2016 Nebraska Brewing Company Wort Transformation Challenge "Brew" Day

Today was wort pick up day for the NBC Wort Transformation Challenge. So, i guess technically, yesterday was brew day for these beers. As stated in previous posts, I have 2 entries for the challenge. I took 2 cleaned and sanitized carboys to the NBC Tap Room/Brew house to get the wort. Checked in, had a quick beer and then lugged the glass jugs back to get filled. They brewed up a 30 bbl batch (bbl is a beer barrel measure. One bbl is about 26 US gallons. So this was about a 774 gallon batch.) It was very cool to be back in a professional brewery, i cannot imagine brewing on that scale.


Loaded my 10 gallons back into the car and headed home. I was solo for this transport and I liken it to the day I drove my wife and first born home from the hospital. Slow, precise and way to over cautious around turns and bumps.

Brew 1: Belgian-American Tart Apricot Ale

The first beer, I didn't alter much. I added in 1 pound of D-45 Belgian Candi syrup, pitched the yeast, aerated as put in temperature control. The addition of the candi syrup did darken the wort a bit. It will be interesting to see the final color.

Original Gravity: 1.065
Target Final Gravity: 1.010
Estimated ABV: 7.0%
IBU: 30

Brew 2: Midwest Tropics IPA

The second beer, was a bit more ambitious. For this one i took 2 gallons of wort, added in 3/4 of a gallon of water and brought it to a boil. Once boiling, I added DME and an ounce of Nugget hops sourced from Midwest Hop Producers. Boiled that for 30 minutes, cooled it down and added it back to the carboy. I pitched my 1.5 liter WLP644 starter. Aerated and put next to it's sibling in the ghetto temp control.

Original Gravity: 1.063
Target Final Gravity: 1.008
Estimated ABV: 7.0%
IBU: 60

Transformation Challenge - The plan

As I mentioned in the last post, this year I will have 2 entries in the Nebraska Brewing Company's 5th annual "Wort Transformation Challenge". There are 180 total entries (limit 2 per brewer) and 4 judging categories:

• Traditional Pale Ale
• Fruit & Spice
• Experimental
• 100% Midwest Hop Producers hops

My plan right now is to use one entry for the Nebraska Grown Hops category and one for the Fruit & Spice. 

Base Recipe: Pale Ale

Malts
• 85% Pale Ale
• 15% Caramel 10 L
Hops
• Warrior @ 60 minutes for 14 IBU (~.25 oz/5 gallons)
• Centennial @ 20 minutes for 16 IBU (~.75 oz/5 gallons)
Specs
• 13.6 Plato or 1.055 OG
• 30 IBU (calculated with Tinseth formula)
• 6.6 SRM
• Mashed at 150 degrees

Entry 1

As we waited to sign-up last month, in talking with a former winner, I picked up a pretty good tip.  One way to make your entry stand out is to reboil (all or a portion of the wort) and make changes to the base. So for the first entry I am going to take a swing at that. The plan is to make a Tropical IPA highlighting the yeast character provided by White Labs WLP644 along with some Nebraska grown Nugget hops.

I will start by bringing 1/2 gallon of water to a boil and then add in 2 gallons of the wort. Bring that up to a boil and add 0.5 oz Duffin Knudsen Nugget hops. Boil for 30 minutes. Chill that back down and combine with the original 3 gallons of wort. My super accurate and not at all hacked together math, says this should push the IBUs up in the 45-55 range. The SRM will be a shade darker. And with boil-off, total volume will drop a bit and concentrate, raising the OG a tad.

After that is all chilled and happy in the carboy, pitch and ferment warm, to really push the tropical fruitiness of 644 for about 3 weeks. Then with a couple days left in the fermentor, dry hop with another shot of Nugget. Really wanting to push the tropical fruit from the yeast and melon from the hops.

Entry 2

This one I don't have quite as much thought through yet. Initial thoughts are to leave the base as is, pitch the same Wyeast 3522 Belgian Andennes I used for the Pre-transformation test batch. And then once fermentation is complete, secondary this on some fruit. Most likely sour cherry or apricot puree.

One week to finalize these plans, but really enjoying the blank canvas!