Brew the South Platte River
South Platte West Coast IPA — home brew kit
West Coast IPA · 7.0% · 5 gallons
from $29In stock · Ships in 2-3 days
A five-gallon all-grain west coast ipa kit named for the South Platte River: grain, hops, yeast and the recipe, milled and measured.
Brewed and boxed by John Derek Leavitt
In the glass
Grapefruit and resin over a bone-dry finish. Bitter in the way it is supposed to be.
Serve 45°F, fresh — this one fades
Alongside Anything with chilli in it.
Technical tailwater within an hour of a million people, and none the easier for it.
The box arrives with the grain already milled and weighed, the hops in marked packets for each addition, and the yeast kept cold. You supply the pot, the water and the time. Nothing in here is a concentrate.
Full instructions come in the box and are written for somebody on their second batch, not their twentieth — every step says why it is there, so you can tell which ones you can bend.
- All grain, milled and weighed to the batch
- West Coast IPA · 7.0% ABV · 65 IBU
- Hops bagged per addition, so nothing goes in at the wrong minute
- Instructions written for a second-time brewer
The numbers
7.0%Alcohol by volume
(1.065 − 1.012) × 131.25
65Bitterness, IBU
Bitterness only means anything against the style. This one is a West Coast IPA.
6Colour, SRM
The swatch above is this number on the standard reference ramp, not an impression of it.
Gravity1.065 down to 1.012 — 82% apparent attenuation.
The day, and the wait
The dry hop has to go in on the right day and come out before it turns grassy.
- First pint
- about three weeks24 days from brew day, including conditioning
- Batch size
- 5 US gallonsAbout fifty twelve-ounce bottles
- You supply
- Pot, fermenter, thermometer, hydrometer, bottlesThe starter kit below is exactly this list, if you have none of it.
- Mash in60 min at 150°FHold the temperature. This rest is where the body of the beer is decided.
- Sparge and run off45 minSlowly. Rushing it pulls tannins out of the husks.
- Boil60 min3 hop additions, each timed from the END of the boil.
- Chill and pitch30 minDown to 66°F before the yeast goes anywhere near it.
- Clean up45 minThe part nobody photographs, and the part that decides the next batch.
Brew day4 h, kettle on to kitchen clean. The rest of the wait is the yeast doing its own work.
What arrives, and what you supply
In the box
- Milled grain, weighed for a 5-gallon batch
- Hops in marked packets, one per addition
- Yeast — SafAle US-05, American ale
- Priming sugar for bottling
- Printed recipe and brew-day instructions
Worth knowing
- You will need: a brew pot, a fermenter with an airlock, a thermometer, a hydrometer and bottles or a keg.
- Ferment at 66°F for ten days — temperature control matters more than almost anything else in this box.
- Anything with chilli in it.
The recipe, in full
Printed on a card in the box as well. Nothing here is a concentrate and nothing is a trade secret.
Grain bill
- Pale 2-row
- 12 lb
- Munich
- 8 oz
- Carapils
- 8 oz
Hop schedule
- Columbus
- 0.75 oz at 60 min
- Simcoe
- 1 oz at 10 min
- Citra
- 2 oz dry hop, 4 days
Fermentation
- Yeast
- SafAle US-05, American ale
- Schedule
- 66°F for ten days, dry hop on day seven
- Batch
- 5 US gallons
Named for the South Platte River
Colorado Front Range · CO
The water it is named for
- Water type
- Tailwater
While the wort cools
- Brewing starter kit$139
Six-gallon fermenter, airlock, auto-siphon, hydrometer, thermometer, bottling wand and a capper. Everything the recipe assumes you already own.
- South Platte airbrushed hat
The same water, hand airbrushed onto a trucker cap.
Where this came from
river beer · made
0 — nothing entered the score yet, at the Derby's published weights, since . Views are not counted.
- south-platte
- home-brew
- west-coast-ipa
- co