First AG - Stone Ruination IPA Clone

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seigex

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Well I did my first all grain batch .. Here's my recipe:

11.2 lb - American Pale 2-row
1 lb - Crystal 40L
1 lb - Munich 10L
1 lb - Carapils

1.75 oz Nugget (12.3% AA) @ 60 Min
1.00 oz Centennial (8.3% AA) @ 30 Min
1.00 oz Centennial (8.3% AA) @ 10 Min
1.00 oz Centennial (8.3% AA) @ 1 Min

Dry Hop 2.0 oz Centennial (8.3% AA) in Secondary

Mash Temp: 152F
Batch Sparged 4.5 gallons @ 197 F

Varlouf'd at mash but forgot to at sparge

Pre-Boil Wort: 7 Gallons
Boil Time: 60 Min

Expected Gravity: 1.073
Original Gravity: 1.050
Efficiency: 68%

Yeast: 3 Packets of Safale US-05 (First time using dry yeast) pitched dry.
-- Started fermenting within an hour of pitching.

--------------
There you have it.. I guess its not too bad.. for 68% on my first try ... I expected my efficiency to be alot worse. Tasted some wort at the end of the 60 minute boil.. nicely bitter.. can't wait till its kegged.

All grain is a lot more work than extract, but I feel like I had more control over the whole process. Overall I liked it and it was easier than I thought it would be.
 
Recipe sounds great and congrats on your first all grain. I've done about 15 all grain batches now and efficiency is always around 72% which isn't too high but at least i've got it consistent. I blame this on buying precrushed grain.

the process just becomes natural and easy after a while and you cant find ways to cut down you brew time.
 
Recipe sounds great and congrats on your first all grain. I've done about 15 all grain batches now and efficiency is always around 72% which isn't too high but at least i've got it consistent. I blame this on buying precrushed grain.

the process just becomes natural and easy after a while and you cant find ways to cut down you brew time.

Thanks! I'm not too worried about screwing the process up a bit, this was my "get the process down" session, and I'll fine tune it when I do my next one (next wednesday). I was pretty excited when I saw the yeast going at it within the first hour of pitching it, I'm used to it taking 12 - 24 hours to start.

Only thing that sucks is how long its going to take before I can drink my first glass :D
 
It'll get smoother and smoother for you. I remember thinking that I was going to get really bad efficiency on my first go too. I got 76%. A couple more times and I'm sure you'll be in the upper 70s/low 80s after you tweak the process. Hot as balls in Corona about now, huh?
 
I'm halfway through drinking my first batch of Ruination clone. It's the best batch I've done yet by far, and tastes very similar to the original. It's also the simplest beer I've done: the grain bill only consisted of 2 Row and 1 lb Crystal 40L (no Carapils and no Munich).

Next weekend I'll be doing my first Pliny clone...
 
Congrats on your first AG, sounds like it went well, but I'm curious how you decided on three packs of Yeast? One should be sufficient. Just hate to see anyone wasting their money.
 
The worst part of AG brewing is cleaning up.

I just did my first batches last weekend and I think cleaning AG is easier, just hose it all off, soap things up a bit, rinse.

The hose makes it all easy whereas an extract has been in the kitchen for me so it's just faucet and gf-swmbo hates the mess i make.
 
Hot as balls in Corona about now, huh?

Yeah... although I've been on vacation for the last couple weeks and spent the whole time in my air conditioning. :D

Congrats on your first AG, sounds like it went well, but I'm curious how you decided on three packs of Yeast? One should be sufficient. Just hate to see anyone wasting their money.

Actually I was concerned about the high gravity (1.076) and not having time to do a starter.. the packets were $1.25 as opposed to a white labs liquid which I normally get that was $6 (i ended up saving a couple bucks this way anyways) So the More Beer guy said I should just go with three packets and not worry about the starter. It turned out my gravity ended up not being that high anyways.
 
I'm halfway through drinking my first batch of Ruination clone. It's the best batch I've done yet by far, and tastes very similar to the original. It's also the simplest beer I've done: the grain bill only consisted of 2 Row and 1 lb Crystal 40L (no Carapils and no Munich).

Next weekend I'll be doing my first Pliny clone...

Same here: my ruination used only 2-row and crystal 60L. I did add 2# of sugar after the initial fermentation to push up the ABV. It was a beauty. It will compete in August.

OG = 1.083.
 
Since you didn't hit your est. OG, what kind of IBU's did you get out of it?

Is it going to be overly bitter since you planned on a higher OG?

Just a thought, I do like the grain bill and I love how simple this great beer looks to brew. I think I shall give it a shot!

BTW, if ya'll think cleaning up is harder with extract brewing, I'm glad I steered away from it after only 1 brew to go to AG.
 
Since you didn't hit your est. OG, what kind of IBU's did you get out of it?

Is it going to be overly bitter since you planned on a higher OG?

Just a thought, I do like the grain bill and I love how simple this great beer looks to brew. I think I shall give it a shot!

BTW, if ya'll think cleaning up is harder with extract brewing, I'm glad I steered away from it after only 1 brew to go to AG.

Not sure.. I did take a taste test prior to racking to the fermenter and it was super-bitter, but I'm not sure that the gravity-level is going to accentuate it or not. I guess I'll find out here in a month or so :)
 
Yeah... although I've been on vacation for the last couple weeks and spent the whole time in my air conditioning. :D



Actually I was concerned about the high gravity (1.076) and not having time to do a starter.. the packets were $1.25 as opposed to a white labs liquid which I normally get that was $6 (i ended up saving a couple bucks this way anyways) So the More Beer guy said I should just go with three packets and not worry about the starter. It turned out my gravity ended up not being that high anyways.

I was also thinking that you might be overpitching, but after reading up on it in Designing Great Beers, it seems that Commericial brewers aim to pitch about 200 billion cells per 5g's. And that anything up to 400 billion cells per 5g's is acceptable. My math says you probably pitched about 207 billion cells, if all of your cells were viable. That's using the numbers provided by the Fermentis Website. But I still think one packet would be good:)
 
I was also thinking that you might be overpitching, but after reading up on it in Designing Great Beers, it seems that Commericial brewers aim to pitch about 200 billion cells per 5g's. And that anything up to 400 billion cells per 5g's is acceptable. My math says you probably pitched about 207 billion cells, if all of your cells were viable. That's using the numbers provided by the Fermentis Website. But I still think one packet would be good:)

I haven't researched it, but I'm confused about overpitching.. If you pitch X amount of cells, and the initial phase is the growth phase anyways, what does it matter if you pitch 2 or 3 times that amount since they're going to grow to the specific amount, most likely higher than that initial amount, to handle the amount of sugar in the wort anyways. And even if there are an over amount of cells, all I could imagine is that they're going to be fighting harder for the amount of sugar they want to consume.

I'm not saying I'm right and I'm definitely not a microbiologist, thats just what was on my mind every time I heard someone talk about overpitching.

However, this is definitely the strongest fermentation I've ever seen, and the gravity of my last beer was somewhere around 1.055 when I pitched 1 vial of liquid yeast and it was a very slow fermentation.

This one started putting off CO2 within 45 minutes of pitching and now looks like a rolling boil (12 hours later). Pretty exciting to watch, and my 6 year old who helps me brew my beer was very excited to see it too.

And I'll be honest, I was always sold on White Labs liquid, which is Uber expensive, but after reading that you should be doing a starter with it, I don't think I'm getting any extra benefit from using liquid yeast.

I think I'll stick to this Safale brand if my beer turns out ok (the only dry yeast at my local B3 shop). Anyone else with Safale experience?
 
Safale US-05 is my go-to yeast for many American styles. Basically anything that calls for a nicely attenuated neutral/clean flavor ends up getting the US-05 treatment in my brewery. I've used it a couple dozen times and I've always been happy with the results.
 
I haven't researched it, but I'm confused about overpitching.. If you pitch X amount of cells, and the initial phase is the growth phase anyways, what does it matter if you pitch 2 or 3 times that amount since they're going to grow to the specific amount, most likely higher than that initial amount, to handle the amount of sugar in the wort anyways. And even if there are an over amount of cells, all I could imagine is that they're going to be fighting harder for the amount of sugar they want to consume.

I'm not saying I'm right and I'm definitely not a microbiologist, thats just what was on my mind every time I heard someone talk about overpitching.

However, this is definitely the strongest fermentation I've ever seen, and the gravity of my last beer was somewhere around 1.055 when I pitched 1 vial of liquid yeast and it was a very slow fermentation.

