So this recipe I had come up with about a year or maybe a little longer. I have held off brewing it as brewing 5 gallons of a beer your not sure if you like. As the name states I’m trying to clone Cold Snap. Based off what I have read and what I have tasted I came up with this recipe. Now that I have the Anvil 6.5 I have been playing around a little more. As I normally do I pulled the 4.1 Gallons(15.5L) of RO water and added the salts per the recipe. Pulled the required grains, minus the rice hulls as I’m going brew-in-a-bag so really no need for them. Milled the grains and setup the timer to start early morning.
@5:49 the water was at temperature and add in the milled grains, started the re-circulation pump and started my 60 minute mash timer. 30 minutes into the mash I stopped the pump and gave the grain bed a good stir and then continued with the pump and the mash. @6:44 turned the Anvil up to 168F(75.5C) and 100% power to mash out. The wort with 168F(75.5C) right at the end of the mash timer. Let it sit for another 5 minutes and pulled the grain basket out. Let it drain and pulled grain basket and cleaned. While wort was warming up I pulled a sample of 1.035SG and 3.75 gallons(14L). @7:14 I pulled my typical 1 cup(250mL) of hot break off a 2.5 gallon(9.4L) batch .
@7:25 started the boil timer and added the hops per the recipe. Pulled all the spices out while the wort is boiling. @8:10 add in the wort chiller and hooked up the lines. Not much to do with this brew till the end, at the end added in the 5 minute additions and at the end of the boil pulled a wort sample of 1.038SG. Started the chiller @8:25. @8:32 it was down to 92F(33.3C) @8:37 was down to 71F(21.6C) and transferred over to the fermentor and pitched the entire pouch of A07 as its a few months old. Cleaned up equipment and all done by 8:50. I came in under what I was expecting for Specific Gravity but not on the amount of wort. I had just enough so I need to figure why I got bad conversion on this one. I thought about adding some malt extract or boil longer but I typically just run with it.
@18:38 fermentation already started. A nice white fluffy cloud started to form on top and bubbling at a slow pace.
@12:10 on March 9th I decided to dry hop fermentation was over and I have to say that was one active fermentation. I definitely reduced what I had planned on adding. .5 oz of plum powder, .5 hibiscus, one oz of paste, and 2 mL of straight vanilla extract. Took a gravity reading of 1.004SG. Placed the cap back on and will let it rest for a few days before placing in the keezer to chill out before canning.
@17:30 on March 12th I had decided it was time to move into the chest freezer to cold crash. Placed in and set at 56F(13C) over night and then turned it down to 46F(7.7C) in the morning.
@9:30 on March 16th I decided to can it up and give it a taste test. Cleaned and sanitized my cans while filling and got 22 12oz cans out of it, my typical count. Pulled a sample and there is definitely some strong flavors there. Not sure how this will condition but glad I didn’t brew 5 gallons(19L). You never know once you add some carbonation to this how it will change.
