Double Batch IIPA Brew Day

Jet burner keeping the kettle boiling into dusk.

Yesterday was our first double batch brew day.  I started early in the morning and brewing went well into the evening hours.  I'm working on nailing down a IIPA that I'm happy with keeping as a staple.  The main problem is that I'm really picky about it.  For this effort, I started with the same recipe and created one with all malt and one with some adjuct sugars, keeping the hopping the same.  My goal is to sample each, determine which I like better, and further develop on that recipe.

The mash temp showing a constant 148F and the sparge water up to temp and ready to go.

Batch one is comprised of a combination of american 2-row and munich malts as a base with a small amount of medium/light crystal.  Batch two is the same, but I reduced the base malts slightly and added 100% fermentable sugars to keep the starting gravity the same.  I also added a small amount of carapils to the second batch.  These beers are borderline insanely hoppy.  I used Magnum for bittering, and a blend of Cascade, Summit, Columbus and Simcoe for flavor and aroma additions.  I will dry hop these beers with a blend of Summit, Columbus and Simcoe.

When I said these are insanely hoppy, I meant it. I used over a pound of hops for each 5 gallon batch.  To put into perspective, the dry-hop addition alone equates to over 2 pounds per barrel.  Due to mash tun limitations, and the fact that these are test batches, I brewed both to get 6 gallons into the fermentors.  After loss during fermentation and hop absorption from dry hopping, I should get a solid 5 gallons of each into the kegs.  Once all is said and done, both batches should finish in the 9% ABV range and are close to 100IBUs.  A San Diego IPA indeed.