Pink October - RED IPA Recipe

Beer of the Month Program

October 2020 - Pink October

One of the best parts about making beer (aside from drinking it) is the social aspect. Brewers love to swap recipes, discuss what well or horribly wrong in their brews. We thought it would be a fun idea to start a beer conversation here. We're going to make a beer every month here and encourage other brewers to make it as well. In the end, we're hoping we can share our opinions and experiences with the recipe and crowd-source some improvements. The recipes will be easy to make and we will gladly assist new home brewers in the production of these beers. They will all be 5.5 gallons in size. We find that after fermenting and racking a 5.5 gallon batch turns into a standard 5 gallon batch pretty quickly.

At the start of every month we will post the recipe in store, as well as on our website, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We will also have a set price for the recipe that will include a discount of up to 25%!

Pink October

RED IPA – 5.5 Gal - OG 1.053 – FG 1.011– ABV 5.5% - IBU 50 – SRM 13

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This is a beer we have been wanting to make for a long time, and October is the PERFECT month for it.

Pink October is a Red IPA made with a couple of very unique ingredients. First the grain, Red X is a special malt made by Bestmalz in Germany. This is both a base malt and a specialty malt. The super cool thing about this grain is that it can make up 100% of the grist, and if it does it delivers a beautiful red colour. It can be really tough to nail a red colour in beer, it’s so easy to have a beer go amber, or brown in colour – Red X practically guarantees a red beer. We love using it.

Next, the hops. Pink Boots is an annually made hop blend by the Pink Boots Society, a global nonprofit organization dedicated to women in the brewing profession. 2019s blend is a delicious combination of tropical fruit, citrus, and pine. Ideal for a semi malt forward West Coast IPA.  We’ve been using these hops all year in our personal brews and thought it was high time we got it in a Beer of the Month.

The finished beer has a strong malt forward profile from the Red X, balanced out with the strong tropical fruit and pine flavours from the hops. The Hornindal Kveik yeasts enhances the fruit profile to boot. All in all, this is a great all-around IPA for everyone.

Why is October the perfect month for this beer? Well it happens to be Breast Cancer Awareness Month. We will be donating all the net proceeds from the sale of this month’s beer to Canadian Cancer Society.

A special note on hop additions. This recipe has almost zero hops added in the boil. Only the ½ ounce of Columbus is added during the boil, the rest are added once the heat is turned off. Please pay special attention to the instructions and timing of adding hops as this is where the great balance of hop flavour and aroma come from!

Ingredients

Grains

• RED X - 11LBs

Hops 

• Columbus (15% A.A.) x 0.5oz @ 30
• Pink Boots (12.4% A.A.) - 2.0 oz @ FLAMEOUT - 10 minutes, do NOT cool
• Pink Boots (12.4% A.A.) - 2.0oz @ 10 minutes at 165°F/74°C
• Pink Boots (12.4% A.A.) - 4.0oz DRY HOP -> Final 2 days before bottling.  

Yeast

• Hornindal Kveik

Extras (Must be purchased separately)

• Gypsum - add 3/4 tsp at mash in, enhances the hop bitterness and aroma. 
• Irish Moss - add 1 tsp at final fifteen minutes for improved clarity
• DME/Dextrose - 150g at bottling for priming

Important Tips on Brewing

• Be extra cautious when it comes to cleaning! Once you have stopped boiling your wort everything that gets in contact with the beer MUST be sanitary.
• The temperature of your mash is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL. Not being in the 150-155f range can drastically affect your beer. Make sure you correct the temperature ASAP once all of the grain has been added to the mash.
• Always let your beer ferment for 10 days! Do not disturb it, do not open the lid (unless dry hopping). It is absolutely natural for the airlock to stop bubbling after a few days, it is still fermenting though.
• When racking your beer, we recommend attaching a nylon or muslin bag around the siphon output to catch any hop residue. This is especially important if kegging. One hop chunk can clog up your entire keg line.
• Oxidization: Airspace is always something to consider. When undergoing primary fermentation airspace is needed so that the beer can bubble up and ferment vigoursley without leaking out of the container. The fermentation creates a layer of CO2 that remains in the pail due to the airlock. Once primary fermentation is over and the lid has been opened, the layer of CO2 dissipates and oxygen replaces it. At this point airspace can ruin your beer. When racking into carboys make sure they are filled to the top, or you blast CO2 inside to prevent oxidization. Ask us for details on this!
• Before bottling, make sure you use a priming calculator (many can be found online) to verify the amount of sugar that needs to be added.

Instructions

Mashing -> converting the grain into a fermentable liquid.

