Saturday, July 20, 2013

Black IPA on Deck

Just finished kegging the Black IPA and added the 3 ounces of dry hop: 2 oz Simcoe, 1 oz Centennial.  The re-used yeast did a good job and this one clocks in at 6.9% alcohol. The uncarbonated sample tasted pretty good. Very smooth, a good level of roastiness, but not as bitter as I imagined. We'll see how bitter it is when it is carbonated and cold, but I am looking forward to tasting this one in a couple of weeks.

The make sure we get the most out of the dry hop (and because we finally have a full kegerator) I am not going to start fully carbonating this batch yet. This time I will give the dry hops about 4 days at room temp to infuse into the beer. Hopefully this will allow for more character into the beer early on as compared to the Panda Watch Pale Ale in which the dry hops were added right before it was put into the fridge at 38. The colder it is, the longer the hop oils will take to diffuse throughout the beer. By giving a few days at room temp, hopefully we'll jump start that process and have more aroma when we start drinking it.

No future brews planned yet, but it will have to be something light in color as we have 3 beers of the darker persuasion on right now (Schwarz, Black IPA, and Dubbel). Maybe another pale ale, or we'll try our hand at a Witbier. We'll see.

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