Help a noob

Ladies/Gents,

I found the following recipe on "How to Brew" by John Palmer:

Victory and Chaos India Pale Ale
Malts Gravity Contribution
8 lbs. of Pale Malt Extract (syrup)
1/2 lb. of Crystal 120L Malt 96
4
BG for 3 Gallons 1.100
OG for 5 Gallons 1.062
Hops IBU Contribution

2 oz of Galena (11%) at 60 minutes
2 oz of East Kent Goldings (5%) at 15 min.
1 oz of East Kent Goldings (5%) at 5 min.


47
11
2
Total IBUs 60

I have all these ingredients and I want to try out a more elaborate brew compared to the standard "canned" brews. I have a few questions:

Is this likely to be a decent IPA? I like IPAs such as Full Sail, Red Racer (out of Surrey), Halo IPA etc....

Do I need to add sugar to the wort? All those canned kits have me adding a butt load of sugar. Or are all the fermentables supplied by the malt extract?

For my current ingredients I have:

9lbs light DME
9lbs Amber DME
odds and ends of LME (3 lbs pilsner and 3lbs light)
Galena and East Goldings hops
Various assortment of Crystal. 40, 75, and 120.

If you have a better brew I could put together that would be great. I am partial to the IPAs, but I do love a nice amber as well. Drop Top is my wife's fav from our summer camping trip down in Oregon and I like that one as well.

Upon suggestion here I picked up a 7.5g stainless steel pot from Bass Pro Shop...so I should be good for a 5g boil...or correct me if I am wrong.

Thanks in advance to everyone and Happy New Years!!!!

i'd drink that recipe. since john palmer wrote the book on how to brew, and you have the ingredients, go for that 1. don't add sugar to recipes; it adds a cider twang. avoid recipes that add sugar

I second the recipe. I'd do it as-is to see if it's what you like.

The malt extract provides both fermentables and non-fermentables. The non-fermentables give it particular tastes and mouthfeel, the fermentables get converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Pure sugar (cane or corn) is extremely fermentable, like in the very high 90% range. You don't need to add sugar to a beer, and in fact that's not too common. However, adding sugar is sometimes desirable to lower what the final gravity will be, particularly when you're making a high alcohol beer that doesn't have a really heavy body, or if you want a beer that is really dry.

Always best to do a full boil if possible, and with a 7.5 gal pot looks like you have that ability.

The EKG hops should give it an interesting taste, probably a bit more like an English IPA? But it should taste fine.

Also, I brew in a 7.5G kettle and have no problems. So you should be fine doing full boil in that.

lumpher said:

i'd drink that recipe. since john palmer wrote the book on how to brew, and you have the ingredients, go for that 1. don't add sugar to recipes; it adds a cider twang. avoid recipes that add sugar

Click to expand...

Slightly

Some recipes REQUIRE sugar to brew correctly (like most Belgians--makes them dry and "more digestable" as the Belgians like to say). Brew Like a Monk has a great discussion of this issue and too many homebrewers have been scared off by the "sugar = cider twang" thing. You just have to know when and how to use it. AND many recipes use plain old table sugar too!!

That said, you SHOULD avoid basic recipes that call for sugar just to pump up the fermentables on the cheap (like those canned kits).

Palmer kicks ass...Brew it, taste it, tweak it :rockin:

TANSTAAFB said:

Brew Like a Monk has a great discussion of this issue and too many homebrewers have been scared off by the "sugar = cider twang" thing. You just have to know when and how to use it.

Click to expand...

+1!

I feel that people who say "sugar = cider twang" haven't ever done it themselves... My Belgiums turn out great using up to 3 lb regular table sugar for a 5 gallon batch.

OP, read How To Brew and then get Brewing Classic Styles. You won't go wrong with those recipes!

For what it's worth - I have been experimenting with EKG hops as well as Styrian Goldings in the past year and find they add a flavour that I cannot get enough of!

B

Thanks everyone.

I ran some the recipe through tastybrew and the IBUs were insane. I reduced the hops to:

.75oz galena 60mins
1oz EKG at 15mins
.25oz EKG at 5mins

This resulted in an IBU of 53. Which is close to where I think I would like it.

Thoughts? The recipe, as listed, came in over 100 IBUs! Maybe I did something wrong with the calcs.

Anyhow, have a great New Years! Cheers!

Last question before I get onto dinner and a "few" beers

Can someone point me to a "partial boil for dummies thread"?

Specifically I read that you steep your grains, the crystal, for 30 mins at 154f. Then I take out the bag, and add in my DME and start boiling/hop schedule.

If I am doing a partial boil 3-4g, since it is on the stove, how much extract do I add? All of it?

Okay...I put this in bottles on this Wednesday. However I put one in the freezer and tried in after cold.

It was flat, with a nice mild caramel taste and a good hop bitter finish. Beautiful!

I f'ed up the recipe...but i was 4 bottles deep in Sam Adams...that sounded bad

Cyrstal 120 0.5 steep for 30mins at 150-160F. Temp was a bit unstable. 4 gallons to start
DME Light 8lbs added with wort off of burner. Stirred in all DME and brought to boil Clock start at boil
galena hops 1oz added with start of boil 60mins
EKG hops 1oz add 16mins
EKG hops 1oz added at 5mins


I also topped up to 22l.

However I love it so far, and I actually put another few bottles in the fridge. Tastes fine flat, yes I am a bit of a headcase.

Lovely.

Sorry no one responded earlier. There's a good sticky about how to do partial mashes easily on the stove. Good to hear that your brew turned out well! It's ok if you messed up the recipe, as long as you know what recipe you ended up brewing so if in the future you want to do it again, you know what you made the first time! RDWHAHB!