It's often said that the difference between a great beer and an amazing beer lies in the chemistry of  brewing water and how well it matches the style of the beer its being used to make.

That said, we brewed this Wild Water IPA with pristine water gathered from a North Carolina waterfall. We also foraged grains, hops, and yeast from the urban wilderness of Asheville, NC.

This recipe is for a 5 gallon batch and is tailored for the Clawhammer Supply 10 Gallon 120 Volt brewing system, watch us use it in the video below.

Full Brew day Video 

Benchmarks

• OG: 1.060
• FG:  1.017
• ABV: 5.6%

Ingredients Needed

Grains

• Pale Ale, Golden Promise - 14lbs

Hops

• Mt. Hood - 5.0 oz   

Yeast

• East Coast Ale WLP008

Other

• No changes to water chemistry 

Brew Day Instructions

Water

Fill your brew kettle with 7.61 gallons of water and heat it to 156F. 

Mash

Finely crush the grain by double crushing or setting the gap size on your grain mill to be smaller. Once the water is at 152F, mash in and stir to ensure all the grains are wet. Mash for a total of 60 minutes.

Boil & Hops

After mashing for 60 minutes, pull the grain basket and hook it above the kettle. Adjust the heat on the controller to start a boil. Let the grains drain for at least 10 minutes. Once a boil is reached, add the following ingredients at the following times. 

• 60 Minutes - 2.0 oz of Mt. Hood 
• 30 Minutes - 1.0 oz of Mt. Hood 
• 15 Minutes - 1.0 oz of Mt. Hood 
• 0 Minutes - 1.0 oz of Mt. Hood 

With 10 minutes left in the boil, hook up a plate chiller and run boiling wort through it. This will ensure that it is sanitized. At the end of the boil, chill the wort to yeast pitching temperature (68-73F). Make sure to grab a sample of wort before moving on in order to check the starting gravity to determine the ABV once fermentation has finished.

Yeast & Fermentation

Transfer chilled wort into a sanitized fermenter and pitch one pack of WLP008 East Coast Ale Yeast. Ferment between 68 - 73F for at least 10 days. Here's how to tell if fermentation has finished.

Tasting

Overall, this was a nice bitter IPA with a soft mouthfeel and a slightly sweet finish. This was a fun experiment and shows that as good beer starts with good water.