp, bring to 180.
16. Vorlauf!



17. Rack first runnings into a bucket






18. Add sparge water in two batches from kettle at about 180 degrees for first run, and 170 for second run, and drain until we reach 12 gallons of wort, in two buckets. (Don’t forget to vorlauf!)




19. Empty boil kettle



20. Rack wort from buckets into boil kettle





21. Check gravity, should be 1.061 (assuming 12 gallons of wort). Adjust upward with DME if necessary. — We did up the gravity, but by the wrong amount. We adjusted it upward to 1.067, our target post-boil gravity.





22. Actually prepared hop additions here



23. Boil the wort



24. Follow boil additions, prepared earlier



25. Santitize wort chiller with 10 minutes remaining.
26. Put wort chiller in pot, and run it
27. Once wort is 70 degrees, remove chiller
28. Stir wort up into a whirlpool
29. Wait 5-10 minutes for whirlpool to settle
30. Check gravity and record
31. Sanitize coat hanger, and two airlocks
32. Rack into two buckets




33. Aerate by pouring back and forth



34. Add a starter to each bucket
35. Place lids with hammer
36. Insert air lock, move fermenters, and wait…
37. Bottle around 2 weeks