Finally a beer I am real happy with

[Michael]

Right now, I am drinking quite possibly the best beer I have ever made. Having learnt something from the recipe Stu gave me, I decided to get a bit adventurous, but try to stay fairly balanced. This is a Black IPA with Magnum at 60, and Cascade throughout the boil, and a damn big Sauvin dry hop.

The dirty little secret is that I left this in the primary for almost four weeks, and the dry hop for nearly two weeks. No autolysed yeast. In all fairness, I did make a yeast starter, and added oxygen to the wort before pitching. My poor wife had to put up with me cooling the whole house down to 20, so I could keep a stable temp. I guess I need to make a fermenting chamber of some sort to control temps, and not cool the whole house. (Although I like it down to 20, seems right comfortable.)

Oh, and this is the first beer I kegged. I had a bugger of a time getting the damn thing to seal. Is this normal? 

 

I have my hop smile on tonight. :D

[Dunc]

It's a great feeling all right. And when you nail the brew a second time as well...an even bigger smile. 

The other great feeling is when a great beer starts to get better and better in the bottle. Congrats.

[jt]

cooling the whole house down to 20

 

Mate, I could cope with that - enjoy !

[Duncan]

mmm, sounds great.  Would you consider posting the full recipe?

[Michael]

 I mashed for 60 minutes at 68, and used the hope schedule listed above. The yeast was Wyeast 1056.

92% Global Pilsner

5% Crystal 90L

3% carafa II

.25% Chocolate

 

Wyeast 1056

Hops as above.

 

I want to play with the grain a bit and see how it works. The beer is still to bitter for my wife, but I love it. It is currently coming out at around 75IBU. Smells of Pineapple and grapes, and tastes a bit citrusy. Surprisingly, the Chocolate is not coming out as much as I expected.

[Michael]

Err...much less than .25%. I need to get my recipe off of the computer at the house when I get back later this week.

[bart]

Nice work Michael. It sounds like a very similar recipe to one of my favourite beers from our most recent Dunedin Crate Swap - Brett's 'Cascadian Dark Ale'. It was delicious!

 

With this being the first beer you've kegged you might find that you have entered into a new world of excellent beer. I have found that the ease of sanitising a single keg as opposed to many bottles probably ups the chances of getting a clean brew as a finished result. Not to mention the joys of keg conditioning.

 

As for the seal on the keg, yes they are sometimes problematic. You can buy replacement O rings for under $10 which can often help. Otherwise, I have found that different kegs have subtle differences in the shape of the top so if you have more than one keg, try swapping the lids around until you find a combination that works. In general I find that an initial burst of high pressure (say 40psi) helps form a good seal really pushing the lid up and the you can drop the pressure back down again for carbing and conditioning.