Noob ipa

Hey everyone. I'm from salinas ca and I'm starting my first home
Brew(save applause for the end)

I got basic equipment ;
Fermentor bucket
Bottling bucket
7.5 boiling pot
And the other essential tools.

Going extract for my first batch. Bought a kit for a traditional west coast ipa with magnum and citra hops ( thought cascade was more traditional , but what do I know. I'm a noob lol)

Anyways, if there's any hints or tips or just a good luck is greatly appreciate it and can't wait to taste my first brew.
Fish on!

First, welcome to the obsession.
There's plenty of information available here, on other beer / brewing forums and on the internet.
I recommend buying and reading How To Brew, by John Palmer and The Complete Joy of Homebrewing by Charlie Papazian. Palmer is more technical, Papazian more of a 'feel' guy. Both IMO are indispensable.
For your brew, read the online version of How To Brew, at least the first couple sections, then be prepared to not do everything he says on-line (that is an old version, and he;s changed his mind about many things.)
Anyways, be prepared to do as large a boil as you can.
if you can do a starter (search here for info) do so, if not, rehydrate your yeast in warm water before pitching.
Keep the fermenting temps in the low to mid 60s.
DOn't keep opening the fermenter to look at it. Really. It's best left alone.
Give it plenty of time to finish. 2 weeks is minimum. I give my beer 3 weeks. Ditto for carbonation in bottles.
Relax, Don't worry, have a (home)brew. This is Charlie Papazian's mantra, and it's a great way to feel. If you worry about every little thing, you won't enjoy the hobby. It is actually very difficult to truly ruin your beer, despite the many threads on here asking that.

Why are all my hobbies obsessions lol

"Relax have a home brew" I actually have read his book (maybe the third ver. Idk) but it was very informative and have a whole spectrum of knowledge from beginner to pro.
Thanks for the info and will def. post pics and updates to my first brew.

Check the hop additions if you bought a kit. The first ipa kit I brewed was a huge disappointment. Only 3 ounces of hops came with it. Learn the basics of dry hopping and late addition hops if you like the west coast hop forward ipa's.

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Definitely dry hop your IPA or it won't have much IPA character. More like a pale ale.

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I brewed an ipa kit that didn't call for dry hops but after tasting it after 2 weeks it was just bitter with no real flavor. Dry hoping pushed that beer to my favorite one yet.

For a clean tasting brew you must monitor your fermentation temps. Start low and warm it closer to 70 twords the end of the week. Good luck; have fun.

Finished first brew. Accidentally didn't add last hop addition , whoops.
A little too many NB ranger IPA haha

So what I was thinking is just add it to my dry hop.
2oz of citra. Read that citra is a potent hop and is to be used lightly?
Anyone filial with it?

Also tried the new Belgium IPA for the first time (new brew , new beer)
I'm used to Sierra N. Or dogfish head IPA's, which I'm sure use cascade and other types of hops. What I'm getting at is I tried citra hops for the first time and it was a just a totally different experience .
beer is amazing !

Got a but scared , but fermentation has begun. Well it's bubbling so I hope that's what it means lol

Anyone have some suggestions/opinions about using bottling bucket as a secondary ? If beer left in yeast will it make it taste yeasty?

I'd only use 1 oz Citra and some other hop varieties. 2 Oz will probably be way too much.

I just chucked in 3oz of citra to an IPA, really love this hop and the aroma and flavor.

alright maybe 1.5 oz lol

im a IIPA guy, hop bitterness and aroma are what I'm aiming for.
bc I'm dry hoping won't the citra only affect aroma and not the bitterness?

also airlock stopped bubbling after 4 days, I've read here on the forums not a big deal.
what i did just bc i thought it was getting cold where the beer as fermenting, i moved the fermenter next to a warmer spot in my house hoping that it'll give the yeast a little more power.

any thoughts on this?

Yes, bitterness should not be affected

I think as long as you maintain the temperature in the desired range for the yeast it should be fine. The yeast will still be working on clean up and things will be dropping out of solution. You really need to check the FG to determine when the fermenting is complete. The one I just dry hopped had been at 1.012 for about a week (8 days) so I went ahead an dry hopped it and will be bottling on Friday or Saturday depending on work and what not. Wish I had brewed this a few weeks earlier because it looks and tastes supper yummy!

How many days did you dry hop for?
I figured the more hops less time in carboy/bucke so the aroma isn't to intense .

Dry hop for at least 5 but a max of 7, at least that's the advice I have been going off of.


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After 4 days your primary fermentation is basically done... The rule I see tossed around is 1-2-3 : 1 week in primary, 2 in secondary and 3 in a bottle before drinking. For your first brew I'd probably just let it sit in primary for 3 weeks, pitch your dry hop about 5 days before bottling.

