Just finished my last batch... Waiting to pitch

I just finished a batch I have been working on, this is the 3rd batch, each time I play a little more with the recipe... Man it came out hard I bumped my steeping, "crystal 20 to crystal 40, kept the same volume of 1 pound...

It's a pale ale which I plan on entering in competition... Good thing the lines between amber and a pale ale are blurred...

I think I need to bump the crystal 40 back to 3/4 of a pound, or go with .5 pound of 20L and .5 lb of 40L. Which would you guys suggest?

I also want more carbonation so this time in going from 3/4 cup corn sugar to 1 cup.... I know, I know I need to get a scale... Next trip to the store... I spend enough there already.

Also, this batch was probably the smoothest batch I have ever done. The only part that takes me for ever and is not very nice... I need to build a counterflow chiller... Next batch or the batch after that I'll fork out the cash for supplies.

Personally, I prefer an immersion chiller. I can get my wort down to 68 degrees in 15 minutes and it's much easier to clean.

That is actually the style I was planing on building, but it seems like the counterflow style is more popular... What does everyone else prefer?

Since I am building one myself, I can really do either. Seems like the immersion would be a little bit cheaper.

Professor Frink said:

Personally, I prefer an immersion chiller. I can get my wort down to 68 degrees in 15 minutes and it's much easier to clean.

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Damn you must have some cold a$$ water!!!
JJ

My only suggestion on the crystal malt is to keep playing around, make only one change at a time, and learn from what you are doing. The best part is that you get beer at the end of each experiment.

Be careful with that carbonation, though. Jumping to 1 cup of sugar is a BIG change, Assuming your 3/4 cup was 5 oz. of sugar, you're going from about 2.7 volumes of CO2 to about 3.3 (depending on several other factors). That's approaching the sort of carbonation you would expect in a hefeweizen or other lighter styles. Check out this calculator and play around a little to see how much sugar you might want to add. Do whatever you want with your beer, but have an idea as to what the effect might actually be.


TL

Jaybird said:

Damn you must have some cold a$$ water!!!
JJ

Click to expand...

It's actually not that cold, but if you stir the crap out of it the whole time it works pretty well. The summer, that's another story...

TexLaw,

Thank you for pointing that out. I will have to reconsider my original thought. I was pouring my last batch into cold glasses, and they really messed up the head and carbination. Once I moved to room temp glasses I got a real feel for the batch, I will keep the priming sugar at 3/4 - 7/8 so range.

My previous batch has pretty good head retention doesn't last all that long, but there are little foam bubbles till the last drop. I think I might have over shot with the carapils... I went from .5 lb to 1 lb. What can I expect from having to much cara-pils?

I just opened a All grain IPA I made almost a year ago, and it had great head, but I am assuming thats due to all the grains I had in it, all 3 of the batches I'm talking about have similar grain bills.

Chilled glasses FUps beer.