bottled my APA/IPA tonight and it tastes light??

Well, I bottled my first AG tonight and I'm not sure what to think. My Pale Ale
ended up being more of an IPA because of my 90 min boil time instead of 60 min.
(83 IBU) I tasted some after chilling in the fridge for an hour and it seems light.
Maybe not quite watery but "dry" maybe?

The FG was 1.006. Did this finish too dry? Or am I just tasting a green IPA?
It seems like it will be drinkable after it carbonates. But it just doesn't have
any substance backing it up.
The color seems accurate at 14 SRM.

What do you think?




Dog Hair Pale Ale
Type: All Grain
Date: 3/19/2007
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Brewer:
Boil Size: 6.41 gal Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 60 min Equipment: Brew Pot (15.5 gal) and Igloo Cooler (10 Gal)
Taste Rating(out of 50): Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.0
Taste Notes:

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
9.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 80.9 %
1.00 lb Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 9.0 %
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 4.5 %
0.50 lb Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 4.5 %
0.13 lb Caramunich Malt (56.0 SRM) Grain 1.2 %
0.75 oz Centennial [10.00%] (27 min) Hops 19.3 IBU
0.50 oz Centennial [10.00%] (50 min) Hops 16.9 IBU
0.50 oz Centennial [10.00%] (40 min) Hops 15.6 IBU
0.50 oz Centennial [10.00%] (40 min) Hops 15.6 IBU
0.40 oz Centennial [10.00%] (90 min) Hops 15.2 IBU



Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.060 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.049 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.015 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.006 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.8 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 5.6 %
Bitterness: 82.5 IBU Calories: 213 cal/pint
Est Color: 14.3 SRM Color: Color

006 is quite low for beer. I also noticed that you didn't get your anticipated OG when you brewed it.
This will be a good drinkable beer but I was thinking that, if you discribed your brew process, maybe we could help you increase your efficiency.

It would probably help if you posted what your mash temps were?
to me that seems like a helluva fermentation and at 1.006 I imagine it would be very dry. What kind of yeast did you use?


Dan

I wound up mashing for 80 min, due to undershooting the temp at the beginning (infused 12.5 qts. at 165, it dropped to 147, then down to 140 at the 15 min. mark).
At the 30 min. mark, I added 3.25 qts and it came up to 152 and then dropped to 149.
I reheated some wort and brought it up to 154 and it settled at 151.5 for the last 25 min. Total time was 80 min.

Then it took 30 min. to come up to a boil. I did my hop additions
and boiled for 90min to get the vol. down.

Yst was WPL001 Cali.
Was 7 days too long in the primary?

First off, it's not an IPA because of the extra 30m of boiling, it's because of the massive amount of 10% AA hops! Even if you'd have gotten your anticipated OG you'd stil be looking at ~75 IBU's, which is pretty hefty even for an IPA, let alone a Pale Ale.
Where did you get recipe from?
Also, if you boiled an extra 30m, how much volume did you lose? That should be calculated into your efficiency for your notes. If you actually ended up with 4.5g instead of 5, then your IBU's would be more like 92, and your efficiency about 66%.
Hate to break it to you, but that sort of beer, with twice the bittering units as gravity points, is doomed to failure. Then have it end up at 1.006 and it just accentuates the lack of malt/hop balance. Or as you put it, it won't have any substance backing it up.
Here's what I think, to answer your question:
1) DWRHA(tasty)H!
2) Find a tried and true recipe (nothing radical -those really big and bitter IPA's need some serious finesse!) to get your feet wet in AG brewing,
3) Buy and devour Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels,
4) In the meantime, and forever after, check your gravity WHILE brewing! If you see that you have a 6.5g preboil of only 1.040 when you thought you'd have 1.053, DON'T pitch a bucket of hops! I see you have Beer Smith - USE IT! Change your efficiency to express your preboil (under "boil off") then go to "bitterness" at the top of the page in the recipe to tweak your hop additions to something more appropriate. Brad Smith can help you with that if it isn't clear.

