First Time Brewer Question

I am just getting into brewing and have a couple of questions about the extract process after doing a lot of research and visiting the local home brew shop.

1) First question is just to clarify something. When you are adding your wort and cooling it and adding to chilled water then pitching the yeast, does the chilled water have to be previously boiled water, or just tap water? I know in my area our tap water is good for brewing (guy at the local shop said it at least). Do you have to let the chlorine evaporate etc, or just use cold water straight from tap?

2) I like IPA's and will get a couple simpler batches under my belt before trying an IPA but a question was raised while talking with the guy at the brew shop. He said you need a secondary fermenter (carboy) to do a IPA because of adding finishing? hops in the secondary. Is this the case, or is there an alternative method for doing IPA's with the standard basic setup?

Thanks in advance, looking forward to starting my first brew this weekend!!

1) For a while, I used to buy gallons of spring water from the store to top it off, but ultimately I never noticed any off flavors etc from just plain tap water. Do what you find best, but I get city water and don't find it affects the flavor negatively.

2) He probably meant you need to secondary for dry-hopping, which is where you put hops into the fermenter, mostly for extra aroma and some flavor. I can't say you would necessarily NEED a secondary, but it would be easier for that purpose. However, I may be completely wrong on this one, so hopefully someone else will chime in if so

1) I personally would pre-boil my top-off water just to be safe. Some do and some don't. Just depends on your confidence in clean tap water.

2) I am doing an IPA for my next batch and plan on dry hopping in the secondary. Once again....I'm sure there are some people that will argue both ways. If you are using pellet hops and dry hopping in a nylon bag you could probably get away with using your primary. If you are using leaf hops it would depend on the amount of krausen and junk on top of the beer. I believe this is probably the biggest reason people prefer to dry hop in a secondary....nice clean vessel.

One of the best aspects of this hobby is that there is a lot of room for your own style/methods.

Jason

I boiled my top-off water for my first batch. IDK about your setup but my kit came with a 6.5 gal bottling bucket so I boiled about 4 gals (also trying to build an oxidation layer on my pot) and put it in my bottling bucket to cool. Boiled my wort, chilled it, put it into the fermenter, then topped it off to 5 gal with my clean previously boiled water. Just put the bottling bucket somewhere to let it cool. It seems like that larger volume of water in the bottling bucket took forever to cool (2-2.5 hours)

I use a carbon filter (Pur) on my tap water, so I don't boil it. Boiling will pasteurize it, in case there's something living in your tap water (shouldn't be), and will gas off chlorine. If you're water supply is treated with chloramine instead of chorine then boiling won't remove it. You need to use a carbon filter or Campden tablets.

IPAs are usually dry-hopped - adding hops to the beer after it's fermented. Most brewers add their dry hops to a secondary fermenter - more properly called a bright tank, since no actual fermentation occurs there, but it's becoming increasingly common to just add the dry hops to the primary fermenter.

I use a 6.5 gal glass carboy to primary ferment 10days to 2 weeks I love being able to see whats going on. then for secondary i a 6 gallon brew pail and add my hops there for dry hopping another week to 2 weeks.. I live in Overland park, ks and our water is good so i dont boil it yet or had yet any problems so i dont boil it. I also like IPA's and brewed my first monday i too brewed about 4 other batches before i went for a 1.078 OG beer and also made a yeast starter with build up 2 days and 2 feedings with my wyeast liquid pouch 1bil yeasties and also added O2 Bottle and stone to the mix..

#2: I'm pretty new to brewing myself and I just finished bottle conditioning my first IPA attempt and dry hopping.

I did everything in the primary. There is hardly any nose at all in my final product. I'm guessing it had something to do with all of the trub at the bottom that would not be there if a secondary was used.

Oh another thing I learned was that its very difficult to pull out the dryhop bags from a carboy and it made me feel pretty dumb that I didn't think it through when I dropped them in. Live and learn!

Good point thats why i only use the carboy for primary and the brew pail for secondary dry hopping.. QUestion how long did you have the dryhopp hops in the fermentor and what how did you use and how much?

Chipper said:

#2: I'm pretty new to brewing myself and I just finished bottle conditioning my first IPA attempt and dry hopping.

I did everything in the primary. There is hardly any nose at all in my final product. I'm guessing it had something to do with all of the trub at the bottom that would not be there if a secondary was used.

Oh another thing I learned was that its very difficult to pull out the dryhop bags from a carboy and it made me feel pretty dumb that I didn't think it through when I dropped them in. Live and learn!

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HoppedIPA said:

Good point thats why i only use the carboy for primary and the brew pail for secondary dry hopping.. QUestion how long did you have the dryhopp hops in the fermentor and what how did you use and how much?

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1.00 oz Amarillo Gold and 0.50 oz Simcoe for 10 days. Mixed, split and loosly placed in two bags. Seemed like a lot of hops for such a small result.

just for comparison sakes i used 3 oz of cascade for my pale ale and 4 oz of chinook for my chinook single hop ipa. I normally double what ever is called for dry hopping except the Chinook IPA i made that recipe on my own so no need to double the hops there already had that :rockin:

Chipper said:

1.00 oz Amarillo Gold and 0.50 oz Simcoe for 10 days. Mixed, split and loosly placed in two bags. Seemed like a lot of hops for such a small result.

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Adding hops during primary fermentation will cause most of the hop flavor to dissipate so that is where dry hopping has the advantage. Dry hopping is great for a good sharp flavor but do not forget about late addition hops or even first wort hopping.

I have done and prefer late hop additions (5 mins or less) and had great results and since hops are not sooo expensive it makes it a little more economical! Dry hopping is great but it is more time and more work for me so I tend to shy away from it!

Just my opinion though!!

On my last batch i actually did both I had about 8 oz hops i added with in the last 10 minutes of the boil 3@10 3@5 and 2@1minute. I will have 4 oz in secondary. :rockin:

KevinW said:

Adding hops during primary fermentation will cause most of the hop flavor to dissipate so that is where dry hopping has the advantage. Dry hopping is great for a good sharp flavor but do not forget about late addition hops or even first wort hopping.

I have done and prefer late hop additions (5 mins or less) and had great results and since hops are not sooo expensive it makes it a little more economical! Dry hopping is great but it is more time and more work for me so I tend to shy away from it!

Just my opinion though!!

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HoppedIPA said:

On my last batch i actually did both I had about 8 oz hops i added with in the last 10 minutes of the boil 3@10 3@5 and 2@1minute. I will have 4 oz in secondary. :rockin:

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Wow.. is that a 5 gallon batch?

Yes it is! :rockin:

Chipper said:

Wow.. is that a 5 gallon batch?

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I used room temp distilled bottled water to top off my partial boil. I find it the easiest. No need to test or filter your tap water. No need to boil and chill water. I buy 6 gallons for $4 and it works great.

I actually made an IPA for my first batch ever and I thought it turned out great and so did most everyone else that tried it. Most of my friends aren't huge into IPA so they couldn't drink more than 1 or 2 of them but they all said it was a very good tasting beer. I did all my hopping in boiling. I added the bitter hops for taste right at boil and then I add some more for aroma 10 minutes or so before I took the wort off the heat. I used single stage fermenting and didn't dry hop.

Like someone said earlier, the great thing about brewing your own beer is you can change the recipe a little to get different tasting beers. Ingredients are pretty cheap too so do some experimenting. The worst that will happen is you have a beer that you don't like as much...but it is still drinkable

HoppedIPA said:

Yes it is! :rockin:

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I know where you got your name from!! :rockin::rockin: