ruined beer from hops?

Okay we have our first brew day yesterday. Went to the lhbs and found a rogue brutal ipa kit for $20 on clearance so we picked it up. We did everything right, steep grains at 160 degrees and turned the burner off for about 10 minutes then added a 3lb bag of dme, then brought it to a boil for about 45 minutes added the other bags of the dme. Well the directions confused us when it came to the hops, we didn't steep ANY of the hops until the last 15-20 minutes when people are saying online to boil for 45. Will we still have anything drinkable?

The short answer is yes you will have something drinkable. Just will not be as bitter as it was intended. Bittering hops are added with 90-45 minutes remaining in the boil. Flavoring hops are added mid boil usually 40-20 minutes left in the boil. Aroma hops are added with 15 minutes are less left in the boil. Dry hopping also contributes to the hop aroma.

Alright thank you! and one more thing, what is the better/right way to do this.. I dont have a wort chiller yet so we dumped the hot wort into the primary then chilled it. Should I have done that or should I have chilled it in the kettle, or doesn't it matter?

It's hard to say, not knowing what you boiled in. What I do it take the whole pot (a four gallon stainless steel pot) and put it into my kitchen sick, which I fill about half full with ice water. Once the ice melts and the water no longer feels cold, I'll pour the wort into the fermenter with the rest of the water (I use about 2.5 gallons in the boil). It's usually ready for yeast at that point.

It would depend on what type of primary fermenting vessel you're using and how you're chilling it, but if you don't have any kind of wort chiller it seems like cooling in an ice bath would be faster anyway. And adding cold water or whatever else you can do. Some people put ice or frozen bottles of water directly in the wort

I use an aluminum pot, and when I was chilling it last night in an ice bath it still took FOREVER. So maybe I should try chilling it in the aluminum rather than the plastic?

treacheroustexan said:

I use an aluminum pot, and when I was chilling it last night in an ice bath it still took FOREVER. So maybe I should try chilling it in the aluminum rather than the plastic?

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That will certainly speed things up. I fill my bathtub with the coldest water and a 10 LB bag of gas station ice. Once the water level in the tub is at or above the wort level in the pot, I tie the pot handle to my soap holder, and turn the faucet on med strength, so it creates a cold water whirlpool, but doesn't splash any potentially bacterial bathtub water in my beer. Usually takes 30-45 min. That said, my homeboy at the LHBS kinda chuckled when I told him I didn't have a wort chiller and I do full vol boils, lol. The pot is super heavy when filled with 5 gal of barely sub-boiling wort, so its a little dangerous, but those things are expensive to build.

There are recipes that use all late hop additions (30 minutes or less), with the goal of extracting more flavor. It usually requires more hops than a traditional recipe to achieve the bitterness. Point is your recipe may be just fine as is.

It will be beer!

Keep reading on here, buy a paper book and digest all the relevent parts (Palmer's How to Brew is a classic), and do it again. Plan your brew day -- it really helps to read and understand fully the instructions before starting the brewing process. You also need to know when to ignore stupid kit instructions

Buy a hydrometer and learn how to use it.

cheers!

Before I had a wort chiller and even now that I do one of the most helpful thing that I have found to help cool down your wort is to either move your ice water around in a whirlpool motion around your pot or to swirl your pot around in the ice bath (also exposing a greater surface area of your pot to the cold water). Should be able to get your temp down around 70 in about 30-40 minutes.