Gordon's Place

On the Brew Sheet for today at the KleinHerz Brewery, “Flight of the Kiwi IIPA”. I’d wanted to try a double IPA for a while. This is a kit from Wine and Hop Shop, our friendly and fully stocked local purveyor. This beer has the potential to be huge, described as, “brewed with all New Zealand hops, expect a citrusy hop character atop a decent malt backbone followed by a fairly dry finish”.  Three grains (Munich, Caramel and Victory malts) will steep in the brew pot, a total of 9 pounds of malt extracts will end up in the pot, and a whopping 5 ozs of hops will go into the brew (Moteuka, Pacific Jade), with 2 more ozs dry-hopped in at about two weeks. Estimated ABV comes in at 8.2% which for the KH Brewery would be second only to a Trappist brew we did in 1998 which was in the the low double-digit range, a few bottles of which we have stashed in the cellar, still getting better with age.

I think it’s time to crack open a bottle of last year’s Black Earth Porter, perfect on a day like today, and get this kettle on the boil.

Black Earth Porter is on the brew sheet for today.

Ingredients

This brew will have more than 3 1/2 lbs of mixed steeping grains, 1 lb of liquid extract and 1 lb of dry extract. Estimated O.G. = 1.061.

Steeping grains

Sparging the grains with water at 170 F. Get all of that grain-rich liquid into the wort!

Sparge

And now, 7 lbs. of liquid extract go into the pot.

Then add 1 lb. dry malt extract.

In goes 1/2 oz. Chinook hops…

Leaving a frothing wort at around 200 F.

Then on to a 60 minute boil, adding another 1/2 oz. of Chinook hops at 50 minutes plus 1/2 oz. of Fuggles hops at the same time.

After the boil, in goes the wort chiller to bring it to yeast-pitching temperature.

Wort chiller

And, when the wort is just right, in goes the yeast!

Next step: into the secondary fermenter after 5-7 days. More work for the yeast, and then it’s bottling day.