NOVA Brewer
Well-Known Member
Brewed my second batch ever last night.
First batch (see thread further down) was a mild success. The ingredients were cut-rate, but the process was successful. The resulting ale is drinkable if not quaffable. It really improves if chilled to near freezing.
Last night, I started Batch #2. Bought the Brewer's Best Robust Porter kit from my LHBS, along with a 5gal carboy to use as a secondary.
Here's the recipe:
8oz crushed crystal malt 60L
4oz crushed chocolate malt
4oz crushed black patent malt
Steeped in a muslin bag for 20min at 160-170F
Brought water to boil, added:
6.6 lbs Cooper's Amber LME
1oz Cluster hops (bittering)
Boiled 55min
Added:
0.5oz Willamette hops (finishing)
Boiled 5 more minutes.
All went well, no boil-over this time. Hooray! While boiling, sanitized all fermenting gear. Prepped an ice bath in my laundry sink in the basement to cool the brewpot and the wort. That worked TOO well. After adding the cooled wort to 2gallons cool water, the stuff was at 55F. Yikes! Added another gallon of hot water to top off at 5gal, brought wort to 70F. Success!
One minor hitch - while using a sanitized saucepan to ladle hot wort out of the brewpot, through my funnel/strainer and into the 6.5gal carboy primary, a lot of grain/hop pellet residue clogged up my strainer. The mesh is too fine, I guess. So I washed my hands with anti-bacterial soap, rinsed in the sanitizing solution, then delicately reached in and tilted the strainer a bit. Now the wort flowed through, and MOST of the trub was strained.
17 hours after pitching yeast, the proto-beer is at 72F in the primary, bubbling once every 4 seconds with a nice, yeasty kreusen.
So, my question:
When I rack to secondary in a week, and then when I rack to the bottling bucket two weeks after that, will most of the hops/grain residue sink down, and thus allow me to siphon without sucking it up? I worry about getting a gritty porter after all this effort.
First batch (see thread further down) was a mild success. The ingredients were cut-rate, but the process was successful. The resulting ale is drinkable if not quaffable. It really improves if chilled to near freezing.
Last night, I started Batch #2. Bought the Brewer's Best Robust Porter kit from my LHBS, along with a 5gal carboy to use as a secondary.
Here's the recipe:
8oz crushed crystal malt 60L
4oz crushed chocolate malt
4oz crushed black patent malt
Steeped in a muslin bag for 20min at 160-170F
Brought water to boil, added:
6.6 lbs Cooper's Amber LME
1oz Cluster hops (bittering)
Boiled 55min
Added:
0.5oz Willamette hops (finishing)
Boiled 5 more minutes.
All went well, no boil-over this time. Hooray! While boiling, sanitized all fermenting gear. Prepped an ice bath in my laundry sink in the basement to cool the brewpot and the wort. That worked TOO well. After adding the cooled wort to 2gallons cool water, the stuff was at 55F. Yikes! Added another gallon of hot water to top off at 5gal, brought wort to 70F. Success!
One minor hitch - while using a sanitized saucepan to ladle hot wort out of the brewpot, through my funnel/strainer and into the 6.5gal carboy primary, a lot of grain/hop pellet residue clogged up my strainer. The mesh is too fine, I guess. So I washed my hands with anti-bacterial soap, rinsed in the sanitizing solution, then delicately reached in and tilted the strainer a bit. Now the wort flowed through, and MOST of the trub was strained.
17 hours after pitching yeast, the proto-beer is at 72F in the primary, bubbling once every 4 seconds with a nice, yeasty kreusen.
So, my question:
When I rack to secondary in a week, and then when I rack to the bottling bucket two weeks after that, will most of the hops/grain residue sink down, and thus allow me to siphon without sucking it up? I worry about getting a gritty porter after all this effort.