This one started putting off CO2 within 45 minutes of pitching and now looks like a rolling boil (12 hours later). Pretty exciting to watch, and my 6 year old who helps me brew my beer was very excited to see it too.

And I'll be honest, I was always sold on White Labs liquid, which is Uber expensive, but after reading that you should be doing a starter with it, I don't think I'm getting any extra benefit from using liquid yeast.

I think I'll stick to this Safale brand if my beer turns out ok (the only dry yeast at my local B3 shop). Anyone else with Safale experience?

I agree US-05 is a great yeast. I've used it for my last 4 brews. I was always a die-hard liquid yeast person also, but US-05 changed my views on that. Next batch I'll be trying Notty for the first time.

As far as over pitching is concerned, I did a little more reading. It appears that the concern with overpitching is that the growth phase is essentially bypassed because the yeast get to work right away. The growth phase is good to a point because you then have new,strong yeast cells through the duration of the fermentation. Either way, you didn't overpitch and I really shouldn't have said anything without being fully educated, which I'm still not.:cross:
 
I agree US-05 is a great yeast. I've used it for my last 4 brews. I was always a die-hard liquid yeast person also, but US-05 changed my views on that. Next batch I'll be trying Notty for the first time.

As far as over pitching is concerned, I did a little more reading. It appears that the concern with overpitching is that the growth phase is essentially bypassed because the yeast get to work right away. The growth phase is good to a point because you then have new,strong yeast cells through the duration of the fermentation. Either way, you didn't overpitch and I really shouldn't have said anything without being fully educated, which I'm still not.:cross:

Haha, well the luxory of this forum, and most others on the internet, is that aside from a few of us who actually do have degrees/training in microbiology, brewology (is that a word?), or chemistry, most of us learn by making outrageous claims that we actually know little to nothing about, and hoping the masses (forum readers) either prove us wrong based on actual knowledge or they accept it as fact and the laws of physics/chemsistry/whatever change just for us.

In actuality that makes sense, and spikes my interest, there has to be some sort of chemical that raises in the wort released by each yeastie that when it hits a certain level, they know not to reproduce anymore and the lack of that chemical due to over pitching my change the flavor of the beer..

Any yeastologists (again, a real word?), or anyone with more than a half-assed online community college education want to way in on this?
 
S05 is my favorite. Ruination really calls for S04 as I recall. An English dry yeast is more to style if that matters to you. It ferments really fast with 1 pack of S04.

A favorite of mine, but no body else likes it around here so I have to drink it all myself.
 
1st gravity reading and after about 38 hours I'm already down from 1.050 to 1.010 ... Still has a little bit of sweet taste to it... but otherwise tastes like a great beer! :mug:

I really need to invest in a beer thief, I used the suck through the sanitized tubing and transfer to my test tube method and I'm always scared I'm going to introduce unwanted oxidation into the beer.
 
Hey there,

I've just started brewing again after a 12 year hiatus, and decided to aim high and try out a Ruination clone recipe.

Everything went pretty well, and now I'm wondering how long I should wait until trying one out. 3 weeks? 4? 6? 8?

How about right now?

Now?
 
safale o5 is perfect for ipa's. slow down your sparge run-off rate and you will get amazing efficiency. that and a good crush is the key to good efficiency. don't worry about the IBU's. even if it is too bitter at first, it will mellow out after a few weeks.
 
I tried a Ruination clone earlier in the year and out of my 13 AG brews to date, this was the first one to not really turn out well. I missed my OG and was 12 points low so it came out very bitter. Drinkable but not that great. Aroma and color were spot-on but when my wife tried it you would of thought she bit into a whole grapefruit with the expression. I will try it again though....
 
Hey there,

I've just started brewing again after a 12 year hiatus, and decided to aim high and try out a Ruination clone recipe.

Everything went pretty well, and now I'm wondering how long I should wait until trying one out. 3 weeks? 4? 6? 8?

How about right now?

Now?


With the recipe i used, It came out very citrusy (i'm assuming from the dry hopped nugget hops) ... But all my buddies that drank the free beer I had (ski patrol for all you Three Sheet's watchers) they said that was one of the best qualities of the beer, aside from it being free for them and getting them drunk...

I kegged it impatiently at 13 days... and after about 2 additional weeks the flavors really melded together making a great beer. I'd say give an IPA at least a month if your impatient.. but two months would be better if you have something else to drink in the mean time
 

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