Batch 20- Bombay IPA

Saturday I brewed my 20th batch of beer, a remake of the Bombay IPA.  This also marks my first year of doing homebrewing (ok, a year and 3 days- sheesh!)

Home Brewer's Bible

Home Brewer's Bible

Our recipe is modified from Papazian’s “Laughing Heart IPA.”

Beer Making Supplies

Beer Making Supplies

A quick check of my supplies… Book, scale, hose, thermometer, irish moss, gypsum.  Yep!

Bombay IPA Beer Recipe

Bombay IPA Beer Recipe

And, the recipe we based our IPA off of, along with our notes for prices at Steinbarts.

IPA Ingredients

IPA Ingredients

The ingredients.  4lbs of 6 row, aromatic malt (actually, Vienna malt, as Steinbarts was out of aromatic), and crystal malt, along with 4lbs of light dry malt extract.

Now, I have been running into a problem with my thermometer.  It was this convenient clip on it that allows me to clip it to the side of my pot.  However, during the protein rest, there usually isn’t enough liquids and grains in the pot to get to the bottom of the thermometer.  In the past, I have compensated by adding more water.  However, I was not about to be hindered this time….

My Engineering Masterpiece

My Engineering Masterpiece

Apply one paperclip, a little bending, and problem solved!  I now have something to suspend my thermometer farther down into my pot with.

So, I began with the grains, doing a protein rest at 133 degrees for 30 minutes.  Then I added 170 degree water to it to bring the temperature up to 150 degrees.  I mashed the grains at 150 degrees for 45 minutes.

Mashing the Grains

Mashing the Grains

And, of course, I had help this time making my beer….

Greggory Helping Daddy

Greggory "Helping" Daddy

Greggory really didn’t help much, but he sure wanted in on all the action.

Now, I was concerned with my extraction from my grains.  In the past, I have not gotten very good extraction.  I asked the folks at Steinbarts how to get better extraction without breaking the bank.  He suggested minerals in the water, such as gypsum, as Portland’s water is very soft.  So, I added gypsum to the water before the extraction.  He also recommended batch sparging, which consists of pouring the run-off from the grains back through the lauder tun a few times, then sparge with your water and run it through a few times.  I did this, using my super cool lauder tun, which is got at Steinbarts and saved me a billion hours worth of work.  Here are photos of my beauty.

Lauder Tun- Side View

Lauder Tun- Side View

Zap-A-Pap Lauder Tun

Zap-A-Pap Lauder Tun

Just a bucket with a bunch of holes in it.  Place that in another bucket that has a spigot, and you’re good to go.  The nice thing about this setup is that it gives me an extra bucket for either bottling or for fermenting.  I had to do a bit of surgery on the spigot on the bottom to seal a leak, but all is well now with it.

Grains in Lauder Tun

Grains in Lauder Tun

Here is part of the sparging process.  I dumped my grains in the bucket, drained, and ran it through again.  I keep the tap closed when I pour water into it, giving the water a change to soak in the grains (at least the one’s in the bottom.)  After a few times with the initial runoff, I poured my 170 degree sparge water into this, drained, then repeated.

Runoff from Sparging the Grains

Runoff from Sparging the Grains

This picture is from my second sparging with the sparge water.  After it’s all done, I now have my wort, which is then ready to begin the boiling process.

The recipe calls for an additional 4 lbs of light malt extract, which I immediately added once I got the water back on the stove.

Adding Malt Extract

Adding Malt Extract

There was an issue of my 4 gallon pot being EXTREMELY full.  I had to take caution when adding the extract and stirring it in.

Starting the Boil

Starting the Boil

Once the extract was in and the wort began a slight boil, it was time to add my hops.

Hop Pellets in Bags

Hop Pellets in Bags

I used 1-1/2 oz of Chinook for the bittering hops, and 1oz of concentrated Cascades for the aroma hop.  Both hops were free (thanks, Erica!), which keeps my brewing costs down.

Now, an incident happened while boiling the wort.  I had a cranky kid to put to bed.  Having put him to bed, I came back down to this….

Oops!!!  Boil Over!!

Oops!!! Boil Over!!

Grr……  Nothing worse than losing beer!  I did a quick cleanup, and, without a little helper, was free to babysit the rest of the boil.  Added the aroma hops the last 10 minutes along with the Irish moss.  And, while brewing, you have to have a beer.  You can’t brew without drinking beer!  It just wouldn’t be right!

Beer

Beer (Holiday Cheer!)

Once the boil was done, I strained the beer to remove most of the hop pellet residue, topped it off to 5 gallons, and stuck my airlock on it.  Next day I was able to aerate the beer, take the initial gravity, and pitch the yeast.  The inital gravity turned out to be 1.054, which is .004 higher than the first time I brewed this.  Hopefully I got more out of the extraction.  We will see what our final alcohol content turns out to be.

Waiting in the wings I have ingredients to redo the Righteous American, which was a decent beer.  Will most likely bottle and brew this weekend.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.brettgorley.com/?p=315

1 comment

  1. Hey that lauder tun you got into heaping trouble over too. You weren’t suppose to buy it but you did anyways. Luckily I am a forgiving wife to you.

    Who saved you from loosing more beer from the spill? Who took those pics of the mess too?

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