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**igliashon** · 05-05-2012, 03:38 PM

In any case, I've pretty much found that the hydrometer samples are a pretty good indicator of how it's gonna taste. If the hydrometer samples are nasty, there's not much hope, unless you're up for a really long aging (in which case, there still may not be any hope, depending on how nasty it really is). Lotsa people say never dump your batches, but this is the gluten-free forum, and sometimes we make just really bad beer. It's okay to dump if it really, really sucks (IMO).

**rlbois1** · 05-05-2012, 04:59 PM

FWIW, I have a 7.5 gallon pot, did a 5 gallon boil, and used a wort chiller (yes, I ignored the "do a partial boil" portion of the instructions). Other than that, I followed instructions with the kit and used "best practices" from this site and other resources. Maybe I'm just being a overly critical with the taste test.

I have been reading your perspective and experiences with the partial sorghum at boil and partial at flame out helping with the sorghum twang, and am playing around with different quntities/timings on BrewTarget as extract timing does seem to affect overall bitterness. I am already looking forward to brewing a second batch, but having this first batch be at least drinkable is important to me. Thanks again for your help (and patience).

**igliashon** · 05-05-2012, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rlbois1

FWIW, I have a 7.5 gallon pot, did a 5 gallon boil, and used a wort chiller (yes, I ignored the "do a partial boil" portion of the instructions). Other than that, I followed instructions with the kit and used "best practices" from this site and other resources. Maybe I'm just being a overly critical with the taste test.

Oh, well then! You should be fine. Well, what kind of water did you use? Tap? Filtered tap? Bottled/spring? I have a feeling mineral content of water may have some effect on the sorghum twang, which (IIRC) is due to the relatively-high iron and mineral content of sorghum extract. I usually use spring, but I'm switching to reverse-osmosis because it's cheaper, and will eventually switch to in-home filtration.

**rlbois1** · 05-05-2012, 11:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by igliashon

Well, what kind of water did you use? Tap? Filtered tap? Bottled/spring?

I used 2 gallons tap water (well water, pretty hard) and 3 gallons of bottled water (Polar purified drinking water from BJs Wholesale, do they have those in the west coast?). In hind sight it was probably a bad call on using the well water. From here on out I intend to use the bottled water only with a little gypsum; good call?

**igliashon** · 05-06-2012, 02:00 AM

Yeah, it could be the well water, but I really couldn't say for sure. Try another batch without and see how it goes. A little gypsum would probably be just the ticket for hoppy British styles; I've never tried it, but I've got a bunch of US Goldings and some Phoenix hops beckoning me to make an English IPA, and I reckon on adding some gypsum to that and see how it goes. Will probably brew that one in two weeks; I'm looking to make every Thursday a brew day for the next couple of months (the beauty of doing small batches and having 4 fermenters!). I'm planning to rotate between a stout, a light summery herb/spice thing, and an IPA, to progressively hone each one until I'm satisfied...and then I'll start attacking the BIG styles!

**rlbois1** · 05-07-2012, 12:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by igliashon

I'm looking to make every Thursday a brew day for the next couple of months (the beauty of doing small batches and having 4 fermenters!)

Brew day every Thursday; that sounds like fun. Speaking of fun, just for fun I threw an ounce of Liberty hops into the secondary yesterday...

**rlbois1** · 05-25-2012, 11:11 PM

Just sampled my first batch of homebrew... success! It tastes like beer, like pretty good beer actually. Two weeks in the primary, one week in the secondary, and two weeks of bottle (pig actually) conditioning, and it's already the best GF beer I've ever had. Can't wait to taste the "Lucky 13" (13 hop editions) Imperial IPA I brewed today... yum.