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iphonedylan

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First brew night in the books. I joined this forum about a month ago while I was in Afghanistan doing research. Ordered my beginner brew/kegging kit from Midwest and a 3 x faucet keezer kit from KegConnection. Wound up with great deals and customer service on both. I got back to the states 48 hours ago and the Midwest shipment arrived this evening. I have the Ferocious IPA kit in the primary meow without any mishaps to report other than a half measure of vodka going into the primary through the air lock :drunk:

I'm going to be in and out of the house for the next month so my tentative plan is as follows:
- Rack the IPA into a secondary with the supplied hops 7 days from now
- Brew a pumpkin ale kit from Midwest that same night w/3 x cans of pumpkin rather than the recommended 1
- Keg both the IPA and pumpkin ale 2.5 weeks from that night

I'm going to Mexico after that day and won't be back until after Thanksgiving so that's why the IPA will be in the secondary for an extra week and a half and why I'll be kegging the pumpkin ale straight from the primary. Any thoughts on this? Then will be the long wait until I start pouring... we'll see how long I actually last. I'm going to start an autumn brown ale after I keg those two. Definitely need to invest in an aeration system.... stirring 5 gallons of wort is for the birds after investing in everything I did right off the bat. Thanks for all the info out there.
 
I bet its nice to be back home with all of your new toys :D Those look like they should be great. The pumpkin should be completely fermented after 2.5 weeks and ready for transfer. Then another 2 weeks in the keg and it should be carbed and good to go. Not sure on the flavor of it but it can still work on its flavor in the keg. My pumpkin did not hit its stride until 5 weeks total but that was a recipe i made up.

Aeration systems are great but I have not had any issues without one yet. My highest gravity was 1.120 and it fermented down fine with the initial agitation. Good luck and hope all goes well with the keezer.

-BBS
 
It's definitely great to be back for a bit. Going out the door again May of next year but I'm enjoying this new hobby now. Woke up this morning to a steady, slow bubbling from the airlock. That was about 11 hours after I pitched the yeast so I'm not sure exactly when it started.
 
I just brewed the ferocious ipa last night man. It should be a nice hoppy delicious beer. my OG 1.067 though. I'm gonna throw a twist on it though and instead of dry hopping with the pellet hops that were sent im doing an all leaf cascade dry hop for more of that citrus and grapefruit aroma and flavor. I hope your turns out good. you'll have to post when it's done and you taste yours.
 
It'll likely take more than 7 days to get down to Fg & settle out clear before a 1 week dry hop. Don't be in too big a hurry to get it done. The yeasties have their own time table.
 
Yea I am gonna give it until next Saturday in primary and then transfer on top of 3oz of cascade. The hops they recommend for the dry hopping are not the hop profiles I prefer so I ordered 3oz of the cascade leaf and am going to do an all cascade dry hop for 2 weeks then cold crash to clear out the hop leaves and then bottle. Do you think this sounds good? Or is 3oz of cascade a little overkill on the dry hopping
 
I've used 1.5oz for dry hopping & it turned out great at 1 week dh. The leaf hops never settled out completely for me. I bag all my dry hops. Cleaner that way. Use a grain bag for the whole leaf. They have a lot more volume for the same weight compared to pellets.
 
So I had a mishap. While I was out of town (Friday-Tuesday night) the cap on my airlock popped off. I don't know how long it was off but it's safe to assume at least 2-3 days. I'm currently searching the forums for some info but I'm wondering if I should just dump it and start over or go ahead and rack it to a secondary tomorrow when I'm going to brew my next beer and give it a shot. To reiterate, the entire airlock didn't leave the lid, nor did the lid of the bucket come unseated, just the cap the floats on the airlock jumped out and landed on the lid.
 
So just the cap blew off or the center piece too? As long as the entire three days was during initial fermentation,you sgould be ok. It blows a lot of co2 at that point.
 
