Now accepting ideas for my my second brew.

All I can think about is brewing more beer.

My friend and I brewed our first batch two weeks ago this Sunday (Hefe, WLP 300, room temp, ).

Initially we were going to wait until this beer was ready to drink before starting our second. We had the idea of sipping our first home brew while creating our second. In that time, however, we decided that we don't like having a lack of home brew, and we'd like to not have a lack of it in the future. So we're brewing our second batch at the same time as we are bottling the first. Sure, we won't be able to taste our mistakes, but what the hell... experience is the best teacher, right?

Now we're just not sure what to do for our second. We'd like to do an American IPA, but I've been told that we may want to wait a bit longer before getting in to that.

I've heard that a Saison is a good choice for an early brew, but, and this could be my flaw (and probably the flaw of most new brewers), it seems that Saisons take much longer to be ready than I'd like to wait right now.

I've looked online quite a bit, and I see hundreds of recipes that I'd like to get in to and give a shot, but if anyone could lob some suggestions my way, I would greatly appreciate it. I'm looking for something more hoppy than not, something that'd be a nice summer beer that'll be ready by mid August.

We have not done a secondary yet, and don't have a second carboy anyways, so something that can sit in the primary and not require transfer will be best.

We used specialty grains in our first batch, so we're comfortable with that, and also have the ability to do a full boil (propane cooker), and will be using DME (the local brew store tends to push DME over LME, and carry quite a few DMEs)

We'll also be using a cooler and ice bottles during fermentation. So there's not going to be any exact numbers being hit, but we should be able to keep it relatively cool (it's been hot out here in So. Cal. these past few weeks!).

If y'all need any more info please let me know. Thanks!




joe

Do an IPA with White Labs' new San Diego Super Yeast 090. That's what I'm doing. Only thing better than homebrew is making it faster.

Do the IPA man, the only additional work that you will be doing is adding more hops at different intervals, and possibly dryhoping. I dryhop in my primary all the time.

Try a nice and easy American Pale Ale. Should give you some contrast between your hefe and they're easy to make.

When I used to do extract, I had an APA that I always had on hand. Here's the recipe (I converted all of the lme to dme for you)

6 lbs light dme
8 oz carapils
8 oz caramel 10L

Steep grains for 30 min at 150 F. Remove grains, bring to just about a boil, remove from heat, add the dme, stirring well to fully incorporate and eliminate clumps.
Bring to a boil and add 1 oz perle at 60 min. At 2 min, add 1 oz cascade.
Ferment using Wyeast 1056 (or some equivalent) for 2 weeks, then add 1 oz cascade for a 1-2 week dryhop. Then keg (or bottle in your case...)

phidelt1499 said:

Try a nice and easy American Pale Ale. Should give you some contrast between your hefe and they're easy to make.

When I used to do extract, I had an APA that I always had on hand. Here's the recipe (I converted all of the lme to dme for you)

6 lbs light dme
8 oz carapils
8 oz caramel 10L

Steep grains for 30 min at 150 F. Remove grains, bring to just about a boil, remove from heat, add the dme, stirring well to fully incorporate and eliminate clumps.
Bring to a boil and add 1 oz perle at 60 min. At 2 min, add 1 oz cascade.
Ferment using Wyeast 1056 (or some equivalent) for 2 weeks, then add 1 oz cascade for a 1-2 week dryhop. Then keg (or bottle in your case...)

Click to expand...

I like the sound of that. A couple questions:

If I'm doing a full boil, will this mean that I need to use a different amount hops than suggested in your recipe?

When dry hopping in the primary, should I use whole hops, or pellets? I've only used pellets before.

Should be going to the LHBS today once my friend gets off work, so I'll be able to run this by them too, but I'd just like to be able to have a place to start from.


joe

I'd agree with the American Pale Ale suggestion, since you said you wanted it hoppy. I'd keep the ABV relatively low, around 5% (IMO it will be ready sooner and you'll run into less fermentation problems). I'd also brew a similar recipe for the next half dozen or so batches and just make minor tweaks with the yeast, hop varieties, hop schedules. This is a much better way to get your processes nailed down than jumping around batch to batch with various styles.

