First brew without using a kit // Seeking advice

My ultimate aim:

To brew a Hoppy as Hell American style Pale Ale such as: Sierra Nevada TORPEDO, Stewart's RADICAL ROAD, Brew Dog's JACKHAMMER. (or as close as I can)

What I've got:

2 x Coopers Amber Malt Extract Syrup 1.1 Litre
318g Crystal Malt barley (milled)
100g Centennial whole cone hops
100g Experimental 366 whole cone hops
35ml White Labs California Ale yeast (liquid)

What I've never done:

Using grain, adding hops to the boil, dry hopping.

I reckon I've got good ingredients and now I'm looking for a solid recipe to follow. If any of you experienced ladies or gents have recipe advice for me it would be gratefully received.

Bobb

Not familiar with the Radical Road but the specs look like an IPA, the other two are American style IPA's not pale ales. How big is your batch size? If 5 gallons you probably need another can of extract. Also I would not go with amber. There is usually a lot of crystal and maybe some other character malts in there so you're likely going to end up too dark and sweet for an American IPA. You could keep the crystal steeping malt (what is the lovibond on that by the way?) and use all light or golden extract.

As far as hops, do you have the AA's?

Most of these recipes are all-grain but you can find some extact recipes.

You can try these or these or these.

Brewing extract with steeping grains and adding hops to boil is easy. I've never dry hopped but I imagine that's easy too.

The steeping grains you just brew in a muslin sack like a giant cup of tea. (Keep below 180 to avoid tanins.)

Adding hops to the boil is just boiling the wort for an hour and adding the hops at certain times. (Hence a 20-minute addition hop that needs to boil for 20 minutes is added 20 minutes from the end of the boil or in other words 40 minutes into the boil.) Easy-peasy.

If you're using the amber LME, you can ditch the caramel malt cuz the LME already has caramel/crystal malt in it. I'm not sure of the weight of a 1.1L can, but you might want more than two cans. Use an ounce or two (28-56g) of hops at the beginning of the boil, I'd go with the centennials. One hour boil. Add two oz's (56g) of hops at ten mins and five mins left in the boil. Cool and pitch yeast. After fermentation, dry hop with 56-112g of hops for 5-7 days before bottling.

My two cents. Find a recipe that sounds good and buy the ingredients you need. Don't try to fit the ingredients you have into a recipe.

...yet...

Here's a recipe from these boards for a Sierra Nevada Torpedo clone.

And here's another.

Actually, you can switch to your California Ale yeast and it'd be really good. And the consensus seems to be that SN Torpedo has a lot of crystal for an IPA (so it might be a good recipe for using your crystal) but I have no opinion on that.

I'm terrible with metric, but I'll give it a try!

First, do not use amber or dark extract- use the lightest extract you can find. Light, pale, or extra light is good.

If using liquid extract:

2.5 pounds LME (1 KG is close enough)
.75 pound crystal 40L (340 grams but your 318 grams is enough!)

Steep the grains, discard, and then add the extract. Bring to a boil.

add hops.
1 oz centennial hops 60 minutes (28 grams)
1 oz experimental hops 15 minutes (28 grams)
1 oz centennial hops 5 minutes (28 grams)
1 oz experimental hops 0 minutes (28 grams)

Add 5.5 pounds LME at flame out. (2.5 kg)

top up to 5 gallons with cool water when wort is chilled (19 liters total)

Should be an OG of 1.057, on the bottom for an IPA, but in the middle for an APA. Should be nice and hoppy!

WOW, thanks for the tips guys.

HOPS:

Centennial 11.9%
Experimental 15.7%

I will chnge the Amber for Light Malt Extract.

I have been lent a 50L brew kettle by a friend.

@Woozy there are a lot of people stressing the temp at which you soak the grain at. It seems to be very precise. can you specify a temp of water and weight of grain to use? Also when boiling the hops in the wort is there a temperature to keep it between?

For dry hopping - I read that after the primary fermentation I can stick the hops in and leave it 10 days. But I was also told that after primary fermentation you should take it out of the primary vessel and bottle it ASAP. What are the facts? Can I dry hop in the primary vessel with all the gunk at the bottom for 10 days without the beer going bad?

bobbthebeerfrog said:

WOW, thanks for the tips guys.

