Over the Fourth of July weekend, I brewed three beers — an IPA, a porter and a dry stout. In the process, I also got a bunch of brewing equipment cleaned up.

I meant to start the three day brew-a-thon on Wednesday, but I started cleaning brewing stuff and didn't stop until I had cleaned a bunch of carboys and other stuff I had laying around and partially reorganized the room I kept it all in. By the time I was finished, it was too late to start brewing. Plus, my yeast starters were still fermenting, so postponing the brewdays wouldn't hurt anything. (I also swapped two empty propane tanks for full ones earlier in the day.)

On Thursday, I brewed the IPA. (I'll append the recipe at the end of this blog entry.) I was shooting for a nice, dry American-style IPA with lots of "C-hop" character. I made 10 gallons, boiling the wort in my converted keg and fermenting it in my demijohn. Last time I used the demijohn, I tried to keep the fermenting wort cool with a wet T-shirt as it was too heavy to lift into my chest freezer with 10 gallons of wort in it. This time, I siphoned 5 gallons of wort into the demijohn and the other 5 gallons into a sanitized bucket. I lifted the demijohn into the chest freezer, then poured the 5 gallons in the bucket into the demijohn with a sanitized funnel. It's fermenting fine, but now I'll have to figure out how to get the beer out once it's fermented. I'll probably use my pump.

On Friday, I brewed the porter. I normally fiddle with the recipe a little each time, but this time I just used the Fuller's London Porter recipe straight from the "150 Classic Clones Recipe" book (p. 11), substituting for the bittering hops called for with some First Gold hops I had on hand. I've brewed that exact recipe — except for the hops — a couple times and liked it. I used my regular 5-gallon setup and the brewday was a breeze. Plus, given that the recipe requires carbonate-rich water to deal with all the dark grains, I used straight tap water (carbon filtered, of course). The beer is now fermenting happily next to the IPA.

On Saturday, I brewed the dry stout. For this, I went with the Murphy's Stout clone from "150 Clones" (p. 9). I got started a little earlier than usual and had everything wrapped very early. I put the wort in my conical fermenter, but there was no room for it in the chest freezer as the demijohn takes up a ton of space. I'm trying the keep the temperature under control with blue ice bricks. The OG of the stout is only 1.038, so it shouldn't be too estery even if the temperature is a little over the recommended range.

On Sunday, I heated up some water, added some PBW, and cleaned all my brewing equipment. Combined with the cleaning I got done on Wednesday, the whole brewery is shiny clean and ready to go. I'm also stocked up on propane and oxygen. (My hop stash took a big hit, at least as far as diversity is concerned. I still have quite a bit of Cascade and Amarillo hops on hand.) I'm trying to figure out when I'll have time to brew next. I have the ingredients for a four-brew experiment regarding batch vs. fly sparging and would like to get that started soon. But for now, the final entry date for the Austin ZEALOTS Homebrew Inquisition is the 12th and I need to get these beers finished and bottled by then.

So, my patriotic, three-day brew-a-thon yielded an India pale ale, London porter and an Irish stout. Not bad for an Amercian homebrewer.

Pursuit of Hoppiness IPA
(10 gallons, all-grain)
OG = 1.063 FG = 1.014
IBU = 65 SRM = 8 ABV = 6.4%

Ingredients
22 lbs. 2-row pale malt (Briess)
8 oz. crystal malt (40 °L)
2 oz. crystal malt (60 °L)
2 lbs. cane sugar
18 AAU Summit hops (60 mins)
(1 oz. at 18 % alpha acids)
12 AAU Columbus hops (30 mins)
(1 oz. at 12 % alpha acids)
12.8 AAU Cascade hops (15 mins)
(2 oz. at 6.2% alpha acids)
12 AAU Cascade hops (5 mins)
(2 oz. at 6% alpha acids)
2 oz. Ahtanum hops (0 mins)
2 tsp Irish moss (15 mins)
1/2 tsp yeast nutrients( 15 mins)
Wyeast 1056 (American ale) yeast
(3 qt starter at OG 1.020)

Step by Step
Blended 15 gallons of distilled water with 2.5 gallons of tap water to adjust water to 40 ppm carbonate ion and 110 ppm calcium ion. Gypsum addition was 7 tsp. into 17.5 gallons. Mashed at 148 °F for 1 hour. recirculated then ran off mash. Sparged with 190 °F water until the top of the grain bed reaches 170 °F. Then, sparged with 170 °F water. Collected approximately 13 gallons. Boiled for 90 minutes, with hop additions, Irish moss and yeast nutrients added as indicated. Sugar added with 20 minutes left in boil. Cooled with immersion chiller. Siphoned to fermenter and aerated for 2 minutes with oxygen. Fermented at 68 °F. Planning to dry hop with 4 oz. Cascade whole hops.