JoeDaddio said:

I like the sound of that. A couple questions:

If I'm doing a full boil, will this mean that I need to use a different amount hops than suggested in your recipe?

When dry hopping in the primary, should I use whole hops, or pellets? I've only used pellets before.
joe

Click to expand...

Sorry, about the volume... When I did it, it was a 3 gallon boil, then topped off to 5 gal in the fermenter. Since you're doing full boils, maybe try some brewing software to determine the hop schedule. Perhaps someone with more knowledge on the partial to full boil conversion could help you there.

I've always used pellet hops when dry hopping in the primary. I suppose you could use leaf if that's what you had. I'm not really concerned with sediment since the yeast should have settled out by 3-4 weeks and I keg, so I usually let it sit there for a week then pull a pint of crap and the rest of the beer is clear.

Are you using a kit?

Brewers best has a nice IPA kit, Falconeers IPA (It think that is what it is called). Ny LHBS brewed it and it was real nice. I am not a hoppy beer fan, but this one I liked.

I agree an APA is the way to go if you want something hoppy, but ready soon. I will suggest however that the IPA's are just as easy to make as any other beer, but require more hops at more intervals. That's it... So do an IPA as your third or fourth... I also wanted to point out that Saison's are just as quick as any other lower ABV beer. I brewed a Rye Saison and was drinking it in a month. It only ended up being a 5% or so brew, but very good none the less. My point is, it's not the style (usually) that requires more time, but the amount of alcohol in the brew itself, if that makes sense.

I'm back from the brew shop.

We decided on a dark Saison using WLP 566. The owner of the shop seemed to think it was a good idea, and we took his advice

We also picked up a wort chiller


joe

Did he recommend it because of the higher fermentation temp?

jwplessner said:

Did he recommend it because of the higher fermentation temp?

Click to expand...

Yup.

It's been pretty consistently warm here and we think that we ought to be able to get by at room temp (in an unused bathroom).


joe

Probably a good idea, just beware that a saison should finish real dry. It can take a bit of work to get the yeast to attenuate to your target gravity. You don't want the temp to drop drastically after fermentation starts, so you may want to pitch cooler than room temp.

phidelt1499: This week I brewed Orfy's OSH and a spruce PA. I was wondering what to do next when I read your post. A hoppy APA sounds great! Thanks for posting the recipe.

B

jwplessner said:

Probably a good idea, just beware that a saison should finish real dry. It can take a bit of work to get the yeast to attenuate to your target gravity. You don't want the temp to drop drastically after fermentation starts, so you may want to pitch cooler than room temp.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the heads up. We just bought a wort chiller so that ought to be a big help in bringing the temp down.


joe

I've used the IC about 5 times now - and love it. You won't be sorry that you got one.

B

birvine said:

phidelt1499: This week I brewed Orfy's OSH and a spruce PA. I was wondering what to do next when I read your post. A hoppy APA sounds great! Thanks for posting the recipe.

B

Click to expand...

My pleasure. Hope it turns out!

We finished the Saison yesterday afternoon around 6pm. Also got 23 12oz bottles (we drank one) and 10 22 oz bottles of our Hefe.

The Hefe tasted pretty good. I was amazed that we had made, well... beer! It was our first batch and we can't wait for it to condition a couple weeks, carbonate, and then cool off. It was pretty good, we thought, and it'll only get better!

Here it is before moving it to the bottling bucket:



Here it is being siphoned:



And here's the yield:



Here's the Saison wort being brought to boil:



And in its resting spot after pitching the yeast:



It was a lot of fun, I'm really enjoying the brewing process! OG came out exactly as the recipe expected: 1.060. That dark Belgian candy did its job!

Bottling and brewing on the same day took some logistical thinking, but we got it all done and everything worked out great!



joe