• Bring 6 gallons of water in your brew pot to 155°F. This is our strike temperature. Turn off the heat to the pot.
• If you are using standard Guelph tap water, add ¾ tsp of GYPSUM to the water. This raised the sulfates in the water which brings out more hop aroma, and crisper hop bitterness.
• Wrap the muslin/nylon bag around the brew pot and slowly pour all the milled grains into the bag. Stir them in while adding to prevent clumps. The addition of grain should drop the temperature down to 150-155°F.
• We want to mash the grain at 154°F for 60 minutes. It is very important to hold the temperature at 154°F. If the temperature rises above 155°F it hurts the fermentation, or if it dips below 149°F it can lead to a thinner tasting beer.
  1. The first 15-30 minutes are essential for the success of your brew. The temperature HAS TO BE IN THE RANGE OF 150-155°F. Sometimes adding the grain to the strike water does not lower the temperature enough, in this case add a little bit of cold water to bring the temperature down. Cover the pot with your lid and let it sit.
  2. Most brew pots will be able to maintain 154°F without adding heat for 20 minutes, we recommend checking the temperature every 15 minutes, and if it drops add more heat to bring it up. We recommend opening the lid and using a thermometer in the liquid.
• After 60 minutes, bring the temperature of the mashing grain up to 170°F and hold for 10 minutes. This is our mash out.
• Time to remove the grain. Lift the bag full of grain out of the brew pot. Let the liquid in the bag dribble into your wort. Once that is done, put the bag inside of a brewing pail, or another empty pot. There will be about 4 gallons of wort in the brew pot, we need to get it to 6 gallons before we can begin the next stage.
• Run warm water through the grains in the bag, aim for 170°f – let it run through the grains and add to the brew pot. Add until you reach 6 gallons.
  1. PSA: It is natural to think that the grains need to be squeezed to get all of the liquid out of them, DO NOT DO THIS. Aggressively squeezing the grains will lead to tannin extraction and a doughy taste in your beer. Lightly pressing the bag is fine, but do not try to squeeze every last drop out.

Boiling -> Sterilizing the wort time.

• Bring 6 gallons of your wort to a rolling boil, and let it boil for 5 minutes, this is called the hot break. Start a 60-minute timer. Keep the wort boiling (212°f) and uncovered.
• With 30 minutes in the timer, add ½ oz of Columbus hops to the boil.
• With 15 minutes left in the timer add 1 tsp of Irish moss to the boil. If you have a wort chiller, we recommend adding it at the 15-minute mark.
• When your timer goes off, turn off the heat, and now it’s time to add hops!

Cooling & Whirlpooling -> Let’s Get Hoppy

• We do not want to cool the beer down yet. We want to add hops and let them sit for 10 minutes. This gives the perfect balance of flavour and aroma additions, along with proper bitterness to make an IPA.
• So, when the timer goes off, turn off the heat and immediately add 2 ounces of Pink Boots.
  1. If you have a wort chiller in the pot, do not use it yet, let it sit.
• Set a timer for 10 minutes, once again, do not actively cool the beer.
• After 10 minutes have passed, it is now time to start cooling the beer. Bring it down to 165°F/74°C and then stop.
• Add 2 ounces of Pink Boots and set a timer for 10 minutes. This hop addition does not add bitterness, but it adds SO MUCH hop flavour and aroma. Once again, do not actively cool the beer during the 10 minutes.
• After the 10 minutes are complete. Finish cooling the beer down to pitching temperature –> 25°C.

Fermentation -> Turning the wort into beer

• After the boil is done it is time to be extra careful in regard to sanitation. We recommend using a no-rinse sanitizer called Starsan. Mix ¼ tsp of it with water in a 500ml spray bottle. Before we touch any part of the beer, we spray it with Starsan.
• Transfer the cooled wort into your fermenting pail or carboy. Run it though a strainer to catch any hop or grain residue. With all of the hop matter in this beer, it might take a while to strain through all the hops.
  1. It is also good time to take a hydrometer reading. It should be around 1.055 give or take a few points.
• Be sure to use a pail for fermentation. It will be hard to rack a carboy with all of the dry hops that are added.
• Make sure the wort has been cooled to at least 30c!!! Adding yeast at a higher temperature will likely kill it.
• Once the beer is in the fermenter, shake up and pour in the package of Hornindal Kveik yeast.
• Put the bung and airlock in the hole (make sure there is water filled up to the line in the airlock). If using a pail, make sure the lid is sealed tight. Put the pail in a room that is in the range of 21-30°c. Hornindal Kveik yeast likes a warmer area to ferment in. Kveik yeasts can ferment safely in temperatures nearing 35°C!
• DRY HOP TIME: After your beer has been fermenting for eight days, it is time to add dry hops. Open the lid and pour in FOUR ounces of Pink Boots. They can be tossed in loosely, or in a muslin bag.
  1. Because you are adding hops late in the fermentation process. There is the chance that the protective layer of CO2 in the fermenter will leak out and be replaced by oxygen. We recommend either purging CO2 overtop of the beer after adding the dry hops OR, boiling 200ml of water and mixing it with a cup of dextrose. Add that at the same time as the dry hops. This will create a little fermentation, which will lead to more CO2 in the fermenter.
• After 10 days have passed, take a hydrometer reading. It should be somewhere between 1.009-1.014.
• Lately, we have been of the opinion that secondary is an unnecessary step. Unless you are kegging, we recommend proceeding to the bottling stage. Clarification can occur in the bottle rather than in a carboy, and the risk of oxidization is greatly reduced.

Bottling -> We’re getting close to Beer Time now.

• Rack the now fermented beer into a bucket.
  1. Because of how many hops are in the beer, we recommend wrapping a muslin bag with a zip tie on the output of your siphon tube. This will catch any hop debris in the pail.
• At the same time, mix the priming sugar with 300ml of boiling water and add to the beer. Stir it in VERY gently.
  1. Make sure to check out a priming calculator to verify the correct amount of sugar. Too much sugar and your beer will end up foamy, or even start blowing the caps off! Too little and the beer won’t be fully carbonated.
• Rack the beer into your bottles or growlers. Then, let them sit for 2-3 weeks at room temperature. Chill and enjoy!