The Scout (Modern Times Blazing World Clone) -- Brew Day

Given my lack of brewing over the past few weeks as we'd been preparing to move across the city and our hope to have a housewarming party in the next couple of months, I'll be accelerating my brew schedule for the time being.  As for right now, I plan to have a cache of homebrew consisting of my Quad (straight and oak-aged), French Cider, Belgian Single, two IPAs, a coffee stout and a Sorachi Ace clone (time permitting).  Last night, I brewed one of the two IPAs (The Scholar Batch #2) and tonight I will be brewing the other.  Both IPAs are quite heavy on their Nelson Sauvin presence, but NS is a beautiful hop so I'm happy to run this risk (is this a risk?).

Mike Tonsmeire, the blogger at The Mad Fermentationist and the author of the new book American Sour Beers, consulted for a time at Modern Times Beer before and during its relatively recent opening in San Diego.  Mike fully documented the planning phase for the brewery's flagship beers and posted about the recipe evolution over a period of several months.  While I have tried a couple of MT's beers, I haven't had the opportunity to sample Blazing World, their heavily-hopped amber/red ale.  The beer has been well received on Beer Advocate and seeing as I have a new pound of Nelson Sauvin to put to work, I figured this would be a very appropriate recipe.

The grain bill for this recipe is pretty standard for an IPA save the small amount of roasted malt added for color and a touch of taste.  I toyed with the idea of "capping the mash" with the roasted malts near the end of the mash schedule but in the end I just tossed everything in the mash together.  This recipe has probably one of the largest flameout/steeping additions, ringing in at a full 7 ounces.  After weighing them out on the scale, I gave the bowl a quick shake to distribute the hops and then I motorboated the shit out of it.  It was wonderous.

The Scout
5.5 gallon batch - 60 minute boil
Est OG: 1.065
Est FG: 1.013
Est ABV: 6.87%
IBU: 90
SRM: 14

13.75lb Floor-Malted Maris Otter
2lb Munich Malt
3.0oz Roasted Barley
2.0oz Debittered Black Malt

1.0oz Magnum @ FWH (40IBU)
1.0oz Simcoe @ 25 min (26 IBU)
3.0oz Mosaic @ Steep 5 min (11 IBU)
3.0oz Nelson Sauvin @ Steep 5 min (10 IBU)
1.0oz Simcoe @ Steep 5 min (4 IBU)
3.0oz Nelson Sauvin @ Dry Hop 4 Days
1.0oz Mosaic @ Dry Hop 4 Days
1.0oz Simcoe @ Dry Hop 4 Days

1000ml starter WY1056 American Ale

Mash @ 149f for 75 minutes

8/20/2014 -- Brewed by myself.  Mash went well.  Efficiency came out to 70% with some additional stirring and a longer dunk sparge.  Boil proceeded as normal.  Chilled down to 75f and gathered 5.5 gallons of 1.065 wort.  Was only able to pitch one packet of WY1056 as I didn't get an opportunity to make a starter.

9/4/2014 -- Dry hopped per recipe.

9/6/2014 -- Bottled with 4.1oz corn sugar for 2.4vol C02.  Finished at 1.012.  Seemed a little muddy colored, but I'm hoping that's mostly from the dry hops and will settle out a bit.

11/7/2014 -- And here are some tasting notes.