New Brews and Kegging

Been quite a bit since my last entry here, and quite a bit has happened since then.  The D30 RIS was kegged once it hit FG and sat there aging until Monday.  Since we're hosting the dessert/drinks part of our neighborhood NYE block party, I decided to go ahead and get it carbed up, so that it's ready to go for the party.  I'll check it this weekend to see how it's doing.

Back at the end of October, I tried my hand at a traditional Bavarian Hefeweizen, which I'm calling Willy Pete Wheat.  The recipe was pretty straightforward:

6lbs Pale Wheat Malt
4lbs German Pilsner Malt

1/2oz Hersbrucker @60
1/2oz Hersbrucker @15

WLP380 Hefeweizen IV Ale yeast at around 68*

It finished up in a couple of weeks, and I kegged it, and immediately got it hooked up to the CO2.  Gave it a week or so and tried it out, and man is it good, and man do I love having homebrewed beer on tap!

We also decided that it might be a good idea to have one more beer on tap for the party, so I'm going to brew up another batch of my Charge 8 Imperial IPA this weekend.  Last time I brewed it I was still doing extract, this time I'm going with an all grain version:

17lbs American 2-Row
1lb Crystal 40L
1lb Carapils

Mash @ 151 for 90 minutes, then bring to a boil and add 1lb of corn sugar

I tweaked the hops just a little from last time, dialing them back some, since I have a larger boil volume (it's counter-intuitive, but a larger boil leads to more IBUs with the same amount of hops):
3oz Chinook @90
.75oz Chinook @45
.75oz Simcoe @30
.75oz Centennial @ flameout
2oz Simcoe @ flameout

WLP001 California Ale @ 68 for 2 weeks.  After primary fermentation is complete, I'll transfer to secondary and dry hop:
1oz each Chinook/Simcoe/Centennial for 12 days
.25oz each Chinook/Simcoe/Centennial for the last 5 days

Looking at an OG of 1.085 and expected FG around 1.020, which give me an abv of 8.5%.  The calculated IBUs are well over 120, which is the limit of the human tongue's ability to detect bitterness.  Hopefully it turns out as good as the first batch, and is ready in time for NYE.

We shall see.