I've dryhopped for 10, maybe even 14 days without any issues, some say they get vegetal tastes. Some will also say to cold crash it the day before you bottle to get everything to settle as well.

by not using a secondary will my beer taste yeasty from sitting on a bed of yeast for three weeks?
1 week down and 2 more till bottling, ill probably use my bottling bucket as a secondary unless that frowned upon .
the suspense to see how my beer looks is like no other ha

You won't get any yeastie flavor from sitting on the yeast cake as there is not enough weight from the beer to cause this. That is only a problem for breweries and large scale home brewing.

I would recommend leaving it in the primary, you will need your bottling bucket empty for bottling. Plus you risk infection by moving the beer. RDWHAHB


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Is there a risk of infection when bottling?

Slowly counting the days, almost time to dry hop.
I have pellets , do I just toss them in of use a herb bag?

Yea I buy into the idea of primary only for MOST beers. Some require a secondary but an IIPA I would just let sit on yeast trub the full time, at least 3 weeks for a big IIPA. Moving to secondary gives more opportunity for infection, especially as a novice. Also if there was any off flavors due to mistakes in process the longer it sits on the most yeast the better it can eat up and smooth out off flavors.

There is definitely a risk of infection when bottling, sanitize everything thoroughly with star-san or isudophor that is going to touch the beer. Make sure it is CLEANED, free of crud/debris before sanitized otherwise it won't really be sanitized.

You can toss them in or use bag (sanitize the bag, don't worry about the hops). If you toss them in directly, you should cold crash before bottled to help drop out all the pellet flakes.

Greggygreg, you've come to the right place! As you are finding, you'll get tons of quick advice on this forum.

I have to disagree with some of the suggestions you've gotten though. I do not recommend the "1-2-3" schedule. The yeast determines when your beer is finished fermenting. Sometimes it takes 3 days, other times it takes 3 weeks. The only way to know when it is done is by using a hydrometer. If using a secondary (which, in my opinion, your beer does not require) you don't want to transfer until primary fermentation is over.

As far as dry hopping goes, anywhere from 2-10 days can be used. There was some research done recently that determined most of the aroma is actually imparted within the first 12 hours or so! Leaving it for too long can sometimes give grassy smells, which some find offputting. Most recommend 3-7 days but certainly no harm in leaving it for a little shorter/longer. I like 2-5 days. In terms of how much to use, this is personal preference. I find Citra to be very pleasant in combination with other "C" hops or by itself. 2-3 oz of Citra in a dryhop isn't too much in my opinion at all. You'll find many west coast IPA recipes that call for 5-6+ oz of dryhops for 5 gallon batch.

Zoidberg gave some good advice on your questions too.

Keep reading the forum and use the search engine for other specific questions. Or keep asking away!

DocScott, What's your take on the Flight 7Cs hops? Used them once for my IPA but didn't dry hop it; just about to move to a new place and have a larger space for brewing.. IPA is one of the first ones I want to redo.

So popped open my fermenting bucket to dry hop.
Any infection in the brew from what you guys can see?

Smelled great tho , hope everything is all good and can't wait for a week to pass so I can start bottling.

Dreams do come true:beard:

Ancient_Hopus said:

DocScott, What's your take on the Flight 7Cs hops? Used them once for my IPA but didn't dry hop it; just about to move to a new place and have a larger space for brewing.. IPA is one of the first ones I want to redo.

Click to expand...

I haven't used the 7C combo. From what I know, it is basically a mix of 7 different "C" hops, all of which are available individually. I imagine it works great for most IPAs but it would be difficult to predict the smell/flavor produced without using it many times and learning from experimenting. I also dont' know if it is a set mix that they use - meaning that I'm not sure if the 7 hops are all mixed in the same ratio from one production run to the next. A little research on the producer would probably answer this though.

My approach has been to use certain hops to achieve certain characteristics in the final beer (citrus, pine, dank, floral, etc) which may be harder to do using an unknown hop mixture. Give it a whirl though, and let us know

Greggygreg...that picture looks perfectly normal. No infection that I see. The floating things are "yeast rafts" and will drop with more time or a cold crash. You can also just rack the beer off and try to avoid sucking up the floating clumps.

Okay all done , I used a hydrometer and it came out to 1.25 .
I let it sit for two days and it was still the same, so I bottled.

The suggested gravity was 1.18 .

Bad or good?
Tasted great and smelled awesome, can't wait for it to carb up and drink a cold one.

Might be a little high, just depends on what you expect out of the flavor. Most west coast style IPAs are pretty dry (lower FG) though. Probably just have more body and be slightly sweet, but none the less drinkable.

If there's one thing I've learned it's this; let the beer do it's thing and, most of the time, it will turn out just fine (within reason).

Cheers, and welcome to my favorite hobby!