Firstone Walker Union Jack Clone

Back to the brewing network's "Can You Brew It". I love this show. I managed to get some fresh Union Jack when I was in San Francisco back in October. I remember thinking it was pretty awesome, though I can't remember anything specific about now. I just decided it's time I did a west coast IPA style beer and this recipe looks the goods.

I'm still working on the new setup. Efficiency (63%) was quite poor once again. I think this is coming from two places:

1. My blichman autosparge is returning wort via a silicon hose, which is causing a whirlpooling effect. This is causing an obvious channelling problem. I need to rethink how to return wort and sparge. 
2. I'm collecting wort far too quickly in the sparging process.

I've removed the stainless braid from my kettle output. As I mentioned in the last post it was getting hopelessly clogged with a medium hop bill, it wouldn't have any chance with this hop bill. Also it was interfering with whirlpooling by effectively drawing wort from the whole of the outside rim. Now I've just got a simple pickup tube with no filter of any kind. It worked quite well, with a decent trub cone developing through simple whirlpooling and I was able to drain all but about 2.5L from the kettle without getting a lot of hop debris in the chiller.

So even though my mash efficiency was the same as the last brew, my brewhouse efficiency was way up. I'm half way there I guess. I ended up with an OG of 1.063, 7 points off the CYBI recipe, but only 3 off the recipe in Mitch Steele's IPA book, so I'm hopeful I'll still end up with something pretty good.

I'm a little worried about my starter. It was a 2.5L stirred starter of WLP007. The starter beer had a very slight sour edge, and I was sorely tempted to throw the whole thing out. Then I found this post on homebrewtalk.com, and decided it was probably ok. Now I'm not so sure. I guess we'll find out.

Despite the slight disappointment with mash efficiency, and being another night time brew, the whole thing went really smoothly. I think this was due in large part to creating a job list before hand. I hadn't done this before, but it really helped keep any panic at bay. Here it is:

Recipe:

Firestone Union Jack



Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                          Origin        Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 82.0     6.30 kg.  Pale Ale Malt (2-row)         Australia      1.037      2
 11.7     0.90 kg.  Munich Malt I                 Germany        1.037      6
  4.9     0.38 kg.  CaraPils                      Germany        1.033      2
  1.3     0.10 kg.  CaraMalt                      UK             1.035     34

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

   Amount     Name                              Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 29.00 g.     Warrior                           Pellet  14.70  55.5  60 min.
 16.00 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   7.90   8.4  30 min.
 21.00 g.     Centennial                        Pellet   9.00  12.5  30 min.
 52.00 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   7.00   0.0  0 min.
 52.00 g.     Centennial                        Pellet  10.50   0.0  0 min.
 44.00 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   5.75   0.0  Dry Hop
 44.00 g.     Centennial                        Pellet  10.50   0.0  Dry Hop
 30.00 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   5.75   0.0  Dry Hop
 30.00 g.     Centennial                        Whole   10.50   0.0  Dry Hop
 14.00 g.     Amarillo Gold                     Pellet  10.00   0.0  Dry Hop
 14.00 g.     Simcoe                            Pellet  13.00   0.0  Dry Hop


Yeast
-----

WLP007 


Mash Schedule
-------------

Mash Type: Multi Step


Saccharification Rest Temp :  63  Time:  60
Mash-out Rest Temp :          68  Time:  10
Sparge Temp :                 78  Time:  30


All temperature measurements are degrees Celsius.

Rogue Dead Guy (Can You Brew It)

I recently spent a week in San Francisco where I drank some incredibly good beer. Best of all was Rogue Dead Guy on draught at the Rogue pub.

I had tried some rogue beers here in oz several years ago, but had not been impressed. Like many imported american beers at the time, they had been badly treated and didn't give a realistic impression of the quality of the beer. The situation has improved considerably since then, with chilled shipping being the most important factor.

Anyhow, I just had to have a go at this beer, and I'm trying the 'Can you brew it' recipe. We're looking for quite a high OG here. Not a big deal in a multi-vessel set up, but with brew in a bag this can be tricky. A slightly high mash temperature will also reduce our potential raw wort gravity.

I recirculated this mash for 75 minutes at 67C, then did a mash out at 75C for 20 minutes. A small additional step was to rinse the grains with about 3L of ~75C water after removing the grain bag from the mash vessel. During the boil I kept an eye on the refractometer readings and ended the boil when I got a reading of 17.25ish. This translates to and SG of 1.067 and my hydrometer later confirmed this.

This was chilled and immediately had 22g of rehydrated Safale US-05 pitched to it. Tried to get Pacman, it's my favourite yeast for lots of brews, so it would have been nice to be able to use it for a Rogue clone. Unfortunately there was none to be found. Fermentation is quite vigorous and is taking place at 17C. Can't wait to get this one on tap.

Here's the recipe, I've subbed Saaz for Sterling and added a little nugget to bump up the IBUs to my desired level (~45):

Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                          Origin        Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 67.4     5.14 kg.  Pale Ale Malt (2-row)         Australia      1.037      2
 22.8     1.74 kg.  Munich Malt (Bolander)        USA            1.036     10
  9.8     0.75 kg.  Simpsons Crystal Pale                 UK             1.035     34

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

   Amount     Name                              Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  5.00 g.     Nugget                            Whole   13.00   8.2  75 min.
 40.00 g.     Perle                             Pellet   6.30  34.8  75 min.
 40.00 g.     Saaz                         Pellet   3.00   0.0  0 min.

2 x packets of Safale US-05