Summer Steam

This was inspired by Anderson Valley's Summer Solstice, which the brewer there released the "homebrew" version of the recipe. I changed the grain ratios and used Northern Brewer hops instead of his suggested Cascade.

I mashed in at 160 expecting it to drop to my target temp but it sat at 156 for about 15 min before dropping to 152 for another 15, then kept it at 150 for the last 30 min of the mash. Maintaining temperature obviously won't be an issue with a proper mash tun, but I use my 16 gal kettle and try my best not to have to add a direct flame so I always end up a few degrees higher than I intend to be.

Pre boil wort was at about 8.7 gal which reduced to exactly 6.5 gal after the 90 min boil. If you can whirlpool at 170 for 20 minutes I would suggest doing that instead of the 15 min addition, might try that on my next go with this.

Cooled the wort down to 68 then transferred to fermenter where it cooled to about 64 during that process. Pitched my 1400mL yeast starter and had steady fermentation in about 12 hours.

Added 0.5 oz or 1 Tbsp vanilla extract to keg.

This is one of my favorite recipes and doesn't last long.

Update: Brewed this quite a few times now, this is best after conditioning for a couple of weeks.