Back on the wagon: Jalopy 4 IPA

Well, I've been meaning to startup this blog again for a while. I won't bother going through all that's happened in the last almost 2 years, so back to the beer!

First very important thing. The 'brewery' has a name! Crooked Mouth Brewing. Why Crooked Mouth? Well, my last name means crooked mouth, and I find it an amusingly appropriate name for a beer.

Now that my wife and I are settled into our new jobs and area, the I can spend some time on brewing. So what's going? Well, my first attempt at an IPA a while back didn't turn out well (not enough malt, so it tasted like a hop-tea), so it's time to try again.

One of my favorite beers in San Diego was Bear Republic's Racer 5.
And since it's not easily found in Denver, I went searching for a clone recipe. I found one, but it got changed around due to 1) leftovers I had on hand and 2) hop substitutions due to what my brewshop had (also limited by the hop shortage).
Without further adieu, the recipe.

Jalopy 4:

0.5 # of 2-row
0.5 # of Catastan 20 (15 lovibond)
0.25 # of Carapils
5.5 # Pale LME
3.0 # Munich LME (Amber malt extract)
1.5 # Wheat LME
0.25 # Turbinado Sugar (organic, raw cane sugar)

6.25 AAU Centennial (10% AA) for 90 min boil
8.9 AAU Amarillo (8.9% AA) for 60 min boil

Dry-hopped:
0.375 oz Centennial (10%)
0.25 oz Magnum (13%)
0.75 oz Cascade (whole leaf hops, old in my case, 7.6%)

Steep grains at 155F for 45 min. Etc, etc.

My starting gravity was 1.082! Racer 5 is supposed to start at 1.070. I probably didn't add enough water, but oh well. Why Jalopy 4? Well, it's my slapped together (Jalopy) version of Racer 5 with 4 different hops.
The foam was pushing the top of my 3 gal stockpot for almost the entire boil... I was blowing on it so much to keep it from boiling over (failed once) that I was light-headed for the last 15 min of boiling.

The fermenter is bubbling away as we speak. I hope it turns out better than my last IPA.

More to come! I promise!

Cheers!