Gated312
Active Member
Hey all,
So I've only been brewing for a couple months, and I took my first shot at an IPA last weekend. I'm not sure if its entirely an IPA, but it seemed close enough. Unfortunately, I made a huge noob mistake and am kicking myself right now, but was hoping for some advice on maybe what I could do to fix it. This will probably be a fairly long post, so bear with me, just want to get everything in here.
Here was the original recipe.
6 lbs Light LME
.5 lb Extra Light DME
1 lb American Crystal 30 L
1 Pack notty
Hopping Sched.
1.5 oz Northern Brewer (60 min)
1 oz Cascade (20 min)
.5 oz Cascade (10 min)
.5 oz Cascade (5 min)
1 oz Cascade (Dry Hop)
According to the Hopville Calculator
Est.OG 1.060
Est. FG 1.014
Est. ABV 6.1%
IBUs: 45.2
Did a partial boil of about 3 gallons.
Kept it nice and simple for the first go around, and followed procedure pretty closely to Palmer's How To Brew.
So after I dumped my wort into the primary, I stirred it and made sure it was cool enough for pitching. My pitching OG was 1.042! So...in a slight panic I added about 1 lb of Light DME I had lying around, bringing it up to 1.052 (I might have been slightly ). So I figured this would be good enough for me, pitched my yeast and let it start up. Fermentation began about 36 hours after and all seemed well.
But I started looking online and trying to figure why my OG was so low, even after the calculator said it should be higher. To my dread, it was probably because I didn't stir it vigorously enough and a lot of the sugar sat at the bottom while I took my reading. From what I've read, this has little to no effect on fermenting and it should come out fine. But I added that extra DME, and according to hopville my OG would have been up around 1.074! My ABV will come out around 7.5%?? cross. But more importantly, my IBU is down to 36.7, which might be a little shy on bitterness.
So I have two primary questions to go with this:
1) Did I pitch enough yeast? Despite my late additions, it seems to have fermented out ok and I checked the FG now and it is at 1.019 or so..right in the area of my new FG. But would this extra stress on the yeast maybe cause some problems with carbing?
2) Should I worry about bitterness? I'm under the impression the bigger the beer, the more bitterness you might need. I've read more bitterness can be added by simply boiling some hops in water/wort? (here's the thread I was looking at: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/big-hop-flavor-1-3-hops-55721/). I still have to dry hop (which I know doesn't add any bitterness), but am just wondering what to do next!
Thanks so much,
Scott
So I've only been brewing for a couple months, and I took my first shot at an IPA last weekend. I'm not sure if its entirely an IPA, but it seemed close enough. Unfortunately, I made a huge noob mistake and am kicking myself right now, but was hoping for some advice on maybe what I could do to fix it. This will probably be a fairly long post, so bear with me, just want to get everything in here.
Here was the original recipe.
6 lbs Light LME
.5 lb Extra Light DME
1 lb American Crystal 30 L
1 Pack notty
Hopping Sched.
1.5 oz Northern Brewer (60 min)
1 oz Cascade (20 min)
.5 oz Cascade (10 min)
.5 oz Cascade (5 min)
1 oz Cascade (Dry Hop)
According to the Hopville Calculator
Est.OG 1.060
Est. FG 1.014
Est. ABV 6.1%
IBUs: 45.2
Did a partial boil of about 3 gallons.
Kept it nice and simple for the first go around, and followed procedure pretty closely to Palmer's How To Brew.
So after I dumped my wort into the primary, I stirred it and made sure it was cool enough for pitching. My pitching OG was 1.042! So...in a slight panic I added about 1 lb of Light DME I had lying around, bringing it up to 1.052 (I might have been slightly ). So I figured this would be good enough for me, pitched my yeast and let it start up. Fermentation began about 36 hours after and all seemed well.
But I started looking online and trying to figure why my OG was so low, even after the calculator said it should be higher. To my dread, it was probably because I didn't stir it vigorously enough and a lot of the sugar sat at the bottom while I took my reading. From what I've read, this has little to no effect on fermenting and it should come out fine. But I added that extra DME, and according to hopville my OG would have been up around 1.074! My ABV will come out around 7.5%?? cross. But more importantly, my IBU is down to 36.7, which might be a little shy on bitterness.
So I have two primary questions to go with this:
1) Did I pitch enough yeast? Despite my late additions, it seems to have fermented out ok and I checked the FG now and it is at 1.019 or so..right in the area of my new FG. But would this extra stress on the yeast maybe cause some problems with carbing?
2) Should I worry about bitterness? I'm under the impression the bigger the beer, the more bitterness you might need. I've read more bitterness can be added by simply boiling some hops in water/wort? (here's the thread I was looking at: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/big-hop-flavor-1-3-hops-55721/). I still have to dry hop (which I know doesn't add any bitterness), but am just wondering what to do next!
Thanks so much,
Scott