crazy first time recipe?

a few weeks ago i bought a 1 pound bag of cascade hops so i could dry hop a BB kit IPA. i only used 1 oz of the hops at the time. but i didnt think about proper storage, i thought i could get ahold of a vacuum sealer, but was wrong so i stuffed the remaining hops into two gallon size zip bags and threw it in the freezer, i knew this wouldnt keep fresh long so i then decided to use the entire 15oz of remaning hops in my very first own recipe. i am a chef, so i decided that i could just go into my local brew store and just kinda grab some random grain, extract, and make my brew my way. which is exactly how i learned to cook. i admit, though, that i do not have a firm grasp on much of the math involved, the guy at the store assured me that the grains and extract i grabbed would result in at least a 9% abv beer, which i thought would be necessary for such a hoppy beer. after talking to him and deciding that i would put the vast majority of the hops near the end as well as 2oz dryhopping in order to keep the bitterness down. but after i brewed the beer i decided to download beersmith 2 and plug in the numbers. now maybe i dont know how to use it, but it says im looking at a 5% beer with 103 IBU. here is the recipe i created, i fully understand that it may be offensive to some of you, but im trying to get predictions on what you all think i may come up with in three weeks when this thing hits the keggerator, cause this is for fun, and if i have to choke down some nasty beer once in a while, then at least i learned something in the process. im just gonna list the ingredients as they appear on the packages, i dont know what a lovibond is, but ill write it down for you.
2 packets of dry ale yeast
1lb belgian pilsen malt, lovibond 1.5
1lb victory 6row lovibond 25
1lb pale ale malt lovibond 1.25
1lb plain white DME
3.3lb light LME
1lb maltodextrin
15oz Cascade Hops
4tbl clover honey

all the grain was steeped at 155 f for 20 minutes.
the extracts and maltodextrin were added at the same time as soon as the boil started rolling.
hop additions were as follows:
2.5oz, 10 minutes
1.5oz, 10 minutes
1oz, 10 minutes
1oz, 1 minute
0.1oz per minute for 20 minutes, 2oz total (honey added on last minute)
wait 6 minutes
2oz, 2 minutes
3oz, 1 minute
terminate boil
the final 2oz will be dryhopped for the last week in the secondary.

it took me 1 hour and 3 minutes to get the wort to 90 degrees f. i re hydrated the yeast per packet directions and added both packets. bubbling started in 34 hours or so. the og was 0.053.

Thanks for taking the time to check this out for me and letting me know what you think.:rockin:

First, I like your attitude! And I'm stoked to hear how this puppy turns out.

Lovibond is a measure of color from roast, the lower the number the lighter the color. This has a huge impact on flavor.

I didn't plug it into my program, but I would imagine it'll be higher than 5% ABV

good deal man, thanks for the feedback!

heres a picture. i have a spoonfull in the top of the pic. its crazy thick.

Whew! Maybe use a colander to get most of those hops out before transferring to fermentation vessel?

yeah, i used my big mesh strainer. i let it drip as much as i could, but should i have pressed the liquid out of the hops? i only ended up with one and a half gallons of wort. but i figured if i pressed the liquid, then it would cause bitterness. is that the case?

after a little research, i decided to add a 5oz priming sugar and 2tbl more honey to my primary today to give the double yeast something to chew on, it seems like a small amount but only time will tell. the aroma of the beer is quite wonderful when i had the top off and the color is perfect, it was bitter though so i figured a bit more sugar couldnt hurt eaither way.

Only 1.5 gallons... for a 5 gallon batch? Hmm. I would have pressed some wort outta the hops, but that's just me.

CHillRoomBrew said:

yeah, i used my big mesh strainer. i let it drip as much as i could, but should i have pressed the liquid out of the hops? i only ended up with one and a half gallons of wort. but i figured if i pressed the liquid, then it would cause bitterness. is that the case?

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1.5 gallons?? Something def went wrong. How much water did you start with? What was your process in detail?

mxpx5678 said:

1.5 gallons?? Something def went wrong. How much water did you start with? What was your process in detail?

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i stared with 3 gallons water. i did not think about the fresh hops sucking up all that water. in detail, ill get back to that later when i have more time.

How much total water did you put in? i.e. did you add anything to top it off to 5 gallons? If not, then yes, you will come up with a crazy bitter beer and probably right around the 5.5%-6% range depending on the type of yeast and how well it attenuates. With your OG at 1.053, if you can get it down to 1.008 you are looking at a 5.9% beer. Kudos for giving it a shot! Hope you like em bitter! Like you said though, it's all a learning experience!

as far as the details of the harvesting the liquid from the hops,after the wort reached 90f i set a collinder with cheesecloth wrapped around it in the bucket and poured half of the muck into it, i let it sit about 5 to ten minutes, then repeated the process, there was no trub to speak of, it was all hop and a little bit of water. but like i said, only one and a half gallons of liquid. i just need to start with more water next time. account for boil off and squeeze the hops out a bit and i probably would have been fine, but i wonder if i have affected the potential of the beer by not getting all the liquid i can. any thoughts?

yeah, i added another 3 and a half gallons to it to bring me to 5gal. i racked it to the secondary today but didnt take gravity readings as it was still bubbling every 20 miinutes or so, and has since started bubbling in the secondary like mad. i dont feel the need to waste the beer on the math, ill check it when it hit the keg. it smells and looks just like hopslam right now, i dig it. im going to dryhop it in one week, then keg a week later.

