A haphazard venture into AG

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
May 22, 2006
Messages
20
Reaction score
0
Location
Union, CT
Howdy All,

I'm new here, so please forgive my green ways. After 3 extract brews, and one mini-mash, I've leapt into All Grain. Here's the low-down. Last August I purchased all of the ingredients to for my first AG and then was promptly overwhelmed with life. The goods were stored away untill the weekend of Mother's day, when I reached the peak of my Homebrew withdrawal and got grinding/mashing/brewing. I'll try to recite the ingredients off the top of my head (they're all written down, but not available right now). I went to the Brew store with the goal of getting ingredients for a Pale Ale, recipe from the Joy of Homebrewing in hand. When I arrived the owner of the store kinda redirected me with a new pale ale recipe of his own. Said it would be close to Sierra Nevada, if that gives you an idea. And I purchased:

8# of crystal malt
1# of biscuit malt
1# of caramalt (does this sound right?)

I ground the grains myself.

3 oz of hops- 1 each of cascade, nugget, and one that i can't remember-I'll let you know

1 pack of Wyeast yeast- type for an american pale. Sorry this is so vague-it's the only ingredient I forgot to record properly.

I boiled 2.5 gals of H2O, poured it into a 5 gal igloo, added the grains and 1 TBL of gypsum, and about 1/2 gal of cool water to reach 150 degrees, and mashed for an hour. I put it all in the lauter-tun and sparged with 3.5 gal of 165 degree H2O reaching a total volume of 6 gal, almost exactly. Here's where I strayed. I was concerned that the grains were gonna be stale (does this even happen?) and on a strange whim added a 3.3 lb can of light malt extract at the begining of the boil. I added the mystery hops at 60min for bitter, the nugget at 20 min for flavor, a tsp of irish moss at 10 min, and I plan on adding the cascade to the second fermentor for aroma.

Now, as luck would have it, after cooling the wort, I attempted to add the yeast. I found that the bubble pack with the nutrients inside had not broken and therefore not fed my yeast. Throwing caution to the wind, I aerated the wort, and added the yeast and the nutrients right in. It was a little too warm (85 instead of the recommended 75) but my house is a little chilly so, after about 18 to 20 hours, I was bubbling nicely. It's been about 6 days of steady bubbles and slowed down to 1 a minute or so.

Any ideas on what I'm creating? Am I on the road to disaster? Should I be more exacting on this or am I right in assuming that there's plenty of flexabilty in all of this? Oh yeah, and what is the "Strike"? I'm still learning all the jargon.

I tell you what, even if it ends up swill, it sure is fun.

Fishmonkeystew
 
It should be fine, although I suspect it's going to taste underhopped, since you added significant gravity (by adding the LME) without adding any hop bitterness.

Your 10 pounds of grain in a five gallon batch should get you around the mid 50s in gravity, depending on you efficiency.

But 3.3 lbs LME adds about 24 more gravity points.
 
Underhopped, eh? Is there anyway to fix it? Or do I rack it up to experience, and just add more hops next time? Sorry about all the questions, but the guy at the brew store talks at me not to me and I don't have any fellow brewers to bounce my curiousity off of. My goal is to learn enough to brew Belgian farmhouse ales. My wife and I are suckers for Hennepin.
 
Did you crush the grains last August or just before you brewed? How did you store them?

Too add more bitterness you could make a 'hop tea' by boiling an ounce or so of hops for an hour (in water with some extract) and pouring it into the fermenting wort after it has cooled. Personally, however, I'd leave it alone as i'm sure the beer will turn out fine.
 
fishmonkeystew said:
Underhopped, eh? Is there anyway to fix it? Or do I rack it up to experience, and just add more hops next time? Sorry about all the questions, but the guy at the brew store talks at me not to me and I don't have any fellow brewers to bounce my curiousity off of. My goal is to learn enough to brew Belgian farmhouse ales. My wife and I are suckers for Hennepin.

You could try making a hop tea and adding it, or you could just let it be.

The ratio of bitterness to gravity is the primary measure of how bitter a beer tastes. Since your LME increased the gravity by about 40%, you'd also want to increase you IBUs by the same amount in order to have the same basic flavor/bitterness profile. You'd have simply transformed your pale ale into an IPA.

Farmhouse ales are not very difficult to brew: I made a terrific extract saison this spring.
 
I crushed the grains the night before I brewed (5-12). Before that they were stored (and I hate to admit this) in the paper bag they came in, inside of an airtight container. Whats the best way to store them anyway?

I think you're right about leaving it alone. Too much tinkering could ruin the batch.

I am STOKED that I found this forum. Thanks for all the quick responses, folks.
 
