2015/06/22 Imperial Blind Pig

Made a starter the NEW way. 4500ml of filtered water with 1# DME and it made a good amount of yeast. Totally foamed over though.

Had to take a quart or so of liquid out of the mash tun to fit all the grain! Rests as noted but also mashed out at 168 for 10 minutes

Sparged well. First Runnings were 1.080 final were 1.026. Preboil gravity 1.071. Used about 7g. sparge water this time.

Boiled 75 minutes w/ hop additions as shown, but also 1 ounce of Galaxy in the whirlpool with the others. Chilled the normal way to 71° and pitched immediately.

Dry hopped with 1 Cascade .5 Amarillo .5 Galaxy. I dryhopped all that at once for 4 days. Mark did half that mixture for 4 days each. His was much more dryhopped tasting!

Original gravity was around 1.078. Huge activity 12 hours later. Fermented out to about in around days - cold crashed for another and then kegged with dry hops. Purged w/CO2 and bubbled up once it was sealed to 30#.

Big flavor, nice caramel notes, good level of bitterness for size of beer, good hop flavor and aroma, especially in Mark's. Just a hint of higher alchohols, warming but not obtrusive. It's a win!

Paul is worrying a month after tapping that it is starting to go the way of the infected ESB...more soon...nah...too much worrying. Still drinking this 3 months after brewing and it's fine - all good!

And still after 5 months!! And now it is just nectar. Full stop. No infection, no degradation, just aged strong IPA - bright clear orange color. Brew this again! Maybe a tad less bitter for me, and with Mark's dry-hopping (2 stage) schedule.