Brewday : Fat Rabbit IPA

Made up a beer today, due to the fact I have over a kilo of mixed Challenger/Redsell's Eastwell Goldings hops all bagged up I decided to do a big hopped IPA hence the name Fat Rabbit (Big Hopped)

At the same time I thought I would give the BeerSmith software a trial as version 2 now supports BIAB. I started out doing a SmAsH beer (Single Malt & Single Hop), but I wanted a bit more colour to the beer so added a little black and crystal malt bringing the EBC value to around 20.

The BeerSmith software is quite easy to used so I banged in the grain bill to make up a IPA at around 6% ABV, added the hops in pretty much a hap hazard way to give me quite a high bitterness value and ended up with the recipe you see below apart from where it just says Challenger it is in fact my Challenger/Goldings mix.

Fat Rabbit IPA

English IPA (14 A)

Created with BeerSmith

Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 23.00 l
Boil Size: 34.49 l
Boil Time: 90 min
End of Boil Vol: 27.23 l
Final Bottling Vol: 21.60 l
Fermentation: Ale, Single Stage

Date: 16 Sep 2014
Brewer:  Simon
Asst Brewer:
Equipment: Electric Urn (10 Gal/40 L) - BIAB
Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 79.7 %
Taste Rating: 30.0

Taste Notes:

Ingredients

Amt	Name	Type	#	%/IBU
6.90 kg	Pale Ale (Crisp) (7.9 EBC)	Grain	1	98.6 %
0.07 kg	Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (157.6 EBC)	Grain	2	1.0 %
0.03 kg	Black (Patent) Malt (985.0 EBC)	Grain	3	0.4 %
50.00 g	Challenger [7.50 %] - First Wort 90.0 min	Hop	4	42.2 IBUs
10.00 g	Challenger [7.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min	Hop	5	7.2 IBUs
10.00 g	Challenger [7.50 %] - Boil 30.0 min	Hop	6	5.5 IBUs
1 Items	Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins)	Fining	7	-
25.00 g	Challenger [7.50 %] - Cube Hop	Hop	8	3.3 IBUs

Gravity, Alcohol Content and Color

Est Original Gravity: 1.067 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.020 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.2 %
Bitterness: 58.1 IBUs
Est Color: 19.1 EBC

Measured Original Gravity: 1.058 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Actual Alcohol by Vol: 6.3 %

Calories: 543.1 kcal/l

Mash Profile

Mash Name: BIAB, Full Body
Sparge Water: -0.00 l
Sparge Temperature: 75.6 C
Adjust Temp for Equipment: TRUE

Total Grain Weight: 7.00 kg
Grain Temperature: 18.0 C
Tun Temperature: 22.2 C
Mash PH: 5.20

Mash Steps

Name	Description	Step Temperature	Step Time
Saccharification	Add 34.77 l of water at 73.5 C	68.9 C	90 min
Mash Out	Heat to 75.6 C over 7 min	75.6 C	10 min

Mash Notes: Brew in a bag method where the full boil volume is mashed within the boil vessel and then the grains are withdrawn at the end of the mash. No active sparging is required. This is a full body beer profile.

 

My Notes

The BeerSmith software was bang on with the volumes of water I needed for the Mash, it suggested I needed 34.771 litres of water in the Boiler before I added the grains, I added 35 litres just for ease of measuring. It left me with hardly any dead-space after the grains where rained into the hot water for the Mash.

Did my usual 90 min Mash with a stir at the 45 min stage with a quick reheat to get the temperature back to 66'C as it had dropped to 65'C at that point.

After lifting the grain bag at the end of the Mash, BeerSmith said I needed to add water to make the Pre-Boil volume 34.49 litres so I did pretty much as I was told and added 3 litres of water which the brought my Pre-Boil volume back up to 35 litres.

I checked my Pre-Boil SG and it was bang on what BeerSmith said it would be 1.051. So far so good.

Chucked in my FWH (50g) and got on with the boil. After the boil was done and the Hops all added , turned off the heat and whirlpooled and let the Wort settle for 10 min then drained the Wort from the boiler onto 25g of hops in the No-Chill cube.

This is where I don't understand the BeerSmith figures, as BeerSmith says that I should of had a Post Boil Vol of 27.23 litres and a SG of 1.067 ? Well 1.067 would give me a a AVB of around 7.5% but my measured SG post-boil was 1.058 which is pretty much where it should be to hit a 6% ABV beer so I'm not quite sure where BeerSmith got those figures from as on the Design Tab it reads at 6.2% ABV.

Yet the Post-Boil volume was quite close, 27.23 litres was the BeerSmith value, and when I transferred the Hot Wort into the No-Chill cube it came up to the 25 litre mark, so 2.23 litres different. Well I added a bit more water post-boil, to that bring the discrepancy down to  about 1.7 litres and with the 70g of Hops soaking up a fair bit I reckon it's pretty much bang on.

I'll have to do some research into the post-boil SG's and Pre-Boil SG's in BeerSmith.

Right now the Sweet Wort is sat in the No-Chill cube ready for when I get a chance to ferment it into Beer