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Southern Silk IPA

Today was brewday for what I'm calling Southern Silk IPA. I'm going for all tropical fruit, citrus and melon flavours in this one.

Brew day

Date: 4 Aug 2019
Boil Size: 25.72 L
Post Boil Volume: 23.12 L
Batch Size (fermenter): 22.00 L  
Bottling Volume: 20.00 L
Estimated OG: 1.042 SG
Estimated Color: 9.2 EBC
Estimated IBU: 40.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 75.7 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes
Water profile: Ca:57, Mg:10, Na:10, SO4:105, Cl:46
Adjusted mash pH: 5.30

Ingredients:
------------
Amt              Name                               Type          %/IBU         Volume      
27.26 L          Tesco Ashbeck                      Water         -             -            
3.10 kg          IREKS Pale Ale Malt (6.0 EBC)      Grain         80.0 %        2.02 L      
0.39 kg          IREKS Munich Malt (20.0 EBC)       Grain         10.0 %        0.25 L      
0.39 kg          Wheat, Torrified (3.3 EBC)         Grain         10.0 %        0.25 L      

10.00 g          Cashmere [7.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min  Hop           4.5 IBUs      -            
10.00 g          Galaxy [15.60 %] - Boil 15.0 min   Hop           10.0 IBUs     -            
10.00 g          Motueka [7.30 %] - Boil 15.0 min   Hop           4.7 IBUs      -            

12.00 g          Cashmere [7.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min  Hop           3.9 IBUs      -            
12.00 g          Galaxy [15.60 %] - Boil 10.0 min   Hop           8.8 IBUs      -            
12.00 g          Motueka [7.30 %] - Boil 10.0 min   Hop           4.1 IBUs      -            

1.00 Items       Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 7.0 mins)   Fining        -             -            

15.00 g          Cashmere [7.00 %] - Boil 2.0 min   Hop           1.1 IBUs      -            
15.00 g          Galaxy [15.60 %] - Boil 2.0 min    Hop           2.6 IBUs      -            
15.00 g          Motueka [7.30 %] - Boil 2.0 min    Hop           1.2 IBUs      -            

1.0 pkg          DIPA Ale (Omega #OYL-052)          Yeast         -             -            


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge

Name              Description                             Step Temperat Step Time    
Mash In           Add 22.26 L of water at 69.1 C          66.0 C        60 min      

Sparge: Dunk sparge 5L of 75.6 C water

Brew day started at 6:30 this morning. It takes me about 6 hours and I like to be done and dusted by midday so I've got the afternoon free.

Mashed in at 67C. Forgot to add the lactic acid to the water beforehand but remembered as soon as the grain went in so I quickly added it and gave the mash a good stir.

Did the iodine test after an hour. Looks good to go.

A dunk sparge for 10 minutes with 5 litres of 75C water follows the mash to rinse as much sugar out of the grain as I can get. The bag gets a really good squeeze after the sparge is done. Mash efficiency turned out to be 85%.

Pre-boil gravity of 1.040 at 20C is exactly what I was expecting.

2.4kW takes a while to get to the boil, stirring all the time. When the boil starts then all the crud comes to the top. There are no hops in the boil until 15 minutes in this recipe.

I strained off all the break material, crud, whatever it is.

Now it's virtually all gone it looks much nicer. I used the half hour or so of free time during the boil to set up the chiller and rinse out the grain bag.

Here's the hops for this recipe. Oh the smell of Galaxy! Does anything match it? It all gets a bit busy in the last 15 minutes with 3 additions of each of the 3 hops, plus the whirlfloc tablet to remember as well.

I chilled down to 27C with the immersion chiller. The ground water temperature here is still pretty warm and I wasn't making much progress so I called it a day at 27C and collected 22 litres into the sanitised fermenter.

Adjusted OG seems to be 1.043 so pretty much as planned. Colour looks good and the wort tastes nice and smooth.

So it was a smooth brew-day in the end. I made what I expected to make which is always good. Now the fermenter is sitting in the brew-fridge chilling down to 20C when I'll pitch the OYL-052 starter.

Kegging

I kegged my Southern Silk IPA today after a few hours shy of two weeks in the keg. FG was 1.006 for a final ABV of 4.9% and I managed to get about a pint short of a full corny which will do but next time I'll brew a litre extra to make sure I get the full keg's worth out of it. The remaining headspace was purged with CO2 at 5x15psi and is now sitting at 15psi to carbonate.

The sample jar tasted amazing - all the tropical fruit flavours and aromas I was hoping for from the Galaxy/Motueka/Cashmere hops are there. High hopes for this one.

Tasting notes

Now about 3 weeks since it was kegged and it's as clear as a bell and tasting wonderful. The Vermont yeast works so well with the new world hops and really gives a silky, full mouthfeel. I knew Galaxy and Motueka were a great combo and now I'm totally sold on Cashmere as well.