Suthrncomfrt1884

Recipes 

__________________
He who drinks beer sleeps well. He who sleeps well cannot sin. He who does not sin goes to heaven.

Another HERMS rig...

homebrewdad

Recipes 

Glad you enjoyed it. I probably went into way too much detail, but whatever.

I didn't have too much trouble simply due to the thickness; I had left the can out on the counter long enough for it to get close to room temperature. It was more of an inadvertant spill thing, followed by me not being able to get it all out of the can easily.

Thanks for the hot water tip, though - I will definitely use that in the future.

Also, I did one more substitution than I had mentioned before... when I was ordering my LME, they didn't have "light". I ended up going half and half with amber and extra pale. I expect that my beer will be a little darker because of it, but I doubt that will be an issue.

Thoughts?

__________________
Homebrew Dad - blogging about making my own beer and raising a lot of kids

Primary: enpty
Secondary: Imperial nut brown ale
Bottled: Yorkshire square brown ale, Leffe Blonde clone

D_Ranged_Eskimo

Recipes 

That shouldn't be a big problem. It is a fairly dark brown ale using LME in the first place.

That's amazing you came out with a 1.100 reading. That thing is going to be a beast. You will be glad you made that starter and threw in some yeast nutrient, it will really help to break down that monster of a beer.

homebrewdad

Recipes 

I'm wondering if it's something that I'm somehow doing. My first brew was an extract kit from AHS (Yorkshire Square Brown). Tagert OG on it was 1.051, I came in at 1.075 (took three identical readings). Now this one comes in almost twenty points high!

I have checked my hydrometer in plain water more than once, get a 1.000 every time.

I know that it's possible I added a little too much extract to this recipe, since I was using volume, not weight (kitchen scale is in storage). Still, I couldn't have been off by THAT much, as I only bought a small amount of extra (7 lbs of LME as opposed to the 6.6 for the recipe, 3 lbs of DME, as opposed to 2.25... and I had what appeared to be the correct leftover amounts of both).

I guess time will tell...


Edit: as for it being a beast, my next blog entry will be about the beastly fermentation so far. Does that count?

__________________
Homebrew Dad - blogging about making my own beer and raising a lot of kids

Primary: enpty
Secondary: Imperial nut brown ale
Bottled: Yorkshire square brown ale, Leffe Blonde clone

Suthrncomfrt1884

Recipes 

My guess is that your gravity readings are off. The only reason I say that is because kits are usually right on the money as far as starting gravity. There's nothing you can do to squeeze that much more fermentable sugars out of it. Even if you have steeping grains, there's just no way...

Extract is very precise on how much potential sugar you will get out of it.

__________________
He who drinks beer sleeps well. He who sleeps well cannot sin. He who does not sin goes to heaven.

Another HERMS rig...

homebrewdad

Recipes 

I've assumed that, myself. That beign said, I measured this recipe twice, and measured my kit recipe three times. Every time, I held the thief at a little different angle, in case I was hitting some sugary pocket or somesuch.

The only time I've ever had an inconsistent reading was when checking FG on the kit brew, I had somehow gained .010 in a day, and knew that couldn't be right; dummy me hadn't taken enough of a sample, and my hydrometer was sitting on the bottom. A new sample lined up with what I was expecting.

__________________
Homebrew Dad - blogging about making my own beer and raising a lot of kids

Primary: enpty
Secondary: Imperial nut brown ale
Bottled: Yorkshire square brown ale, Leffe Blonde clone

homebrewdad

Recipes 

I pulled a gravity reading last night, after three weeks in primary. 1.015, so fermentation should be complete. I plan to leave it another week in primary to clean up a bit, then I'll rack it to secondary for clarifying, batch aging, and opening up my primary for the next brew.

I'm going to leave this one for at least two weeks in secondary before I bottle. I wonder if I'd hurt anything by leaving it a full month?

Incidentally, even though my sample did have some hop gunk in it, it was surprisingly tasty! Sweeter than I expected, but not at all cloying, and smoother than I was expecting (no bad alcohol bite at all)... I am really excited to see how this one turns out.

I had worried a bit that I had scorched the LME; I knew that I had perhaps come close, and my original taste on brew day was fairly bitter, even smoky. That's all gone now.

__________________
Homebrew Dad - blogging about making my own beer and raising a lot of kids

Primary: enpty
Secondary: Imperial nut brown ale
Bottled: Yorkshire square brown ale, Leffe Blonde clone

D_Ranged_Eskimo

Recipes 

That's good to hear it turned out well. Were you able to control your fermentation tempuratures? That seems like it would really helps keep a lot of the esters and strong alcohol tastes down.

I left mine in a secondary for 2 months before bottling it. A month won't hurt, and batch aging will really help the flavors of this big beer come together.

homebrewdad

Recipes 

I had started this one at 68 degrees ambient, but the original fermentation was vigorous and pretty hot. I moved it to the basement and 62 degrees ambient, which kept it from getting above 70 degrees.

I'm not getting the same alcohol warmth from this one that I get from my Yorkshire square brown (first batch), even though that beer is a lower ABV. I'm guessing that the temp was the big factor, here?

Thanks for the advice on secondary. I had been leaning towards a month... I may leave it longer. I understand that bulk aging may be better for bigger beers? If so, there's no rush to bottle it.

__________________
Homebrew Dad - blogging about making my own beer and raising a lot of kids

Primary: enpty
Secondary: Imperial nut brown ale
Bottled: Yorkshire square brown ale, Leffe Blonde clone