New homebrewer - Advice for Brew day/recipes

Hello HBT!

First time homebrewer (went in on a kit with 2 roommates) and I wanted to make a post describing our experiences so far, the lessons we've learned, and some of the beers that we're brewing.

Let me start by saying of the three of us brewing beer, none of us has taken the same route. One of us moved to full grain brewing after his first kit, I moved to partial after my first, and the third has stuck to kits the whole time. Looking back, I noticed that we all moved too quickly. There was so much information to soak up when we first started, we focused more on the ingredients/fermentation/sanitation instead of the actual brewing process. It wasn't until my latest brew (which I'll get to shortly) that I really felt confident in the quality of the beer.

Now, what do I mean when I say we didn't focus on the "actual brewing process?" Essentially, we took the kit directions as gospel and started from there. We didn't know what a 'hot break' was, or when to properly add the dried and liquid malt extract. Our process was (and in some cases still is): 1) get 2.5 gal of water up to 150-160 F and steep grains for 25 min, 2) remove grains, raise temp to get wort boiling, 3) add fermentables and hops, 4) continue boil, adding hops and whirlfloc, 5) wort chiller and transfer to fermenter, 6) rack to secondary after 2 weeks (or more depending on yeast activity), 7) wait another two weeks, bottle, 8) wait another two weeks and enjoy. (Note: we're sanitizing throughout this process)

We brewed 6 or 7 beers this way, and most turned out OK. There was a Russian Imperial Stout that was over-carbonated, but otherwise tasted fine. I brewed a Double IPA that turned out a little harsh, but I think that was because I didn't let it condition in the bottle enough.

But with my most recent beer, I went back to the drawing board and watched a ton of videos about 'brew day' and what it entails. That being said, I feel that the best way for me to learn (and to make my own beers) is to create my own recipes. I looked at a lot of kits, online help, and put the recipe together in BeerSmith. So in the spirit of summer, I brewed a saison. Here's a look at the recipe.

Summer Surrender Saison
Wyeast 3711 - French Saison
2 lbs. Pale Malt (2-Row)
1 lb. 10L Crystal Malt
3.3 lbs. Pilsen Light LME
2 lbs. Extra Light DME
1 lb. Candi sugar
2 oz. Hallertau hops - 60 min
1 oz. Tattnang hops - 15 min and 5 min
1 Whirlfloc

For this beer I started off with 5 gallons of water in my brew pot which I brought up to temp (160F) and steeped the grains for 25 minutes. After removing the grains and washing them with some hot water, I brought up the temperature to around 190F and started mixing in the DME, LME, and Candi sugar. I kept the heat on, waited for the hot break, then added my Hallertau hops and started the timed boil, adding hops and whirlfloc when it was time.

After the boil, I immediately cut the propane and started the wort chiller, and dumped everything from the brew kettle directly into my sanitized fermenter. I topped of the water to a solid 5 gal, took an OG reading (1.049, right on the money), pitched the yeast and sealed it up.

Brew day was Monday (2/1), and by Tuesday afternoon the airlock was bubbling like crazy. I'll more than likely rack this one to a secondary after 2 weeks to help get rid of most of the sediment.

So there you have it. Just wanted to introduce myself, share a story/what we're brewing, and get any feedback that you have on our brew day process and my saison recipe.

Cheers!

sounds great! Good to hear that the process is moving along for you. I'd read into some of the information on here about secondaries, many think they are totally unnecessary for a typical beer and that they don't really help much at all with clearing sediment. Lots of information and lively debate on this in the forums, but my opinion is that for people just getting started with all of this the more you can simplify the procedures the better (avoiding unnecessary transfers of your beer). Keep us updated on future brews

Why not just bring it up to a boil to add extracts rather than 190F then bring to boil? I like to get the hot break out of the way 1st (right before boil starts). Then add part of the extract for hop additions. The 2lbs DME would be good for this. Then add the candie sugar near the end to get it dissolved. At flame out,add remaining extracts. Since it's still boiling hot,& pasteurization happens at 162F,it's fine to add them at flame out. Keeps color lighter & no extract twang,that cooked extract sort of flavor.
Otherwise,it looks good.

unionrdr said:

Why not just bring it up to a boil to add extracts rather than 190F then bring to boil? I like to get the hot break out of the way 1st (right before boil starts). Then add part of the extract for hop additions. The 2lbs DME would be good for this. Then add the candie sugar near the end to get it dissolved. At flame out,add remaining extracts. Since it's still boiling hot,& pasteurization happens at 162F,it's fine to add them at flame out. Keeps color lighter & no extract twang,that cooked extract sort of flavor.
Otherwise,it looks good.

Click to expand...

Two or three of the videos I watched recommended adding it before the boil. Honestly, from the kit instructions, I thought all extracts have to go in at the beginning. You can add LME at the end?

But, in my experience, I always had trouble keeping the temperature up when adding the DME.

When I started brewing I added LME at the begining of my boil and my light beers were much darker than what I wanted.
Now, I add 3/4 of the LME in the last 5 minutes and my light beers are actually light in color.

Yeah,late extract additions are great for getting lighter color & cleaner flavor.