HopBurst IPA

I've been really intrigued lately by the idea of "hop bursting". In a nutshell, you skip your early bittering additions and add a huge hop addition toward the end. I sort of did this with The Captain's Nephew IPA where I just did a bittering addition and a ton of late hops. Here I went all the way with ONLY a big 15 minute addition.

Malt Bill:
11lb (92%) Rahr 2-row
1lb (8%) Crystal 40L

Hop Bill
1oz Simcoe (13% AA) @ 15min
1oz Amarillo (8.5% AA) @ 15 min
1oz Citra (12% AA) @ 15 min
1oz Centennial (10% AA) @ 15 min

Yeast: Safale US-05

OG: 1.064
FG: 1.015
SRM: 8
IBU: 70
ABV: 6.4%

I'm really anxious to see how this bad boy turns out!

Watermelon Wheat

Amber has been asking me to make her a "girly" beer for awhile now so I'd been kicking around the idea of a watermelon wheat (a la the one that 21st Amendment makes). I tried to keep the recipe pretty simple here:

Malt Bill:
4lb (50%) Rahr 2-row
4lb (50%) White wheat malt

Hop Bill:
1oz (2.5% AA) Czech Saaz
0.5oz (5.5% AA) Cascade

Yeast: Safale US-05

Puree, filter, and add 6lb watermelon into secondary (adds 6 points to the gravity)

OG: 1.054
FG: 1.013
Color: 3.5 SRM
IBU: 19

The hiatus is soon to be over...

After taking two months off from brewing, I'm ready to get at it again! The BJCP class and test really took it out of me. After going to the National Homebrewers Conference this last weekend and with the UP State Fair competition coming up soon I've really got the bug. Stay tuned to see what's in my fermenter!