HOPS:

Centennial 11.9%
Experimental 15.7%

I will chnge the Amber for Light Malt Extract.

I have been lent a 50L brew kettle by a friend.

@Woozy there are a lot of people stressing the temp at which you soak the grain at. It seems to be very precise. can you specify a temp of water and weight of grain to use? Also when boiling the hops in the wort is there a temperature to keep it between?

For dry hopping - I read that after the primary fermentation I can stick the hops in and leave it 10 days. But I was also told that after primary fermentation you should take it out of the primary vessel and bottle it ASAP. What are the facts? Can I dry hop in the primary vessel with all the gunk at the bottom for 10 days without the beer going bad?

Click to expand...

You will steep the grain (your 318 grams is fine) in 66-72C water for 20 minutes. Then lift them out of the liquid (now called wort) and throw them away. Then bring that up to a boil, turn off the heat, and add the first amount of extract.

For boiling the wort, boiling is boiling. Temperature doesn't matter. Where I live, wort boils at 98.5C, but other elevations have different boiling temperatures. When it boils, it's a rolling boil not a simmer. The bubbles need to break the surface and roll over.

Once the beer is completely finished, and the beer is clear (about 10-14 days or so), then you can add your dryhops right to the fermenter. I never go as long as 10 days for dryhopping, as I think you get fresher flavor and aroma for dryhopping for 5-7 days, but you can if you want.

When you bottle, simply rack (siphon) from above the trub layer in the fermenter and it'll be fine.

Yep, many of us dry hop in primary. You will read about risks of yeast autolysis and off flavors from leaving your beer too long in primary, but on the homebrew level with small fermenters it's probably not something to worry about. Lots of folks leave their beer in primary for 4 wks or more without ill effects - I've done it at times depending on schedule etc. and certainly haven't experienced problems. For long term aging you probably want to transfer to a secondary or package.

@Woozy there are a lot of people stressing the temp at which you soak the grain at.

Actually, that's only when they are mashing all grains or partial grains when you mash (soak) grains for an hour to release fermentable sugars. Temperature matters for that.

But you aren't doing all-grain. When doing extracts all the sugars are in the extract so when one steeps grains for an extract batch one is just releasing color and flavor and that's much less precise and finicky precedure.

Yooper's instructions are, as always, spot on. but pretty much there is a lot of leeway. The only really important thing is to try to avoid 170+ temps as thats when astringent tanins start to leach out. If you *go* over 180 for a minute or two... well, don't panic. Just cut your losses and move on.

Beer frog, my .02. I just started doing my own recipes over kits as well. There is a lot of info on the site (especially Yoopers advice and recipes), but the best tool I found was the Beersmith program. Free 21 day trial and it will tell you what is exactly going to happen with your recipes. It will also let you change characteristics and tell you what to add/subtract from the recipe if you want it hoppier or lighter/darker. It will also tell you if you need a yeast starter or you are good to pitch with what you have. As well as converting all grain recipes to partial/ extract. Have I doted enough.

First of all, listen to Yooper - she won't lead you down the wrong path.

Second (just an option) - you might think about switching the hop additions. The experimental is the higher AA hop, so you'll get a little more bitter bang for your buck adding that at 60 minutes. Also I don't know how the experimental smells or tastes, but personally I love centennial, so that would be my flavor and aroma additions.

I'm sure it will make pretty good beer either way. Good luck.

Yooper said:

I'm terrible with metric, but I'll give it a try!

First, do not use amber or dark extract- use the lightest extract you can find. Light, pale, or extra light is good.

If using liquid extract:

2.5 pounds LME (1 KG is close enough)
.75 pound crystal 40L (340 grams but your 318 grams is enough!)

Steep the grains, discard, and then add the extract. Bring to a boil.

add hops.
1 oz centennial hops 60 minutes (28 grams)
1 oz experimental hops 15 minutes (28 grams)
1 oz centennial hops 5 minutes (28 grams)
1 oz experimental hops 0 minutes (28 grams)

Add 5.5 pounds LME at flame out. (2.5 kg)

top up to 5 gallons with cool water when wort is chilled (19 liters total)

Should be an OG of 1.057, on the bottom for an IPA, but in the middle for an APA. Should be nice and hoppy!

Click to expand...

