Pay Day IPA

A little background first. When I finally got a new job I used the first pay check I received to go buy home brew ingredients to brew my second ever batch. This is origin of the beer’s name.  This beer was brewed using the steep method.  I also used hop pellets. I wanted to use whole hop leafs for the dry-hopping; however, my local homebrew store (LHS) did not have any of the hops I needed in whole form. (based on Surly Furious)

• OG:1.067
• FG:1.017
• 6.7% ABV
• 80.4 IBU
• 16 degree SRM

Ingredients
         %   LB  OZ       Malt or Fermentable

• 68% 6    8    Muntons Light Liquid Malt Extract
• 16% 1    8    Golden Promise
• 8%   0   12   Crystal 60L
• 7%   0   10   Belgian Aromatic
• 1%   0    2    Roasted Barley

            use           time          oz             variety   form    %aa

• first wort   60+ mins    0.5           Ahtanum pellet    6.0
• boil            60 mins      1.25        Warrior    pellet    15.0
• boil             1 min         0.25        Ahtanum  pellet    6.0
• boil             1 min         0.25        Simcoe     pellet    13.0
• boil             1 min         0.25        Amarillo    pellet    7.0
• boil             1 min         0.25        Warrior     pellet   15.0
• dry hop      7 days        0.25        Amarillo     leaf      7.0
• dry hop      7 days        0.25        Simcoe      leaf     13.0
• dry hop      7 days       0.125       Magnum    leaf     14.0
• dry hop      7 days        0.25        Ahtanum    leaf     6.0

Yeast
Wyeast British Ale II (1335)

Extras

• boil 30 min 1tsp Irish Moss
• boil 15 min 1tsp Yeast Nutrient
• 2.8 oz corn sugar for priming

Instructions
Steep the grains in a grain bag for 45 minutes at 152 degrees F. After the grains have been steeped bring to a boil and follow the hop schedule. In the last 15 minutes add in the liquid malt extract.  Cool to 70 degrees topped off with 3 gallons of water to bring the total to 5 gallons and pitch yeast onto wort. Then I shook the carboy to aerate. Allow for primary fermentation for about two weeks then rack to a secondary and dry hop for a week. Rack to a bottling bucket and add sanitized priming sugar, then bottle or rack to a keg if you have one. Allow for two weeks of priming, then enjoy. 

Tasting notes
A little grassy and a little magnum hop forward. Next time I will probably add the finishing hops earlier and at different times to maybe add a little hop complexity. I think I also left the buttering hop in the kettle too long, since this was before I had a wort chiller. The beer is gorgeous looking though, dark red with brown hues. It has crazy head retention, which is an off white color. It is a little over carbonated, since I didn’t measure the priming sugar and used a whole pack (about 5oz, oops), laziness (thinking back I can’t believe I was lazy when I spent all this time brewing it). The mouthfeel is very effervescent. It’s not a bad beer by any means and it should be much better now that I have a larger kettle and am doing all-grain beers.