Brew #30: Elevation Fanboy Oak-Aged IPA, October 10, 2015

Here's another one for the "clones of things I've never tried the original of" category.  I had wanted to make an oak-aged IPA so I started browsing recipes online and came across this one on Crafted Pours. I made a change or two since I couldn't get some of the ingredients, and I wanted my oak chips to be bourbon-soaked.

Recipe
Batch Size Target (Actual): 5.25 gal (5.5 gal)
OG Target (Actual): 1.081 (1.072)
FG Target (Actual) : 1.019 (1.016)
Brew House Efficiency Target (Actual) : 69% (63%)
IBUs: 100+
Color: 10.3 SRM
Style: American IPA
Recipe Type: All Grain
Boil Time: 60 minutes

Water:
Carbon filtered York water

Grains:
14 lb US 2-Row
1 lb Cara20L
1 lb Munich
0.50 lb Caramel 60
0.50 lb Cara-Pils

Hops:
1 oz Galena (pellets) @ 60 min.
1/2 oz Simcoe (pellets) @ 30 min.
1/2 oz Galena (pellets) @ 30 min.
1 oz Simcoe (pellets) @ 20 min.
1 oz Citra (pellets) @ 10 min.
1 oz Centennial (pellets) @ 5 min.
1 oz Centennial (pellets) Dry Hop 10 days

Other:
1 Whrilfloc Tab @ 15 min.
2 oz bourbon-soaked oak chips

Yeast:
WLP007 Dry English Ale Yeast

Brewing Notes

10/8/15 - Yeast Starter:
2L starter, with 7 cups of water, 7oz extra light DME, 1/2tsp yeast nutrient, boiled 10 minutes and chilled. I added 2 drops of fermcap to keep this one from making a mess, then set this on my stir plate on medium until brew day. This yeast was very clumpy. Cold crashed and decanted overnight before brew day.

10/10/15 - Brew Day:

• Sanitized (star san) my cold side equipment in the big mouth bubbler primary.
• Heated 21.25 quarts of water with pH 5.2 to 167 F in 8 gallon stainless HLT on outdoor propane burner
• Mashed in in 10 gal Igloo cooler, paddled until everything was well mixed and there were no dough balls.  Mash in temp was 150-151F
• 60 minute mash rest
• 0 minutes: temperature was 150-151F
• 15 minutes: paddled, temperature was 149-150F
• 30 minutes: paddled, temperature was 148-149F
• 60 minutes, temperature was 148F, began vorlauf
• Manual Vorlauf: I run a 2 cup measuring cup full of wort out of the valve and gently pour this on top of the mash.  Then I repeat until I'm satisfied with the clarity.  This takes about 10-15 minutes.
• Ran off and fly sparged with 14.75 quarts of 190F water.
• Measured bre-boil brix of 15.2%, which converted to 1.061, so I missed here by about 5 points.
• Ran until the mash tun was dry, about 30 minutes
• Brought to boil - 60 minute boil time
• Added:
  1 oz Galena (pellets) @ 60 min.
  1/2 oz Simcoe (pellets) @ 30 min.
  1/2 oz Galena (pellets) @ 30 min.
  1 oz Simcoe (pellets) @ 20 min.
  1 Whrilfloc Tab @ 15 min.
  1 oz Citra (pellets) @ 10 min.
  1 oz Centennial (pellets) @ 5 min.
• Chilled to 74F - Immersion wort chiller to 120, then ice bath the rest of the way.
• Siphoned to BMB, I had about 5 1/2 gallons
• Took a refractometer reading of 17.9% Brix which converted to 1.072
• Pitched decanted yeast starter

10/10 - 10/18/15 - Primary Fermentation:
Siphoned to Secondary on 10/18 on top of 2 oz of bourbon-soaked oak chips (see #28). Measured 9% Brix (1.013).

10/18/15 - 11/25/15 - Secondary Fermentation:
Dry hopped on 11/17 with an ounce of Centennial.

11/25/2015 - Bottling:
Bottled 50 12 oz bottles with with 4.2 oz corn sugar, boiled in 2c water.  Final Brix was 9.4% which calculated to 1.016 (7.4%).  I'll write some real tasting notes the next time I drink one.

4/23/16 - Bottle Bomb Update:
First ever.  I'm not sure what happened here, but I went down to the basement and smelled spilled beer. Upon further investigation, I found that one of the stubby bottles (Sierra Nevada) had exploded.  It wasn't a huge mess - it just soaked the cardboard case and dripped on the floor below.  This one has been pouring very foamy recently.  It doesn't taste infected, and the attenuation was around 77% when we bottled.  I'll drink one today and take a gravity sample to see if it has changed a lot in the past 5 months.