Love at First Wort Hop

Welcome Back to OFF THE HINGE BREWING!  Tracey and I made our Valentine's Day IPA.  We call it, 'My Funny Little IPA,' although there is nothing little or funny about this Imperial Pale.

Pacman Yeast Starter

I hate to admit this, and many may dismiss me as a fool?  I have never made a yeast starter, yes it is true.  I know how outlandish this seems, but I have always had good success with the Wyeast Smack Packs.  Why do the extra work?  Well, no longer will I follow this mode of thinking.  I realize that it is fine to make good beer, but it takes a lot of time and effort.  I don't want to waste my time on good beer.  I want to waste my time on excellent beer.  I have come to the conclusion that making a yeast starter may be one of the easiest things I have ever done.  The lag time for this beer has been cut by about 3/4 the time it usually takes for fermentation to start up.  This will aid the beer by not allowing off flavors to set in.  That being said lets move on.
  

Hop schedule 

I just finished a great book written by, Stan Hieronymus, "For the Love of Hops."  This is a must read for hop heads!  I am always looking for ways to improve my brewing practices.  I decided to try an old German practice, "First Wort Hopping."  This practice involves adding a large sum of aroma hops into the boil pot as the wort is being transfered from the lauter tun.  This is unfortunately where I made a mistake, however, I hope it does not adversely affect the beer.  It says to use 30% of the total amount of hops used during the boil when applying the first wort method, however I used about 12%.  The goal is to give your beer more IBU's with a more rounded bitterness without the harshness that sometimes comes with high IBU's.  It also aids with aroma, which seems counterintuitive because one would think that it would be boiled out.  Jean-Marie Rock of Orval Trappist has found that aromas do carry over.  These aromas are more subtle and crisp, whereas late additions often times have a vegetative aroma, which can be unwelcome.  I can't wait to find out how this beer will taste!

Here is our list of Ingredients for those that are interested.

After the mash

Angel Dust IPA

HOPS
 1 oz of Warrior
.5 oz of Magnum
 2 oz of Cascade
 1 oz of Amarillo
 2 oz of Citra
.25 oz of Mosaic

GRAINS
 10 lbs of Pale Malt 2-row
 2.5 lbs of Marris Otter

Labor of love

 12 oz of Melanoidin Malt
 8 oz of Cara-Pils
 8 oz of Crystal 60 L

                                     YEAST
                                      Starter of Pacman 1764 Wyeast

Droppin it like it's hop