First non-kit recipe, need process advice.

Ingredients (as per my other thread),
3kg light DME
250g Caramunch
250g Light Crystal
50g Willamette Hops
50g EKG Hops
WYeasts Irish Ale Yeast

My first thoughts for process are:

Raise 2gl water to 65C (155-160F).
Steep both grains for 30 mins.
Add 1Kg of DME
Bring up through hot break
Add 25g (1 oz) of each hop
Boil for 30 mins
Add another 25g of each hop
Boil for 15 mins
Flame out.
Add final 2kg of DME

Any advice? Should I maybe move the second DME addtion to the same time as the second hop add?

My advice is if you are going to try something new grab you balls and do it.

I think that you'll want to add your final DME closer to the 15 minute mark as opposed to at flame out... and I might swap the amounts (2 kg at the start, 1 kg late addition instead of the other way around).

Anyone else have a thought?

One of the things you want to keep in mind when making late extract additions is hop utilization. The more extract you have in a constant volume of water, the less acid you can extract from the hops. The person who wrote the full-boil version of your recipe calculated the amount of hops needed to get a certain number of IBUs based on a particular ratio of water to extract. By doing late extract additions, you can mimic that ratio with a smaller volume of water, and you can use the same amount of hops as in the full boil version to get the same number of IBUs.

Example: Let's say that you are trying to make 5 gallons of beer, but only have the capacity to boil 2 gallons of wort. If you add all of your DME to the two gallons, you would need to up your hops significantly to get the right IBU level. To use the same hop amounts called for in the original recipe, you would calculate that you have 2/5 of the total water in your pot, and would start with 2/5 of the total extract. So that is how you should determine how much DME to add from the start- what amount of extract will give my boil an identical extract to water ratio as a full boil.

Now, if you were to add a lot more DME to the pot with 15 minutes left to go, you would lose some hop utilization. Not only that, to avoid scorching, you would have to remove your pot from the flame, and then re-heat the pot before adding your 15 minute hops. That is going to throw off your timing. Furthermore, there will be enough heat in the wort at flame-out to kill any nasties which might be in the DME. So I suggest waiting until flame-out to add your late addition DME.

Easy. No ball grabbing necessary.

Thanks guys,

Herbie, your late DME approach takes into account another problem I will probably experience, that is my stove might take an annoying amount of time to bring the wort back to the boil after the second DME addition. Which as you say will through timing out etc.

Jobs done. Everything more or less went to plan. I went for the 1kg before the boil and 2kg after the boil. Hops 1 for 30mins, Hops 1+2 for 15 mins. Cooled to 35C, topped up with tap water and got 20-22C. Took an OG reading, 1.047-8. Pitched yeast.

Ah, one problem was the WYeast smack pack... I thought it said 30 minutes wait, but it said 3 hours! I would have started it off earlier if I'd known. It got about 1:45 beside a warm radiator and the pack was fairly well puffed up. Hopefully it will be grand.

Wort tasted quite nice this time. Hoping it tastes nice in 6 weeks.

Woo, WYeast certainly have some kick. This morning, only 18 hours after pitching the airlock is bubbling ever 5-10 secs. Temp had risen to 22C, but I have the window open and it's cooling back down.

This is my second "premier" yeast brew and I definitely feel there is a notable difference compared to the 7g kit sachet dried yeast.

The nottingham yeast didn't have an energetic a start as this WYeast, but it did ferment steady for 6 days solid without resting and finished with a brilliant FG. I'm hoping for good things from the WYeast too.

And... after only 60 hours it's stopped dead. Not even positive pressure on the air lock.

Either it's finished the bulk of fermentation or it's stalled. Suppose I'll have to take a sample tonight to find out.

Sampled FG at 1.020. Grrrr. I'm in no rush as I don't have bottles to put it in for a few weeks, but I'm hoping that rousing it a little makes it start up again, or I'll be drinking another sweet weak beer.

Time and temperature help to get the beer you want. If you start the ferment cool (lower end of the yeast's preferred temperature) it may not ferment out all the way. Giving it more time may or may not help but letting it warm up will. Either way, your beer isn't done fermenting yet, it's just done with the easy part. Give it another week and check your gravity again.

Thanks, I roused it last night, this morning, not long after I posted it bubbled. Hopefully it will carrying on, even if slowly. I'd hate to leave it 3-4weeks and find it only half done. Temp according to the stick-on strip is 20C (although the 18 and 22 indicators are dimly lit). As these stick-ons are influenced by ambient the wort temp could be more like 19C.

I moved the other stuck brew to sit on top of the beer fridge which has warmed it up to 22C and it also bubbled this morning. That might be just the beer warming up, or it might get another few point off before I bottle it at the weekend. It was 1.018 for 3 days constant after 1 week fermenting. I'd much prefer if it went at least to 1.015.

EDIT: and both were pitched around 22-24C, so not the cooler end of the yeast temps.

Well I bottled it on saturday and immediately regretted rousing it as much as I did. It's going to leave a wad of sediment in the bottles. FG on Friday was 1.016 and same before bottling on Saturday afternoon.

Though the plus side is the bottle pressures have gone up very quickly as there were plenty of yeast in suspension to start on the priming sugar.

It's clearing from the top down and the colour is much more what I'm after this time a deep reddish amber. Will probably take a good 2 weeks to clear before I can even sample it, but I have other beer to drink now, first time I've had 2 batches in bottles at the same time. Helps with the patience.