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Recipe: Sierra Nevada Celebration IPA
With thanks to Brian Grossman, Scott Jennings, and the production team at Sierra Nevada in Chico, California, and Mills River, North Carolina, here’s a homebrew-scale recipe for their fresh-hopped annual throwback.
Photo: Courtesy Sierra Nevada
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ALL-GRAIN
Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)
Brewhouse efficiency: 72%
OG: 1.068 (16.5°P)
FG: 1.016 (4°P)
IBUs: 65
ABV: 6.8%
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ALL-GRAIN
Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)
Brewhouse efficiency: 72%
OG: 1.068 (16.5°P)
FG: 1.016 (4°P)
IBUs: 65
ABV: 6.8%
[PAYWALL]
MALT/GRAIN BILL
11.5 lb (5.2 kg) pale two-row
1.6 lb (726 g) crystal 60°L
HOPS SCHEDULE
0.7 oz (20 g) Chinook at 75 minutes [30 IBUs]
0.8 oz (23 g) Cascade at 20 minutes [10 IBUs]
0.3 oz (9 g) Centennial at 20 minutes [7 IBUs]
0.8 oz (23 g) Cascade at flameout/whirlpool [5 IBUs]
1 oz (28 g) Centennial at flameout/whirlpool [13 IBUs]
2 oz (57 g) Cascade at dry hop
1 oz (28 g) Centennial at dry hop
YEAST
Chico strain (such as Fermentis SafAle US-05, White Labs WLP001 California Ale, Wyeast 1056 American Ale)
DIRECTIONS
Mill the grains and mash at 156°F (69°C) for 60 minutes, then raise to 170°F (77°C) and mash out. Recirculate until the runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge and top up as needed to get about 7 gallons (26.5 liters) of wort, depending on your evaporation rate. Boil for 75 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule. After the boil, add flameout/whirlpool hops and do a whirlpool step: Stir or recirculate to create a vortex for about 5 minutes, then allow 10 minutes to steep. Chill to about 62°F (17°C), aerate the wort thoroughly, and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 62°F (17°C). When fermentation is nearly complete, add the dry hops. Once fermentation is complete and gravity has stabilized for a few days, crash to 32°F (0°C). (Optionally, dry hop again—see below.) Lager for 1 week and filter or fine. Bottle- or keg-condition with yeast and priming sugar, targeting 2.65 volumes of CO2.
BREWER’S NOTES
Water: We add calcium sulfate (gypsum) to the mash and boil—the equivalent of about 10 g and 5 g, respectively.
Yeast: The pitch rate should be about 9 million cells/ml or use the yeast supplier’s pitch recommendation.
Dry Hops: About 25 percent of our dry-hop addition is still whole-leaf in the tank, while the rest is recirculated via the torpedo. Optionally, you can do a second dry-hop addition—at half the amounts of the first one—after crashing the beer.
Package-Conditioning: Optionally, you could always force-carbonate this beer—but Celebration is traditionally bottle-conditioned. Our typical pitch rate for bottling is about 1.1 million cells per millimeter of beer, and we add a small amount of dextrose to target the final carbonation level. The warm conditioning takes place in 62°F (17°C) warehouses for 10 days.