Just cruised some threads and I'm not overly concerned. I should say that put the little cap back on last night and just checked it (about 15 hours later) and I saw a bubble after watching for about half a minute. Today is 6 days in the primary going on 7. I'm going to go ahead and finish this IPA and hope for the best. Worst case scenario is I have nasty initial beer and I have some extra cleaning to do. I'm considering rigging a blow off tube to my primary tomorrow when I brew this pumpkin ale since I'll be leaving my house for 2 and a half weeks on Friday and that seems a little more fool proof. Thoughts?
 
you should be fine. just taste it. if it tastes good. you're good. I brewed that ferocious kit once. delicious.
 
So just the cap blew off or the center piece too? As long as the entire three days was during initial fermentation,you sgould be ok. It blows a lot of co2 at that point.

The center piece that floats over the tube and into the water/vodka blew off. I'm starting to think I'm using the airlock incorrectly as there is a cap that snaps on top and attaches over the entire bit. To me, the cap that snaps on seemed to be too airtight so I left it off and just left the floating bit on there. I need to take some pictures.
 
Did you do a late extract addition or did you add it all at the beginning of the boil? I brewed the Ferocious IPA about six weeks ago for my second brew. It tastes great. Great hop flavor and aroma with a strong malt backbone, but man this stuff is dark. I thought I was extra careful to stir in the extract well, but apparently I wasn't careful enough.

I had read about late extract additions, but also read that you should reduce the amount of hops to account for the improved hops efficiency and I was feeling too lazy to calculate it so I added all the extract up front. I've since learned that because I have to top off that the hops adjustment isn't necessary. I'll definitely be doing a late extract addition from now on hoping to get a lighter color that is more true for the style.
 
Did you do a late extract addition or did you add it all at the beginning of the boil? I brewed the Ferocious IPA about six weeks ago for my second brew. It tastes great. Great hop flavor and aroma with a strong malt backbone, but man this stuff is dark. I thought I was extra careful to stir in the extract well, but apparently I wasn't careful enough.

I had read about late extract additions, but also read that you should reduce the amount of hops to account for the improved hops efficiency and I was feeling too lazy to calculate it so I added all the extract up front. I've since learned that because I have to top off that the hops adjustment isn't necessary. I'll definitely be doing a late extract addition from now on hoping to get a lighter color that is more true for the style.

I added it all at the beginning of the boil but it must have taken me nearly 10 minutes to get it all stirred in and then another 15 to get it back up to a boil. I definitely need to look into moving to a gas burner.
 
I added all mine at the beggining as well. Im transfering this saturday onto 2oz cascade and 1oz simcoe for 7-10 days. It already has an amazing hop aroma though!
 
I use plain DME in the partial boil & add the remaing DME & all the LME at flame out covered to steep off the heat for 15 minutes to pasteurize. Since it happens at 162F,it's still plenty hot enough. And the color is lighter,no extract twang either.
 
I plain on tryin it that way, but how do you know how much dme to add with an all lme brew? I assume you would need to add enough to get the most out of your hops.
 
Well,if you're using all LME,do a partial boil of 2.5-3 gallons,& use 1.5lbs of extract in the boil for hop additions. Then add remaining extract at flame out.
 
I'm brewing a Pliny the Elder clone in the next couple of weeks and plan to use all DME for the recipe. Is there ANY reason that I should use some LME? With DME can you add it all up front, or does the late addition help here as well?
 
I'll add the link when I'm on a computer, but I found it in the recipe forum.

We don't have Russian River beers in my state so I've never even had Pliny before. I've seen so many great comments about it that I figured it is worth trying to make. How is it?
 
You can use all DME,but you need something like 20% more if converting from an LME recipe. And I use 1.5lb out of a 3lb bag of plain DME in my partial boils for hop additions. Nice hop flavor & aroma that way.
 
K man thanks. Pliny is the hophoria of all hophorias lol once you try it if your clone is anything like it you'll be brewing it all the time
 
In the Pliny thread, which starts with an AG recipe, someone says you can convert to extract by using 7.2 lbs of DME for a 5 gallon batch. I want to do a full boil and I can't do it that large so I'm cutting it in half for a 2.5 gallon batch, so I figure I should be good with 3.2 lbs of DME. Right?
 
Since it's a partial mash,you could just do a partial boil as well. That's what I do/did,& midwests' instructions sid as well. Got the right OG & FG too.
 