Hey Yooper, I'm totally gonna use your recipe I just have a couple of final questions. I will change my Amber malt extract for Light Malt extract. The tins it comes in are (1.5kg // 3.31 lbs // 1.1 L). Am I correct thinking you are saying for the initial boil I should add two thirds of a tin to the wort I produce by steeping my crystal and then boil this and add the hops to that. Then I should add 5.5 pounds after all he hops have gone in and I've turned off the heat? (why not just add it all together at the start?) I would need to buy another tin as I'd only have 4.4 lbs left to add or do you think this would be sufficient?

The only thing I'm worried about is getting the correct SG. The guy at the shop was saying that is the tricky part if your not using a recipe and if your boiling the wort then topping it up with water I could add too much and dilute it so the SG is too low.

I wonder - am I making any sense here?

Also I have some Irish Moss for finings, when and how much should I use? Is it a teaspoon or so during the boil? Like in the middle.

Finally with the hops, as I'm using fresh whole cone hops can I just add them into the boiling wort and then when I pour it into my primary just filter them out with a sieve? I have some muslin bags but why not just add them loose it may help impart more flavour? Also when I dry hop can I add them loose then too?

A million questions I know but I'm pretty scared of mucking it all up and wasting lots of good quality ingredients. My first beer was boss, the second not so much, I was brewing in Scotland in mid winter and it was tough to keep the temp up. I want this to be a success.

Bobb

bobbthebeerfrog said:

Hey Yooper, I'm totally gonna use your recipe I just have a couple of final questions. I will change my Amber malt extract for Light Malt extract. The tins it comes in are (1.5kg // 3.31 lbs // 1.1 L). Am I correct thinking you are saying for the initial boil I should add two thirds of a tin to the wort I produce by steeping my crystal and then boil this and add the hops to that. Then I should add 5.5 pounds after all he hops have gone in and I've turned off the heat? (why not just add it all together at the start?) I would need to buy another tin as I'd only have 4.4 lbs left to add or do you think this would be sufficient?

Click to expand...

Yes this is what she means, it's called a late extract addition. It helps avoid overdarkening of the wort that may also change the flavors. Not boiling in such a concentrated wort may also help with hop utilization although there seems to be a bit of debate on this (that I frankly don't really follow since I don't do partial boils).
So you have 2 tins or 6.6 lb? That will give you about a 1.048 beer in 5 gallons. To get your gravity back up to range you could sub in some dry extract, which is easier to store and measure (0.8 lb DME = approx 1 lb LME).

bobbthebeerfrog said:

The only thing I'm worried about is getting the correct SG. The guy at the shop was saying that is the tricky part if your not using a recipe and if your boiling the wort then topping it up with water I could add too much and dilute it so the SG is too low.

Click to expand...

The only way to miss is if you are not measuring your end volume accurately. The sugar won't boil off, so if you end with 5 gallons you won't be too low.

bobbthebeerfrog said:

Also I have some Irish Moss for finings, when and how much should I use? Is it a teaspoon or so during the boil? Like in the middle.

Finally with the hops, as I'm using fresh whole cone hops can I just add them into the boiling wort and then when I pour it into my primary just filter them out with a sieve? I have some muslin bags but why not just add them loose it may help impart more flavour? Also when I dry hop can I add them loose then too?

Click to expand...

1 tsp irish moss is the typical amount - usually with 10-15 min to go. Your plan with the hops should be fine. I often have trouble getting whole hops to sink after dry hop, you just need to carefully rack from under them or do what many do and tie a sanitized hop bag over the end of your siphon.

bobbthebeerfrog said:

The only thing I'm worried about is getting the correct SG. The guy at the shop was saying that is the tricky part if your not using a recipe and if your boiling the wort then topping it up with water I could add too much and dilute it so the SG is too low.

Click to expand...

Use this calculator. If want to get technical:

Let's consider a the amount of sugar it will take to raise 1 gallon of liquid 1 gravity point. Let's call this unit a ... well, let's call it a "unit".

A pound of DME has 45 of these units of sugar and a pound of LME has 37 units of these sugars.

And that's it! We're done.

Suppose you want to make a 5.5 gallon batch of wort with an o.g. of 1.062:

Well, 1.062 is 62 gravity points. We want to raise 5.5 gallons 62 points. That's 5.5*62 = 341 units of sugar we need.

