I'm starting to think we should have called our rye IPA 'Rye Hard' in honour of most guys' favourite Christmas movie, but it's too late now. If anyone wants to use the idea and run with it (not over broken glass, though), please do. Darkside Ryesing is still an awesome name. Anyway, the mash was uneventful and we won a pair of NHL 12 games, so that was a bonus. Minus one very small mishap that potentially involved a splash of not-great homebrew kolsch getting into the wort, lautering went smoothly. I guess drinking beer while making beer can lead to the occasional mistake.
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| Satellite photograph is getting out of hand; outta my condo, Google! |
Once we had collected approximately 3 gallons of wort, we split it up into two different brew pots. We've decided to try out a secret ingredient (which may or may not be kangaroo), and are interested to find out how it works with our recipe. Both pots got the same hop additions, with one getting the special ingredient with 30 minutes left in the boil. This beer also involved our highest-yet level of micro management with respect hop additions, as we went with two varieties (Northern Brewer and Willamette) that were put into the boil at specified intervals. Even if the rye base doesn't work out, at least we're getting some experience with more complicated hop use; something we can hopefully put to use in our next (non-rye) IPA!
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| Yep, we were surprised it didn't boil over also |
With the two boils done and the wort chiller put into action, we transferred everything but the sludge into two new one-gallon glass jugs. We had been warned that fermentation could get aggressive and plug up an airlock, so we went with a blow-off tube setup. It really makes the entire thing look more like a science experiment, but whatever... I like science.
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| For Science! |
I'm really looking forward to seeing how it turns out, both the base batch and the secret ingredient batch. We'll report back as soon as things develop further.
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