First brew, one screwup, what to expect?

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ShadowWulf

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Hey guys, first post and my first brew.

Well, being a fan of full-bodied beers (and damn intrigued by the ingredient list) i made my first brew an extract kit, specifically Jamil's Chocolate Halelnut Porter. I did a full boil on this, figuring if i was going in i should start out "right".

Well, i was so into what i was doing i missed one little itty bitty detail. This kit comes with 3 types of hops you see...
1 oz Kent Goldings Hops (Bittering)
1 oz Willamette Hops (Flavoring)
2 oz Willamette Hops (a seperate oz, this time for Aroma!)

Well silly me, i failed to notice the part about WHEN to add these hops. So i did the obvious. I added them all. Yep, all 4oz at the begginning of the boil for the specified hour the recipe called for (never mind it said only the Goldings for an hour!)


I suppose i could of made worse mistakes. And the brew is now fermenting (bubbling stopped about a day ago after 2 of super activity, but it still has pressure so im saying all is well and good) I guess im going to let it sit, what, 3 weeks before bottling? Maybe 2....

But whats the worst i could of done to my first brew? Super hoppy? Bitter as all heck? Ill say one thing it SMELLS wonderful, but im not sure how its going to taste! Ah well, thanks for any ideas guys!
 
To me, that sounds like a pretty good effort for the first time. And it certainly could have been a lot worse. When you boil the hops for that length of time, you evaporate off the flavor and aroma components, and just leave the bittering components. Three extra ounces of Willamette hops for bitterness is going to mean the beer will be more bitter than intended, though on the bright side Willamette aren't all that high in alpha acid (they're around 5%, I think), so it should still be drinkable. What you won't get will be much hoppy aroma, though, as the flavor and aroma would have been boiled off. If you wanted to compensate for that, you could dry hop to get some of the hop aroma back - by adding an ounce of Willamette hops to the beer when you transfer it to secondary.

The rule of thumb I've heard on here for bottling is to do it after three weeks - one week in primary, two weeks in secondary, then bottle and leave to mature for three more weeks. If it's super-bitter it might be better if left a little longer in bottles. I think it's your duty to investigate this by drinking your beer at regular intervals and then reporting back on here :mug:
 
Well, you're certainly going to find out right off the bat whether or not you are a hophead! It's prolly going to be pretty bitter, esp since you did a full boil, but as always, wait it out, let it age, you never know, you might like it!
 
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