We have a 4.4 lb can of LME. That's 4.4 * 37 = 163 units. We need 178 more units.

We buy another 3.3 lb can. That's 3.3 * 37 = 122 units. We need 56 more units.

We'll get it from the DME. 56 units divide by 45 units per lb is 1.25 lbs needed.

7.7 lbs LME
1.25 lbs DME
======
O.G. 1.062.

Neat!

{Double check:
7.7 * 37 = 284.9
1.25 * 45 = 56.25
=======
341.15

1 + 341.15/5.5 = 1.062}


Of course, if you are doing this in metric there are completely different numbers for different units.

Or another way of thinking of it:

LME = 37 units per lb
DME = 45 units per lb

4.4 lbs of LME = 4.4 * 37 = 163 units. 163 units/5.5 gallons = 29.6 point => 1.0296. Which is too low.

So we add 3.3 lbs of LME = 7.7 * 37 = 284.9 units. 284.9 units/5.5 = 51.8 point => 1.0518. That's pretty good but lets bump it up a notch.

And so forth...

Hey guys, so I made my beer and it looks and smells GOOOOOOD so far! It's a lovely amber colour and I decided to only use centennial in the boil for bittering and aroma, I'm gonna dry hop exclusively with the Experimental 366 (mainly to keep it as fresh as possible, by using both it would mean the dry hopping hops would be open for a week losing their freshness).

I had a wee problem with the boil, in that the brew kettle shut off halfway through the hour - I decided to rack it then after changing the fuse, plug etc and nothing worked. Then as I was transferring it it came back on so I finished the second half of my boil. This resulted in maybe 24.5 L instead of 23 at the end of the boiling.

One thing I want to ask you is what happens if you add the yeast before you take the SG. I ALWAYS make this mistake! I'm too eager, but I instantly took a reading the second after I pitched the yeast. Will it affect the SG? I had put the white Labs liquid yeast into a starter jar with some cooled wort so it was active when it went it. The reason I ask is because my SG was supposed to be 1.058 but was actually 1.046 when I took the reading directly after pitching the yeast. Is that because the volume of liquid was a bit higher than it was supposed to be or because I pitched the yeast first, or both?

Anyway looks like I'm gonna be making a hoppy as hell Amber ale which I'm still pleased with!

bobbthebeerfrog said:

Hey guys, so I made my beer and it looks and smells GOOOOOOD so far! It's a lovely amber colour and I decided to only use centennial in the boil for bittering and aroma, I'm gonna dry hop exclusively with the Experimental 366 (mainly to keep it as fresh as possible, by using both it would mean the dry hopping hops would be open for a week losing their freshness).

I had a wee problem with the boil, in that the brew kettle shut off halfway through the hour - I decided to rack it then after changing the fuse, plug etc and nothing worked. Then as I was transferring it it came back on so I finished the second half of my boil. This resulted in maybe 24.5 L instead of 23 at the end of the boiling.

One thing I want to ask you is what happens if you add the yeast before you take the SG. I ALWAYS make this mistake! I'm too eager, but I instantly took a reading the second after I pitched the yeast. Will it affect the SG? I had put the white Labs liquid yeast into a starter jar with some cooled wort so it was active when it went it. The reason I ask is because my SG was supposed to be 1.058 but was actually 1.046 when I took the reading directly after pitching the yeast. Is that because the volume of liquid was a bit higher than it was supposed to be or because I pitched the yeast first, or both?

Anyway looks like I'm gonna be making a hoppy as hell Amber ale which I'm still pleased with!

Click to expand...

Yeast doesn't affect density as it is not dissolved (like sugar) in the beer.

Remember it this way: adding boats to a lake doesn't affect the density of water.

Hey peeps, wanted to give you feedback on the beer I made.

It turned out fantastic! I couldn't have asked for more! Lovely Amber colour, good bitterness, and fantastic hoppy aroma. It's 5.5% and my friends all love it, one said they couldn't believe it was a homebrew! I gave it to a friend who works in a craft beer shop and even he says it tastes as good as the equivalent beers in the shop! Thanks so much for all your help especially Yooper.

I'm gonna add this recipe to this website under the name MUSASABI 366 so look out for it!

Bobb