The first is an IPA with oats in the mash (experimental IPA #1). The idea being that they would provide an added creaminess to the IPA without the added malt sweetness. Hopping for this one was pretty simple with a bittering charge of magnum and flavor/aroma and dry additions of simcoe and columbus and centennial with cascade added in the boil as well. Fermentation is complete and the dry hopping concludes today when it will be cold crashed before being kegged shortly. Preliminary indications suggest that this will be a solid IPA.
The next two batch #2 and #3) are the same IPAs in terms of grain bill and OG, but vary in their hopping. The grain bill is very basic with a pale malt base, and almost equal amounts of light crustal, carapils, and sugar. The mash was kept low for a low FG and a nice crisp dry IPA. For these batches, I added hops to the mash, in addition to a 60 and 30 min hops additions, followed by our standard IPA late and dry hopping. For batch #2, we mash hopped with columbus, bittered with warrior, and included centennial, columbus and simcoe in the boil. We'll dry hop this one mix of simcoe, columbus and centennial. Yes, this is similar to batch #1, but the amounts and times vary. For batch #3, we mash hopped with amarillo, bittered with warrior and added centennial, simcoe and amarillo in the boil. We'll dry hop this one with a blend of simcoe and amarillo. This was our first go at mash hopping, and although there is a somewhat general consensus among the homebrew community that mash hopping isn't worth it, a few of our favorite commercial examples are said to include mash hopping, and we figured it was worth a try. These two batches are fermenting now, and will get their dry hop addition in about a week, then cold crashed and kegged.
I attempted to document our batch #2 and 3 brew day with photos, but of course failed miserably. Here's what I was able to get....
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| Mash hopping makes the mash smell even better! |
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| Recirculating the mash |
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| The kettle filling up with sweet wort |