Ah ok, I am glad you topped off to 5g that is good. You basically did a partial boil and that is pretty normal for beginners. You should be fine. Your beer is going to be crazy hoppy anyways but that is ok, I like hoppy beers.

partial boil, is that the same as partial mash? i went to a different supply store here in town a few days ago and the guy told me that the huge amount of grain i used in this recipe didnt do anything to add to the gravity because he said i needed to partial mash it. i just steeped it for 20 minutes like i learned in the kits. now, the way he explained it, i need to keep the temp constant between 150 and 155 for an hour or so to convert the starch to sugar. is that the basic idea? when you do a partial ash are you suppossed to use more water? the same guy helped me design a recipe which would employ this technique, so i went home and tried it and according to my BrewR mobile software, i did it correctly cause my gravity ended up within 7 hundreths.

CHillRoomBrew said:

partial boil, is that the same as partial mash? i went to a different supply store here in town a few days ago and the guy told me that the huge amount of grain i used in this recipe didnt do anything to add to the gravity because he said i needed to partial mash it. i just steeped it for 20 minutes like i learned in the kits. now, the way he explained it, i need to keep the temp constant between 150 and 155 for an hour or so to convert the starch to sugar. is that the basic idea? when you do a partial ash are you suppossed to use more water? the same guy helped me design a recipe which would employ this technique, so i went home and tried it and according to my BrewR mobile software, i did it correctly cause my gravity ended up within 7 hundreths.

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No they are not the same when u do an all extract brew u are doing a partial boil too. Because you boil about 3gl and top it off in the fermenter. Partial mash is the step before all grain. U are mashing some grain. Extracting/converting some of you own sugars and then using the extract to come up with the rest.....
The extract kits have your steep the "specialty" grains for 20mins just for flavor or color. There is little or no conversion done there.

When you do a partial mash you don't have to use too much more water. You will just have a very high OG until you add more water since its concentrated ......

Anew yes the basic idea of mashing is converting starches to sugars. That's why we can use rice or corn

thanks for the info

You'll have more water boil off in in partial boils because the surface area to volume ratio is higher. I'm not surprised you lost half your volume due to evaporation in a 3 gallon boil. I used to lose a gallon out of a 4 gallon boil.

With the smaller volume, you may find that your IBU calculations are off. The higher the gravity in the boil, the harder it is to get the alpha acids out of the hops.

My only question is: What is the purpose of the honey?

I'm not saying its bad. But I all the hops will cover any flavor from it and it doesn't seem like a great enough percentage of the fermentables to significantly affect the body.

Beernik said:

My only question is: What is the purpose of the honey?

I'm not saying its bad. But I all the hops will cover any flavor from it and it doesn't seem like a great enough percentage of the fermentables to significantly affect the body.

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the honey was definetly not for flavor, i have an affinity for Bell's Hopslam and i know that they use honey (im sure its not clover honey) to raise the abv. i have read around a little bit and basically decided that there is no good way to know how honey will add to the gravity, so i decided to just put some in and see what happens. it wasnt enough to bring the abv where i want it, but honey side hop ipa version 1.2 will use more and hopefully get the balance right. also, ive decided that this beer is going to need some time to bottle condition, it may taste alot better in the summer so i wont know how it tastes until late april, or may.

Of you steeped grains that have some diastatic power for 20 minutes at 148F - 162F, I'm sure you got at least a little conversion, this adding to your OG.

BrightSpot said:

Of you steeped grains that have some diastatic power for 20 minutes at 148F - 162F, I'm sure you got at least a little conversion, this adding to your OG.

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i see, so how far can you take it? can you convert for two, three even more hours? or is there a point around an hour where you just wont be able to make any more starch release? and as far as that goes, whats the difference if i steep at 148 as opposed to 162? do the starches react to different heats differntly? i notice some recipes call for 154 and some 150, seems very specific

CHillRoomBrew said:

i see, so how far can you take it? can you convert for two, three even more hours? or is there a point around an hour where you just wont be able to make any more starch release? and as far as that goes, whats the difference if i steep at 148 as opposed to 162? do the starches react to different heats differntly? i notice some recipes call for 154 and some 150, seems very specific

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www.braukaiser.com has great information on mash times and temp.

Basically the cooler you mash (146F is as low as I'd go), the more ferment able your will be and hence the more alcohol an thinner body it will have. The warmer you go (up to 163F for me), your beer will have more body and less alcohol.

Regarding mash times... most starches are supposedly converted by 15 mins. However, Kai (of the aforementioned website) has shown starches continue to convert after that; so to hit your expected OG, I'd recommend no less than a 45 minute mash.

Cheers!!

awesome man, i dig the info.