Out of the Cold, Into the Bold
Brewpublic’s Marc Demeule and his homebrewing friends had a one of a kind brewing session, in extreme conditions of the Quebec winter.
We decided to brew an extreme IPA with all the leftover hops we had. For a 50 liter batch, we included 20,8 oz of whole and pellet hops. We also threw in all of our leftover home grown hops (maybe a half pound of Mt Hood). With an anticipated 140,9 IBU, according to ProMash, we only expected something that could be drinkable, but extreme too. If you want the complete recipe, just e-mail me.
The particularity of that brewing session was that we had -10ºC in the garage and the vapour generated created condensation that could contaminate when cooling. Let’s say that when a functional ventilation system is added to the garage, it will be better. Insulating the mash tun is also necessary to keep a constant temperature. The funniest thing was when we realized that we had no water to cool our beer. Frozen pipes! Even with a torch, no water from the outdoor access. It is so nice to live in a Nordic weather country. A brand new home garden hose bought at the nearest hardwork center saved our batch by hanging from the ceiling to finally chill the beer (and the entire house) for a little while. Always brew when you’re wife is gone to avoid problems…
The result is a double IPA, 8%. Amber, good foam holding. The cereal taste is present, enough to balance the taste for few seconds before you feel and explosion of hops, resinous, herbal taste. It will never possible to brew that again, but we will appreciate it down to the last drop.
Santé.
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The human palate can only detect hop bitterness up to about 90-95 IBU’s. You just wasted a whole bunch of hops for no reason. This is about as ridiculous as the closing ceremony of the winter Olympics.
I’ver never heard that fact about bitterness and human palate. Please provide me the reference. Next time, we will just split it in two batches… You see, every brewing session, we do learn something.
Bucktooth, you are over shooting. It’s actually in the 70 IBU range. And, get over the Olympics. Canada’s hockey team is clearly better.
70 IBU’s? OK, that’s even much lower than I read.
I don’t watch hockey, glad the Canadians won. US/Canada? I don’t really care. I just really thought the Closing Ceremony was like watching a half ass Disneyland parade. 🙂
Ha ha. Yeah I hear you. I say if the world wants to cure poverty, just pass on the Olympics and donate all that wasted money to charity.
“Brew when your wife is gone to avoid problems.” Heh.
Since you’re using homegrown hops, show off your beer in our “Grow Your Own” roundup this month. To participate, find the details here:
http://chezannies.blogspot.com/2010/03/announcing-grow-your-own-40.html