Brewlog: India Brown Ale

One of the two batches of beer brewed recently...

Batch #25, 7/26/06: India Brown Ale

For several months I'd intended to brew a single-hop pale ale using Amarillo hops. Two weeks ago I set out to do just that, but somehow I veered off course, and ended up with something considerably different. Entranced by the assortment of dark and Belgian malts I had on hand, and inexplicably deviating from my hopping intentions, I ended up creating something moderately dark, substantially hoppy, and with some damned-weird malt character going on. Thus, I give you my "India Brown Ale..."

Water:

7 gallons Yreka tap water (tastes a little weird lately, but I was too lazy to buy water) treated with a pack of Burton Water Salts, the weight of which I neglected to write down...

Grain:

4oz Belgian pale malt
2oz Belgian aromatic
1oz Roasted barley
10z Caramunich
4oz 40L Crystal
1oz Special B
.5 oz Black patent
2 oz Caramel wheat (again, 80-100L in color)

Extract:

7 lbs pale malt extract

Hops:

1oz 11.2% Chinook at 60 minutes
1oz 8.8% Amarillo at 30 minutes
2oz 8.8% Amarillo at 10 minutes

Yeast:

1/2 gallon starter of WLP 001, California Ale

Procedure:

"Mini-mash" the grains, steeping just below 150 for at least 30 minutes, then remove. Add the dried malt extracts and bring to boil. Commence 90 minute boil. Hop according to schedule. At 15 minutes, add two tsp Irish moss. Knock out and cool according to your preferred method. Final wort volume should be just at five gallons if your boil was sufficiently vigorous. Next, aerate, transfer, and pitch yeast.

Notes:

Now, the O.G. I read was 1.050, and I'm certain that's wrong. I know I took the reading when warm, but I don't know how much that affected the reading. I was concerned solely because the hopping was rather substantial for such a low O.G... Nevertheless, a sample I tasted after four days, when the gravity had dropped to below 1.020, seemed just fine to me. But then, I'm a damned hophead...

Whatever the case, this is a weird one. But that's okay, 'cause it's homebrew. I have the freedom to make some weird beer if I want to...