The IPA has been racked into the secondary over the 3 oz of additional hops. Tasted pretty good so I don't there were too many adverse effects from the user error with the air lock (there definitely are small holes in the lid). I failed and never found time to brew the pumpkin ale which I'm really regretting now sitting in Nashville. Top priority when I return to NC in 2 weeks. Headed down to Mexico tomorrow so I'll report back in 2 weeks when the IPA hits the keg and the pumpkin is brewed. Dos Equis and mojitos for the next week. :mug:
 
brewtus72 said:
K man thanks. Pliny is the hophoria of all hophorias lol once you try it if your clone is anything like it you'll be brewing it all the time

Sorry I haven't posted the link yet, but I'm rarely on a computer. Will try to remember to do it tomorrow. If my Midwest Ferocious IPA doesn't improve I hope the Pliny clone attempt provides a bit of redemption.
 
unionrdr said:
Since it's a partial mash,you could just do a partial boil as well. That's what I do/did,& midwests' instructions sid as well. Got the right OG & FG too.

Is there any benefit to doing a partial boil? I've scaled the Pliny recipe down to 2.5 G because I can handle a full boil at that size. Everything I've seen says that a partial boil with top off reduces the IBUs. That's something I want to avoid as me and my beer drinking buddy are hopheads and I want a beer that smacks me around a little bit when it comes to the hop profile.

Do I need to use any LME , our will I be okay doing all DME? At this point I'm so unhappy with my Ferocious IPA that I want to get as far away from LME as possible. I'm sure the late addition would have helped but there is something in the flavor that just isn't agreeing with me. More on this beer in a different post.
 
You may have scorched the lme causing a carmrlization and s sweet tangy taste. Is this the flavor you are experiencing?
 
brewtus72 said:
You may have scorched the lme causing a carmrlization and s sweet tangy taste. Is this the flavor you are experiencing?

Oh, I know I scorched it because this IPA is darker than anything I normally drink. Think Newcastle and then go a little darker. As far as the flavor goes, it does come across a little sweet, and I guess tangy could be the right word. This is my second brew so I'm not really sure what the "extract twang" tastes like, but if this is it I never want to duplicate it. My first brew was all LME as well and it was dark for the style but it tasted a hell of a lot better than this beer.
 
Yea this is wat has happened. Make sure next time remove the pot from burner and stir rather vigorously as you poor in to make it dissolve before it has a chance to drop to bottom and scorch. Also helps to put you lme in hot water and set as your setting up so when you are ready to add it it will be warmed and thin this makes it much easier to dissolve and highly less likely to cause scorching
 
The LME hitting the hot bottom wil taste scorched. Adding all the LME at the beginning will caramelize the LME to darken the brew & produce tha twang mentioned so often. So scorching is different from caramelization from mailard reactions.
Using all DME is fine,but I think you need 20% more DME to equal the amount of LME used. But most kits instructions are for partial boils. My partial mash ale kit was no exception. Partial boil with partial mash & top off in the fermenter after chilling the wort.
 
Well after much delay and a slight case of food poisoning in Mexico, which makes any trip South of the border complete, the IPA is kegged. The OG and TG were 1.055 and 1.014 respectively. It tastes and smells great and I'm going to put it on CO2 this evening after it cools in the chest freezer. I'm tempted to carbonate at 30 psi for 24-48 hours or I may let it sit at 12 for a week. Haven't made my mind up yet. The color is similar to a pint of blue moon but I'll post a couple pics up with I pour a full carbonated glass.

With those two gravities my formula gave me an ABV between 5.3 and 5.4%
Does this sound correct?
 
I got 5.99% by Cooper's formula of (OG-FG)/7.46 +.5=ABV%. Seems each formula gives a bit different answer. But you're in there.
 
I got 5.99% by Cooper's formula of (OG-FG)/7.46 +.5=ABV%. Seems each formula gives a bit different answer. But you're in there.


Awesome. I got impatient now that I'm at the house and it's in the keg so it's going to sit on 30 psi for 24 hrs before I have the first glass. I cooled it first for a few hours. I'm expecting it's going to taste awesome regardless of my less preferred carbonation method since it's my first brew.
 
I've read on here where keggers condition their beer in the keg for 2 weeks. you can't short cut some things. But try it & see what you think.
 
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