Firestone Walker Union Jack Clone

In our first attempt at brewing a "real" IPA and not skimping on any hops, we decided to do a clone of an excellent IPA we both love. Firestone Walker is known for making suberb beers, and Union Jack is no exception. I found this recipe on a homebrewer's blog (BertusBrewing.com) and decided to give it a shot. Union Jack won gold at the GABG in 2008 and 2009, so I figured if we're anywhere in the ball park, this will be an excellent beer.

Recipe  (6 gallons):
12.5 lbs Pale 2-row
2 lbs Munich
10 oz Carapils
3.5 oz Carastan

Mash at 147 for 60 min

Hops:
1 oz Apollo at 75 min
0.5 oz each Cascade/Centennial/Chinook at 30 min
2 oz each Cascade/Centennial at 0 min

Dry Hop #1: 1.5oz each Cascade/Centennial + 0.5 oz Simcoe (3.5 oz total)
Dry Hop #2: 1 oz each Cascade/Centennial + 0.5 oz each Simcoe/Chinook (3 oz total)

Yeast: WY1272

Brewed: 10/22/13
Dry Hop #1: 10/31
Dry Hop #2: 11/5
Kegged: 11/9

OG: 1064
FG: 1009
Alcohol: 7.2%

                           Photo: 13 oz of hops!                                                Photo: 4 oz of hops at 0 min 

The brewday was a relatively smooth with only a couple of hiccups. I was supposed to boil for 90 min, but forgot that when I was doing the water calculations and only planned for a 60 min boil. I split the difference and did a 75 min boil and ended up with a little less beer, but the IBUs were still about the same. My efficiency was a little lower than expected (70% instead of the normal 75%) so I came in about 6 points under on the gravity. I also did a 10 min whirlpool/hop stand and let the 0 min hops sit for 10 min prior to the start of chilling. A lot of the pro breweries like Stone and Firestone Walker use these rests before chilling to get the most out of their flameout hops, so I am going to start doing this regularly as well. 

This brew also employs a 2 part dry hop which I've never done before. Since there are so many hops, I needed to be extra careful to avoid oxidizing the beer and ruining the hop flavors I worked so hard to get in there. I did the first dry hop in the primary and the transferred to a secondary vessel for the second addition. I did not want to do both additions in the same vessel to avoid the volume of hops in one container. Making this one a 6 gallon batch was also very help as I lost a lot of volume due to hop and yeast sludge in the primary fermenter. The extra volume also allowed me to fill up the secondary vessel all the way to the top to have as little surface area as possible exposed to oxygen. 

This is the first batch I've also used gelatin (or any finning agents for that matter) to clear the beer. I added the gelatin about 36 hours prior to kegging to precipitate as much out of the beer as possible. I am hoping that the beer will be a lot clearer earlier with the help of the gelatin as opposed to clearing up after a few weeks in the keg. 

I'll do a tasting post of this one in a couple of weeks when it's had time to carbonate and stabilize in the keg. Hopefully it will be worth the $55 I spent on ingredients! 

#TeamDietrich