Feral Chicken Brewery: First Brew

So, the votes are in, and the first brew is going to be a session IPA. I'm pretty excited about it, because I've been wanting to try one for a while. What is a session IPA you ask? IPA's have become one of the most popular beer styles in craft beers. Once people discovered the amazing flavor that hops can provide, it began the arms race to stronger, more bitter beers: Double IPA, Imperial IPA, etc., all with more hop bitterness, but also stronger and with more alcohol. Even the "standard" IPA has crept upwards, from an original strength of around 6.5% to upwards of 7 or 7.5%. These are fantastic beers, loaded with hop flavor, but most of us are going to have trouble drinking more than a couple without becoming inebriated. Enter the "session" beer.

Session beers are "small" (lower-strength) beers that are "drinking-beers". Well-balanced and refreshing. This can be a challenge in an IPA as IPA's are typically "un-balanced", in that there is a higher bitterness-to-original gravity ratio (gravity is a measure of the amount of sugars dissolved into the wort, and is directly related to the final amount of alcohol and/or residual sweetness in the beer). So we're looking to make a lighter beer, but one that still has some hop-bite.

Recipe:
batch size: 8 gal
boil size: 10.34 gal
final bottling volume: 7.6 gal
brewhouse efficiency: 70%
estimated original gravity: 1.051 SG
estimated ABV: 5%
estimated IBU: 60.4
estimated color: 8.1 SRM

Grains:
13 lbs Pale Malt (2 row) US (2.0 SRM)
1.5 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40 SRM)
1.5 lbs Munich Malt (9 SRM)

Hops:
0.8 oz Simcoe (12.9%) - boil 60 min
0.8 oz Simcoe (12.9%) - boil 20 min
0.8 oz Centennial (9%) - boil 15 min
0.8 oz Simcoe (12.9%) - boil 10 min
0.8 oz Centennial (9%) - boil 5 min
1.6 oz Amarillo (8.5%) - dry hop
1.6 oz Citra (12%) - dry hop

Yeast:
American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) - 1.5L starter

Brew Day Photos:

Milling the grain

Orange cooler on the right is the "mash tun".

The grains will soak in hot water in the mash tun for one hour; the specific temperature of the water activates enzymes that convert the starch in the grain to sugar. The sugar is then extracted with more hot water to create "wort".