Had a crack at brewing an Imperial IPA last week (18/07/12). I was back using my own kit, rather a bump back down to reality. No supercharged boiler or immersion chiller to play with and boy did it tell. Despite my best efforts the planned recipe changed during the brew. (No photos as I was busy mucking around sorting the issues).
Original Gravity (OG): 1.089 (°P): 21.3
Final Gravity (FG): 1.020 (°P): 5.1
Alcohol (ABV): 9.09%
Colour (SRM): 8.2 (EBC): 16.2
Bitterness (IBU): 96.6 (Average)
3.4kg Maris Otter
0.300kg White table sugar (added to the copper)
0.180kg Carapils
0.070kg Crystal Malt 30L
10g Columbus (14.2% Alpha) @90 Minutes (Boil)
10g Columbus (14.2% Alpha) @45 Minutes (Boil)
30g Simcoe (14.2% Alpha) @30 Minutes (Boil)
30g Centennial (10.4% Alpha) @0 Minutes (Steep)
40g Simcoe (14.2% Alpha) @0 Minutes (Steep)
40 Columbus (14.2% Alpha) @0 Minutes (Steep)
25g Centennial (10.4% Alpha) dry hop Day 5 in FV
30g Simcoe (14.2% Alpha) dry hop Day 5 in FV
Single step Infusion at 65°C for 60 Minutes. Water treatments: Campden tablet (HLT), Gypsum (mash), Epsom Salts (Boil). Boil for 90 Minutes. WLP090 San Diego Super (repitched from AG#16).
Strike temp of 73C and 9.0L liquor for 3.650kg grain. Mashed in at 65C.
Mashed for 60 minutes and temp remained constant. Sparged at 78C, 12.05L liquor. I didn’t record the gravity readings, I’ll start doing this as soon as I can warrant buying a refractometer.
First hop addition of Columbus added to the copper during transfer from the mash tun (which blocked for the first time. Last time I had a problem with running from the tun, it was due to the manifold coming apart) . More Columbus at 45 minutes, followed by Simcoe at 30 mins.
Added a protofloc tablet at 15 minutes. At the end of the boil the wort was cooled to 80C before further additions of Columbus, Centennial and Simcoe. These were steeped while I ran to the FV, which was probably 40+ minutes thanks to a blockage.
Collected my target of 11L of wort post boil with SG of 1.068. Having not been able to check my gravity before now, I was a little pissed off with missing my target OG of 1.089 by a country mile. I decided to add a further 100g sugar (boiled on the hob for 10 minutes) which I calculate brings the OG to 1072. As I had already strayed from the recipe and because the wort was looking a little on the light side, I also reduced 200ml of wort on the hob to add a little more colour. Cooled to 20C (which took hours due to cooling in the sink) and pitched my WLP090 yeast starter.
Due to the new OG I have demoted this brew from Imperial to Double IPA. I’ll try and brew it again when I sort my kit out. I really don’t know what went so wrong. Despite that, the brew is happily fermenting and smells great. If this turns out well, I may still enter it into the National Homebrew competition.
I dry hopped the FV 22/07/12 with 25g Centennial and 30g Simcoe.
Some thoughts from CAMRGB on this beer here.
broadfordbrewer 
I seem to find that a 1065-70 Mash is about the max for my Homebrew kit with a simple infusion mash and sparge. What was your predicted OG without sugar?