Paul Bunyan Dark Ale 4/18/2012

Named it Paul Bunyan because it's a Big Beer and will cut you down to size quick lol...

4/18/2012
Brew Day
Too sleepy to be attempting this, keep changing the recipe.

This time I boiled 1.5 gal. water in 2 seperate pots for a total of 3 gal. One in the main kettle for steeping, one for "sparge" water (still dunno if this is necessary since there were no fermentables in the steeping grains this time but did it anyway).

Put all the grains in one bag and steeped @ 155 for 30m. Though the steep started at 160. I brought the temp down during the duration to reduce tannins.

Oh yeah...the odd 60/90 crystal amounts? I didn't have as much 60 as I thought and just topped it off with 90. Originally wanted .5 lb of 60 but if it made much difference I can't tell.

Made sure to tea bag the grains a lot, moving them, spreading them out w/spoon.

Got smart and ditched the stupid colander/strainer set up and placed cookie cooling rack over the top of kettle, allowing the grain bag to lay flat. Poured sparge water slowly thru bag, bringing volume up to 3 gal. (does 170d. water bring out tannins if only rinsing?)

Raised heat, added 3lb. Sparkling Amber DME and 1lb. Pilsner a tad later. Didn't decide on the Pils. till I readjusted #'s accounting for only using steeping grains. Added 60m hop additions. Almost had foam over, but was on top of it.

10m hops were iffy. Scale went wonky on me and sack had a combo of leaf/whole/pellet in 3 varieties. for a total of 2.5 oz. Still don't know the precise amts. of each but not far enough off to matter. I'm just picky.

Chinook was decided on last min. for early and late additions in the hopes of adding some piney notes to all the citrus. We'll see....Added last 3lb. of SparklingAmber DME and 10m. hop additions. All went smoothly. No boil overs. Squeezed hop sacks.

Remembered not to use lid this time (DMS!!) But because of this, lost 1.5 gal. volume due to evap. Within acceptable levels.

Plopped 1oz. Zythos in after turning off the heat and left sack in for maybe first 10m. of ice bath. Squeezed hop sack.
Rehydrated yeast. Only cooled wort to 100d. got tired of waiting. Had to add 3.1 gal. water to bring volume to 5 gal. Pitched yeast @72d.

OG: 1.062
Wort tastes great!

4/19
Fermentation began within 24 hrs. Temp @ 70d.
1" krausen. Healthy!

4/20
House heated up. Checked temp this morning. Hovering between 76-78! Not good. Opened window, turned on fan & placed an ice stick under bucket. Last check temp was firm @ 76d. Still too high tho. Will watch. Used the wet towel/fan method and had the temp down to 72d. in a couple of hours. Now between 68-70 :)

4/26
Roused the yeast twice earlier this week then raised the temp to 74d for a diacetyl rest for about a day. Finally got around to adding the dry hops today. Temp had dropped to 70-72d but back up to 74 today. May let the temp stay there for better utilization of dry hops.

Dry hops:
2oz. Zythos pellets
1oz. Cascade pellets
I always use a weighted hop sack.

5/1
Bottled used 5.6 oz dextrose (want fizz!). I add the sugar water directly to the primary for the sake of simplicity. Stirred at regular intervals so it would be evenly distributed, but with that reasoning then, how do you let the trub settle without the sugar/beer mix being off? Well I decided you don't sooo...got some junk in every bottle, but I figure that will settle to the bottom of the bottle and the stirred up yeasties will aid in carbonation.

Dammit! I FORGOT to take my FG reading!! This is the biggest beer I've brewed and I have no idea how damn big. If the safale 05 attenuated as well as it usually does for me I'd guess the FG was 1.010 giving me an ABV of 6.6!!!

Have chilled and sampled about 4 bottles now over time. First taste was awesome I thought. The roasted malts really shine and aren't too acrid. Would make a lovely malt/SG background for a chocolate stout I think. Now I went way overboard with the hops thinking it would be fine because of the dark malt...well for now it's just a tad too bitter. The aroma is splendid. The head is very nice!

5/24
Sampled another I'd chilled for 24 hrs. and the flavors are smoothing out, with some malt/crystal sweetness coming to the fore finally. Even with all the hop character, I can still almost taste how good cocoa nibs would be in it. I wish I could say which hops shine, if I got the piney notes I wanted with the Chinook etc. but to be honest, my hops palate just isn't that refined yet lol. It's good though! Great hoppy nose too!

One potential problem though and I'm researching high gravity beer carbonation/conditioning now; With a gentle pour, the head shot up half the glass and finally settled at a beautiful, very thick, tan 3 finger head. The head settled further over time but was still present the entire time with nice lacing. It almost looked like whipped cream in the center.
Not very fizzy in on the tongue though. However this sample was only chilled for 24 hours and they are big bottles. Perhaps not enough time for the co2 to be absorbed into the liquid? Headspace issues? Maybe just not conditioned long enough? Dunno....

5/31
Moved batch to fridge. After reading a blog post on this site in fact, about Black IPA's etc. this one seems to have hit all the characteristics on the nose and I am very pleased! Gonna be a good one for drinking over time, seeing how the flavors meld and all that. I only hope I can set a few back to age a wee bit! Cheers!

8/31/2012
Didn't last very long :( By far my favorite home brew attempt. Good enough that I may not change a thing the next time I brew this! Either the bittering hops mellowed a bit or I just got used to it. Either way, there's not much to improve on. Yum!!