{"id":83,"date":"2012-07-07T19:14:02","date_gmt":"2012-07-07T19:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/brew\/?p=83"},"modified":"2013-01-20T22:59:03","modified_gmt":"2013-01-20T22:59:03","slug":"batch-2-full-moon-half-caf-ipa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/brew\/batch-2-full-moon-half-caf-ipa\/","title":{"rendered":"Full Moon Half-Caf IPA (batch 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Started my second batch on June 3, 2012. I went with the Brewer’s Best India Pale Ale ingredient kit<\/a> this time, IPA generally being my and my wife’s favorite style. Some unknown spirit must have possessed me at the final moment of brewing, because I felt the urge to add coffee into the mix. The Brewer’s Best ingredient kits are assuredly great (not just some pre-hopped malt extract, but with mixes of different grains, separate bittering and aroma hops, and all you need and want in one box). Something inside me, though, compels me to experiment. Mayhaps the light of the full moon spurred my impulse to introduce coffee into the brew. What I reached for was, of course, my preferred daily grinds — Chicago’s own Stewarts Coffee<\/a>. Half caffeinated, half decaf, per my usual morning routine.<\/p>\n

The Brewer’s Best IPA kit included the following ingredients and supplies:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. 6.6 lbs (3 kg) Munton’s light malt extract<\/li>\n
  2. 1 lb (454 g) light spray malt extract<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. 1 lb (454 g) crushed Caramel 40L malted barley*<\/li>\n
  4. 8 oz (226.8 g) crushed Victory malted barley*<\/li>\n
  5. 1.5 oz (42.52 g) Columbus bittering hops, 15.2% alpha acid**<\/li>\n
  6. 2 oz (56.7 g) Cascade bittering hops, 6.4% alpha acid**<\/li>\n
  7. 1 oz (28.35 g) Cascade aroma hops, 6.4% alpha acid**<\/li>\n
  8. 1 packet (0.388 oz, 11 g) Lallemand Nottingham dried ale yeast***<\/li>\n
  9. 5 oz (141.75 g) priming corn sugar (for bottle conditioning)<\/li>\n
  10. 60 bottle caps<\/li>\n
  11. A mesh grain bag (like a cheap stocking not suitable for reuse)<\/li>\n
  12. 1 double-sided sheet of brewing instructions<\/li>\n
  13. Miscellaneous things. Thank you Inspector #9.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    *See John Palmer’s How to Brew<\/em>, chapter 12.1, “Malt Types” for concise malt definitions.<\/a>
    \n**See     John Palmer’s How to Brew<\/em>, chapter 5.3, “Hop Types” for brief hop descriptions.<\/a>
    \n***See     John Palmer’s How to Brew<\/em>, chapter 6.4.1, “Dry Yeast Strains” for description.<\/a><\/p>\n

    That’s a Strong Cuppa!<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>When I was resolved to take the plunge and introduce some coffee into the batch, I referred to my copy of Charlie Papazian\u2019s The Complete Joy of Home Brewing, 3rd edition<\/em><\/a>, which suggests on page 96 to steep 0.5 lb (225 g) of ground coffee in the hot wort during the final 5 minutes before sparging. That’s fancy talk for putting the grounds in the hot brew for 5 minutes after you turn off the stove, and then remove the grounds and other crud by straining. I simply added the coffee grounds to the grain bag (my Morebeer.com Personal Home Brewery<\/a> came complete with 2 reusable mesh grain bags) together with the aroma hops, so there was no significant sparging required.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>
    \n “Black as midnight, black as pitch, blacker than the foulest witch.<\/em>”
    \nRemoving the grain bags and cooling the wort.<\/em><\/p>\n

    In retrospect, that was WAY TOO MUCH COFFEE! After tasting the cooled wort, all I could taste was extra-strong syrupy coffee (syrupy, naturally, because the malt sugars hadn’t turned into alcohol yet). I was worried this batch would simply taste like carbonated espresso (which may not be a bad thing to some people). But always press on!<\/p>\n