Very Harry Knuckle
This past Friday I brewed my house rye beer. The beer is named harry knuckle in honor of the lost hair on the knuckles of my harry friend Mitch’s. The first time we brewed he didnt have the common sense brewing experience to know that you should not have your hand in the burner when you light it. Needless to say the hair was the first thing to go.
The recipe is basically:
| 5.00 lb | Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) | Grain | 30.7 % |
| 5.00 lb | Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM) | Grain | 30.7 % |
| 2.00 lb | Rye Malt (4.7 SRM) | Grain | 12.3 % |
| 0.75 lb | Crystal Rye – 80L (90.0 SRM) | Grain | 4.6 % |
| 0.65 lb | Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) | Grain | 4.0 % |
| 0.50 lb | Melanoiden Malt (20.0 SRM) | Grain | 3.1 % |
| 0.50 lb | Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) | Grain | 3.1 % |
| 0.50 lb | Simpsons Medium Crystal (55.0 SRM) | Grain | 3.1 % |
| 0.12 lb | Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) | Grain | 0.7 % |
| 1.25 lb | Palm Sugar (4.0 SRM) | Sugar | 7.7 % |
It should yield about 6 gallons of 1074 (based upon 75% efficiency) wort after the boil.
In order to save time when doing a work day session, I have been doing all day mashes. I will prep the grain, water, and mash tun the night before, then the next morning before work I mash in, then run off when I return home. I have done this once before for a pilsner and did see an increase in efficiency to about 80%, but that was nothing compared to what happened with this beer. I ran off and sparged and collected just shy of 8 gallons. I took the preboil graving and it was 1033 @ 210. I went inside to do the temperature correction and was quite surprised to find the corrected reading was 1074. That was my target post boil number! When I did the calculations it showed that I was 97% efficient.
Now I still cant believe that number. There is just no way that the beer came in with that high an efficiency, but I thankfully whatever the cause, I caught it before I started adding hops. I added an ounce of Magnum bittering hops (75 min) bringing the total IBUs’ up to 115 and a SG of 1093. So given the high gravity and the high IBU’s I now give you The Very Harry Knuckle, my first Double Rye IPA.
I pitched the yeast cake of Wyeast 1318 and it is currently fermenting @ 68 degrees. By Sunday it was already down to 1030. I suspect the long mash will result in low finishing gravity in the 1013-1017 range which would yield a ABV of around 10%.
It should be an interesting beer and I am looking forward trying it sometime in early May.
This beer fermented down to 1020 in less than a week. Total ABV = 9.3%. Dry hopped the beer with a 3 oz blend of warrior, Amarillo, Centennial and Columbus for four days at 67 degrees.