Brewing an American IPA today...

12 lbs. grain, 68 IBUs, haven't done an IPA before, unless I had documented it on the hard drive that went ka-blewie. Don't think that I have.

Flame on at 11:20; Mashing began at 11:35. I have 6 gallons of hot sparge water in the cooler ready for lautering. The time is 11:50.

12:55 and the lautering has begun. The wort looks very clear: it didn't take much time at all to remove the particulate from the flow. When I was cracking the grist, I was concerned that the mix would be too fine, that there would be a lot of particulates in the runoff. Knock on wood, I guess it was OK. I'll add a gallon of sparge water at 1 gallon runoff. (I actually started adding sparge water at ¾ gallon of runoff: the top of the grain bed in the lauter tun was beginning to become visible. I added 1-1/2 gallon of hot water. Make a note of that.) Time: 1:05; one gallon runoff took 10 minutes. After dumping two gallons into the boiler and starting another 2 gallon measure, I looked into the Mash Tun at one gallon and again saw the grain bed... so I added another gallon and an arf. That's 4 gallons so far.

Added another gallon of water to the lauter tun; Need another two gallons of runoff to begin the boil. I should begin weighing out the hops for their additions. After flame on I let the runoff continue to flow and got about another gallon and an arf at like, zero gravity. I'll keep it in case there are... problems... If no problems I'll ditch it.

Flame on 2:30 I let it boil for about 10 min before I added the first hops. Ok, I forgot to add the hops when boil began... Alarms on my cell phone will remind me when to add hops 2-5.

I put a 4-pack of my American Amber Ale 4.0 into the fridge to celebrate the finish of this brew session, and we will see how that goes. V3.1.1.1 was almost ready to swill when I tried it Friday night, could use another week for sure. This one, v4.0, was bottled with 5 days less in the carboy... I wonder if this one is better carbonated. Tonite, tasting will be the telling tale.

4:00 - Ten more minutes of boil and then I add hope #5 and cut off the gas, then turn the cold water on to chill.

4:50 - Still chilling... chilling while I chill. I think that I'll close this up here and now. More later...