Ok.... I am VERY new to AG so by no means do I intend to sound exceedingly knowledgeable so someone help me here cause I am basicly book knowledgable not experience..... but the only base malt you used was the 3.3 lb can of light malt extract. Your mash was

8# of crystal malt
1# of biscuit malt
1# of caramalt

8 pounds of crystal.... thats a lot of cyrstal. Thats a REAL lot of crystal. I have not actually seen a recipe with that much yet. I am imaginig that it is going to be a bit sweet.
 
My guess is it was 8# of pale or pilsner... and with the 3.3# can of LME the OG is probably around 1.075 give or take a few points...

A bit low on the IBUs for an American Pale at that gravity for sure, so it won't be real bitter... it will most likely taste clean and malty sweet with a bit of hop flavor and good aroma from dry hopping... ya live and learn (I just brewed my first Belgian Pale Ale last month, OG of 1.055 and 20 IBUs... it is under hopped IMO... I wish I'd gone 30 IBUs on that one)

Most importantly, it WILL be beer and it will be YOUR beer!!! Drink and enjoy!!!

Here's a very good online book to check out:
http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/index.html

Ask questions, buy books and brew, brew, brew!!!! (Oh, and ALWAYS take good notes on what you did, so you can do it again if you love the beer!!!!)

Welcome to the good life,:mug:
mikey
 
Ah yes, that was the problem with buying the grains bulk. The guy scooped it into a bag, wrote "8# crystal malt" on the side, and sent me on my merry way. Your dead on about the SG though, it was 1.070. I look at it this way-its my fifth batch, and I haven't had a bad one yet. Only three bottles that never carbonated. So if its bad, oh well. And it'll prolly be gooood. hehehe. Fun is.
 
Assuming its 8 pounds of 2 row Pale, Promash puts the gravity of the grain at 1.077.

When I deleted the pale and put in 8 pounds of cyrstal the gravity came out as 1.075 (basicly the same).

Though crystal is a specialty malt right, not a base malt... so if you did mash with 8 pounds of crystal (or any grain not a base malt) what would happen?


By the way, fishmonkeystew you have got to check out Promash if you have not seen it yet..... it is just WAY cool!
 
if you really mashed with 8# crystal malt, i think you'd still get a gravity in the 70's.... only problem is none of the sugars from teh crystal (which DO contribute to gravity) would be ferementable...
your FG would be in the 1.050-1.060 range, most likely... this would probably not taste very good... or at least, it wouldn't taste very beery...
 
hmmmm. Well, unless this guy from the store was trying to set me up (which I highly doubt-he's got a pretty good reputation in New England for brewing, including winning awards), I suspect that I'm the one whose got the name of the type of grain wrong. It did say 8# crystal on the bag, but in all my excitement I didn't ask for all the specifics. Oh well, live and learn. It's funny, normally when I brew, I write EVERYTHING down, even the rate of bubbles almost hourly (yeah, I get a little overexited when sumthin' in the fermenter). Anyway, as of this morning, the bubbling had all but stopped. It had pretty much stopped last night around 5 pm, but I gently swirled it in the fermenter, and it perked up a little-one or two bubbles a minute. This morning it was still keeping pressure in the airlock, but not quite enough to force any gas out. I'm guessing that the bubbles are proof of fermentation. I've been planning on transfering it to the 2nd fermenter on Sunday. I'll check the SG tonight, and then a couple of more times before I transfer.
 
Normally I write EVERYTHING down too... this last brew... my first AG. I felt that everything was going wrong and stoped writing. I suppose when you think that things are going wrong, you should be writing more not less.... but kinda got caught up in things....
 
Ok now you can all give me hell. I checked my notes last night and my SG was not 1.07 it was 1.06. The target was 1.05. Hmmmm. Zok pretty much wrote me the recipe and handed me the ingredients and he's pretty sharp, so I'm guessing he knows what he's talking about. Any suggestions on how the SG got so much higher. Hehehe, this is gonna be an interesting batch, I think. Also (off topic a little), have any of you heard of Seven Bridges Organic Homebrewing Supplies (www.breworganic.com)? I'm considering an organic brew.
 
Here's hoping that was 8# of base malt
sweat.gif


The adding of the malt extract is what drove up your gravity.

Concerning the hoppiness of it, did you try tasting it? I'd try a sample before throwing a bunch of extra hops in - although, if that was crystal malt, you're going to need alot :)
 
hehehe, ya know, I have to wonder where my brain is sometimes. Of course the extract drove it up. duh. A taste test is definately in order at this point. I'll let you know what the results are.
 
Back
Top