India Pale Ale – Partial Mash

Before jumping head first into the world of all grain brewing, we tried a partial mash recipe with both grain and malt extract. The resulting home brew will hopefully be a hoppy India Pale Ale to get us through the rest of winter. The complete modified recipe is located on the following page for those wanting to make the leap away from brew kits with us — India Pale Ale partial mash recipe.

Modifying a recipe from The Complete Joy of Home Brewing by Charlie Papazian, we stocked up at Listermann’s supply shop and set to work. The recipe calls for Centenial whole hops for boiling and Amarillo pellet hops for finishing. New to us was the technique of “sparging” the grain bags after the initial boil. This involves pouring boiling water over the mash bag and is a modified version of a true sparge in a “lauter tun” container which has a false screen bottom and collects runoff wort as hot water is applied.  So, baby steps on the sparging, but we’ll get there.

This was the first time we used Irish Moss in a home brew. This stuff is actually red algae grown on the rocky shores of the Atlantic and is added near the end of the wort boil (a rather important fact that this be added near the end and not early in the boil as debated in this discussion on the RealBeer.com forum).  The Irish Moss attracts proteins and other solids in an attempt to clarify the beer later down the road and avoid the stereotypical cloudy home brew.  If you’re interested in the exact chemistry of this clarifying agent, Eric has a great blog on the chemistry of home brewing and wrote extensively on the topic of Irish Moss.

While we modified the recipe to include additional hops, credit must be given to the original recipe found within The Complete Joy of Home Brewing by the venerable Charlie Papazian.