This is put together by combining a couple of different clones (1, 2, 3) of Flying Dog's Raging Bitch IPA.
A bitch is a female dog. A female, unspayed cat, is called a Queen. I don't have a dog, but I do have a cat. Hence, this beer is called Raging Queen.
Originally scaled this to a 2 gal recipe, but in practice my current kettle is only good for a 1.5 gal boil and I'll have to dilute the wort post-boil. Used Brewer's Friend to adjust the recipe with that in mind.
Grain bill:
- 3.2 lbs Maris Otter LME
- 0.9 lbs Pilsen DME
- 5 oz Crystal 40 L
- 5 oz Carapils
Hops:
- 0.3 oz Warrior
- 1.4 oz Amarillo
- 0.7 oz Columbus
Schedule:
- 60 min 0.3 oz Warrior
- 30 min 0.2 oz Amarillo
- 30 min 0.2 oz Columbus
- 15 min 0.3 oz Amarillo
- 15 min 0.3 oz Columbus
- 0 min 0.2 oz Amarillo (flameout)
- 0 min 0.2 oz Columbus (flameout)
Yeast:
- Belgian Ardennes (Wyeast 3522)
Dry hop:
- 0.7 oz Amarillo
Predictions:
- OG: 1.084
- FG: 1.022
- ABV: 8.14%
- IBU: 66.24
- SRM: 9.75
Brewing together with C today. Raging Bitch is one of her favorite beers, and that's the main motivation for this brew. It's meant to be reasonably similar in style to the original.
Steeped the specialty grains for 30 minutes in 1 gal around 70 C. Remembered to sparge the grain bag this time. Topped up to roughly 1.5 gal, added the malt extracts and brought to a boil. Followed the hop scehdule, but also added 1 tsp yeast nutrient at 10 minutes, and 1/4 whirlfloc tablet at 5 minutes.
I poured the whole shebang into the fermenter. Trub and all. No filtering of any kind. Then diluted up to 2 gal. I forgot to record the volume before diluting, but I'd guess it was around 1.5 gal. I had continuously topped up the brew kettle with boiling water to keep it near that volume.
Couldn't find the Belgian Ardennes yeast at my LHBS. They recommended trying Belgian Ale A (OYL-024) instead, which I did. This was a liquid pack. I forgot to shake it before pitching, so there was a lot of gunk left in the bottom of the pack. I added a bit of the boiled and cooled water I used for dilution, gave it a shake and pitched the remaining slurry.
I also dropped in my brand new Tilt Hydrometer. Super cool device.
- OG: 1.074 (Hydrometer)
- OG: 1.073 (Tilt)
That's quite a bit lower than the 1.084 I was aiming for. I did lose some LME due to a brainfart (confused by 0.1 lbs not being equal to 1 oz), but hardly the 0.6 lbs I'd have to lose to drop down to 1.073 according to Brewer's Friend.
It's possible that the dilution resulted in more high gravity wort in the bottom of the fermenter, throwing off both my sample and the tilt which primarily measure the upper part. If that's the case, then the tilt might report a higher SG when fermentation kicks off. We'll see.
It's also possible that I diluted to more than 2 gallons by accident. Will check later.
Anyway, assuming the same FG, I should be looking at an ABV of about 7% instead of 8.4%. Not the end of the world.
0.7 oz Amarillo pellets straight into fermenter. Wonderful smell of strong belgian ale from the fermenter. Took a look at the volume and it seems to be exactly 2 gal.
In spite of not having strained off any kettle trub at all on brew day, the current trub level is pretty low. Almost low enough to transfer via faucet on bottling day, but not quite.
2 grams flavorless gelatine in 3 oz water. Didn't bother controlling temperature this time. Just brought the water to a boil, took it off heat, dissolved the gelatine, gave it a minute (tops) to cool down and then straight into fermenter.
The whole shebang on bottle. I don't want to waste a keg on something this strong. It'll take a few months to consume I'm sure.
Primed with 36 grams sugar in 1 cup of water. Had 2 gal in fermenter and ended up with 16 bottles, so 1.5 gal in total. Probably had 1 bottle's worth left in the bottling bucket, so 1.6 gal might be more accurate. Priming calculator says that works out to a "volume of CO2" at 2.3. That should be pretty ok for an IPA.
Saw lots of floaty gunk on the top when I siphoned to bottling bucket. I suspect a lot of it's krausen that was previously stuck to the side of the fermenter but then got knocked lose when I carried it to the kitchen counter. Could be good to put the fermenter on a stool or something, so that I can transfer without moving it on bottling/kegging day.
- FG: 1.016 (Tilt)
- FG: 1.014 (hydrometer)
- ABV: 7.9% (hydrometer)
There was a decent chunk of yeast stuck to the tilt, which I think can explain the difference.
On the topic of the OG, I'm at a bit of a loss. My own PPG calculation puts OG at 1.077 for extract alone, and 1.084 including steeped grains. So yeah, no clue what happened.
I tasted the hydrometer sample. Very sweet, spicy and bitter. Very much Belgian. Promising. But definitely some fusel alchohols in there too. Not ideal as far as replicating Raging Bitch goes, but not really a problem considering how strong the beer is. The alcohol flavor was actually kinda nice.
Here's the SG/Temp chart from the Tilt hydrometer:
Got pretty warm there for a bit. Some temperature control would be nice.
C created a label design, that we printed and applied to all the bottles. Looks great!
This is really good! Did a side by side comparison with Raging Bitch.
Most striking difference is in color. The queen is a lot darker than the bitch. Perhaps due to caramelization during boil and from using LME?
Nose is more belgian and alcoholic in the queen. Guessing due to the different yeast, and high fermentation temperature producing more esters and fusel alcohols.
The queen is sweeter than the bitch, and less bitter. Could be that more bitterness would balance out the sweetness? It tastes like more like a strong belgian beer than an american "belgian style" IPA.
But, I really like it. In fact, I prefer the queen to the bitch.
Delicious. Not much to add to the above notes really, but I want to reiterate that this is a good beer. Very happy.