This entry is outside what will be the norm, because it’s so long after the fact. Future session notes will be done within a day or two.
Brewing Dr. Mark’s Kryptonite is always a treat. I first concocted this back in 2013 as an experiment to see how far I could go with the hop additions without destroying the balance of malt and bitterness. I also wanted to find a good balance between the (to me) cloying nature of the citrus hops and the piney resin that I love. That first batch was so successful that my brother proclaimed it “better than Pliney” and proceeded to drink himself into oblivion. I have to admit that I’ve done the same on more than one occasion.
This time around, one of my neighbors had been talking quite a bit about wanting to brew again, and specifically wanted to do an IPA. In the interest of science, I decided to make this one a 10 gallon batch and split it for fermentation. He’d take his half home and ferment it in his basement at ambient temperatures using Safale US-05, while I did mine with temperature control using Wyeast 1056.
The session went flawlessly, hitting the numbers on the nose all the way through. It was really surprising, because this was the first batch done with the new mash tun (the purchase and assembly of which to be covered at a later date). After chilling, we split the wort into two fermentors using a tee in order to make sure the batches were as similar as possible.
Both batches finished out right on target. His was bottled on the 22nd using priming sugar. For mine, I chilled it to 33f over 3 days, added gelatin, then kegged on the 25th. It was burst carbonated for 24 hours, then brought to serving pressure. It was tapped on the 29th. I felt the need to disconnect the tap a week later to keep from drinking it all before its namesake flew into town. I also need to make a point of keeping some until the neighbor gets back from a long business trip for the side-by-side comparison.
This is a beast of a beer in many respects, and easily my best recipe to date.