A Tale of Two Thermometers... 60min IPA Brewday

It's a glorious day to brew!

I love Dogfish Head's 60minute IPA. It's probably my favorite commercial beer. For those that don't know, DFH invented this technique of continuous hopping... Typically hops are added at timed intervals, bittering hops at the beginning of the boil (60 minutes left) flavor hops in the middle (30 minutes) and aroma hops at the end (5-ish minutes) and you end up with bitterness, flavor, and aroma. With continuous hopping, you add small amounts continuously (every minute or so) throughout the boil. The theory is, you get a nice spectrum of everything the hops have to offer... in my head it's like a hop rainbow... like hop flavored skittles?? but anyway... as far as I know DFH is the only brewery that does this. They have 60, 90, and 120 minute IPAs. My fav is the 60.

This is a beer I like to brew a lot, but I change it up a little bit to my taste. I started with a great DFH 60min clone recipe but I changed up the hops bc I really like the citrus hop flavor and aroma. I nailed it once... but that was before I started keeping detailed notes and a recipe book... ugh. Today I just made a small change. I switched out the Simcoe (very distinct flavor) for Centennial (citrusy flavor/aroma).

I have been wondering about the accuracy of my cheap cooking thermometer that I use to check mash temps.  I was suspect that it read a few degrees high. So when I think I'm mashing at 152, I was probably really in the high 140's. Sounds trivial, but a few degrees can change the attenuation (how much of the sugars actually digested by the yeast) and this affects body of the final beer. So I figured I would compare with the thermocouple on my electrical meter (what I used to use).

I set up both, side by side for the mash. The cooking thermometer was reading 5 degrees higher... ok... good to know. 

So I left it there with my electrical meter showing 155 (which I trusted) and the cooking thermometer reading 159 (kinda disregarding), so I rolled with it. 

I come back 30 minutes later, the cooking therm still says 159, but the elec meter is now saying 163... wtf??? 

I admit, I panicked... I got a quart and a half of cold tap water, dumped it in, and stirred... Now, cooking therm 149, elec meter 146... WTF??? 

So... I added a quart of boiling water and stirred... cooking therm 152, elec meter 149... ugh. Fiine... I'll just leave it...

What did I learn? Two things... I should trust the laws of physics (they are for realz)... and I need a decent thermometer... Well... it is what it is... this beer will probs end up super dry and maybe lacking body, but I can tell myself that its "crisp and refreshing"...

Just a cool pic... here you can see the extreme color difference between the first runnings (in the pot) and the first sparge (in the blue measuring cup) as I vorlauf (recirculate to keep the grain material out of the boil)

The rest of the brewday was pretty uneventful... I did my 60minute boil, which seems so quick since I've been doing 90's so much lately... I did the continuous hopping thing, couldn't really multitask or walk away from it, so I took advantage and  grabbed a little zen... 

After the boil, I started the chiller and started the clean up. I came back a little while later and noticed this super cool formation of the break material as it settled... looked like a column in the middle of the chiller...

Tried to show the break material that had settled, then stirred it up... then really stirred it up to get an "accurate" (total sarcasm) temp reading on the chilling...

Took my gravity reading 1.065 (corrected for temp), my volume ended up a little high at 5.75 gallons instead of 5.5 so that puts efficiency at 78%? totally respectable...

Here's my gravity sample... you can see the break material settled out. This gives a good idea of the color (and hopefully the clarity?) of the finished product...

Also... I took another sample of the Saison... to check clarity and see how the flavor is coming along... I was surprised to see the gravity has dropped to 1.000... so redic... the aroma is supergreat... I'll be kegging this this week bc I can't wait to see what it tastes like carbed up...

That's it for today... going to see the fireworks tonight, then back to work tomorrow... but oh! I'm going to NYC on Tuesday! My first time! I've lived in New England for 30 years and I've never been, lame amirite??Psyched!! Later...