Unless you measure something (or a couple things!) way off, this beer won't be much to drink. Chalk it up as lesson learned and consider blending it with a maltier beer just to use it up. Assuming there's no off-flavors, there's no sense in tossing it. Many "bad" ebers make part of a great beer, if you know what I mean.
Cheers!

Ok, just to throw another mistake out there, after checking my notes,
I don't have a pre-boil OG reading.
I collected 6.75 gal and boiled down to 5.5.
Beersmith says 67.5 eff.

So, next time I should get a preboil OG and if I'm under, boil down to get
close to the expected OG?

I'm going to check my hydrometer as well. Just for my own curiousity.
Designing Great Beers is another book I intend to read. Thanks.

In the end, I don't think I was expecting my 1st AG to hit the mark dead on.
I'll use what I've learned and create a better brew!

megavites said:

Ok, just to throw another mistake out there, after checking my notes,
I don't have a pre-boil OG reading.
I collected 6.75 gal and boiled down to 5.5.
Beersmith says 67.5 eff.

So, next time I should get a preboil OG and if I'm under, boil down to get
close to the expected OG?

I'm going to check my hydrometer as well. Just for my own curiousity.
Designing Great Beers is another book I intend to read. Thanks.

In the end, I don't think I was expecting my 1st AG to hit the mark dead on.
I'll use what I've learned and create a better brew!

Click to expand...

How much mash/sparge water did you use? 6.75 gallons of wort from 11+ pounds of grain sounds low. If I were brewing that same recipe I would use 3 1/2 gallons for the mash and roughly 6 gallons of sparge water. Figuring a bit over a gallon lost to grain absorption and loss in the Lauter tun of about 1/2 gallon the pre boil volume would be about 8 gallons of wort. You would obviously need a longer boil but this would increase your extraction.
Also, Pre heat your Mash Tun with very hot water. Then heat your strike water about 3 to 5 degrees above the target. Dump the preheat water and add the strike water. Let it cool until you reach your target then add the grains. This helps your tun absorb heat and you will hit your target dead on.

Rich,
I mashed in with 3.125 gal. and then added another 3.125qts
at the 30 min mark to try and bring the temp up.
For my fly sparge I heated 5 gal. (170) and stopped at my 6.75 collected volume.


I agree about the preheat. I don't think I waited long enough to let
my cooler absorb the heat.

I guess I should have collected more because it does seem like I
had a bit more losses than I expected.

So, if the reciepe noted a 1.052 OG and my post boil OG was 1.049,
I should have boiled down a little more? ( I guess that's a question I have,
when a reciepe states an OG, is that pre-boil or post boil?)

megavites said:

Rich,
I mashed in with 3.125 gal. and then added another 3.125qts
at the 30 min mark to try and bring the temp up.
For my fly sparge I heated 5 gal. (170) and stopped at my 6.75 collected volume.


I agree about the preheat. I don't think I waited long enough to let
my cooler absorb the heat.

I guess I should have collected more because it does seem like I
had a bit more losses than I expected.

So, if the reciepe noted a 1.052 OG and my post boil OG was 1.049,
I should have boiled down a little more? ( I guess that's a question I have,
when a reciepe states an OG, is that pre-boil or post boil?)

Click to expand...

You could if you were worried about it. I believe the OG is post boil. I honestly wouldn't worry about a couple points.


Dan

Well, for something like this, where you're using a lot of hops, I would have either boiled off more and taken less beer (and used a straight percentage of the hop pitching rates equal to the difference after boiloff) or decided a smaller beer was fine and adjusted the hop pitches according to that, based on the hop utilization of a lighter gravity. Make sense? Not just a matter of worrying about a couple points, you got 82% of your gravity and used 100% of your hops (in a lighter wort which gives you more bang for your hop, understand.)
If you don't know the gravity, you might as well just grab random handfuls of hops and throw them in whenever. IOW, a hop charge is only meaningful in relation to time boiled and gravity along the boiloff curve. Don't sweat it though. Beer Smith or the other software programs will do the thinking for you.

double post!!