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shibbypwn

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Last night was a disaster. I feel like everything that could've went wrong, did.

Brewed a black IIPA- recipe is here: http://hopville.com/recipe/591764/imperial-ipa-recipes/yodas-darkside-ipa

For starters, I noticed what looked like little white chunkies in my wort- it looked like curdled milk. I'd never seen anything like it in my first two brews.

Then I forgot to add my irish moss and yeast nutrient, so I tossed those in for only about 5 minutes (my LHBS suggested 15 for each)

Next, it took me ages to chill the wort. This was my first full boil, and I didn't have a wort chiller. I used a bathtub full of ice, and when I realized how long it was going to take, I filled ziploc bags with salt and ice, sanitized them, and dunked them in the wort. Even then, it took probably about an hour to chill to pitching temp.

When I finally was able to funnel it into my carboy, I discovered that the entire bottom of the kettle was scorched pitch black. Stupid electric stovetop.

Also, it turned out an ugly brown, rather than black. I'm sure it will darken as it clears, but it's much lighter than my stout was post boil.

I'm convinced this batch is gonna turn out like crap. How much of this is beginners paranoia? Or does this really sound like the disaster I think it is.
 
Sounds a lot like beginners paranoia. I usually throw in irish moss at 10 minutes; never used yeast nutrient so I can't comment on that. I just started using a wort chiller; I never had any problems with chilling wort over a few hours. Just make sure everything is sanitary.
I don't know what these "white chunkies" are. Did you use dried malt extract?
 
If it was my beer, I'd worry about the scorched sugars at the bottom, but you could still end up with a very good beer. Wait til the beer is carbonated and in the bottle/keg before calling it a disaster.

I've let my wort chill several times for an entire 12 hours before pitching the yeast and had really great beers. I'm not sure what the white chunks are, but I wouldn't worry about them. It may be proteins/fats and they will probably drop out of suspension during fermentation.

I don't use moss or yeast nutrients and I still have great beers.

Did you measure the gravity?
 
Ya, 1.092. I heard you get DMS from slow wort chilling- you keep it uncovered while it cools?
 
Last night was a disaster. I feel like everything that could've went wrong, did.

Brewed a black IIPA- recipe is here: http://hopville.com/recipe/591764/imperial-ipa-recipes/yodas-darkside-ipa

For starters, I noticed what looked like little white chunkies in my wort- it looked like curdled milk. I'd never seen anything like it in my first two brews.

Then I forgot to add my irish moss and yeast nutrient, so I tossed those in for only about 5 minutes (my LHBS suggested 15 for each)

Next, it took me ages to chill the wort. This was my first full boil, and I didn't have a wort chiller. I used a bathtub full of ice, and when I realized how long it was going to take, I filled ziploc bags with salt and ice, sanitized them, and dunked them in the wort. Even then, it took probably about an hour to chill to pitching temp.

When I finally was able to funnel it into my carboy, I discovered that the entire bottom of the kettle was scorched pitch black. Stupid electric stovetop.

Also, it turned out an ugly brown, rather than black. I'm sure it will darken as it clears, but it's much lighter than my stout was post boil.

I'm convinced this batch is gonna turn out like crap. How much of this is beginners paranoia? Or does this really sound like the disaster I think it is.

Just like in food, scorching the bottom of the pan will impart some bitter burnt flavors. In a dark beer it probably wont be too out of character as long as it wasn't too bad. As far as when you added your IM and yeast nutrient, that wont be a problem at all. You don't need to add the salt to the icebags. They'll cool fine without the salt and that way if they leak you dont ruin your beer by making it way too salty. Did you taste the wort before pitching your yeast? That will give you an idea of how bad you burned it. It will probably turn out fine. I suggest you RDWHAHB.
 
the little white chunkies is called the hot break. just coagulated protiens, totally normal. safale us05 will be fine without yeast nutrient. you can cold crash after fermentation to clear your beer. you may have scorched your wort.but i don't think that will hurt too much. so all of your concerns are due to beginners paranoia. your beer should be fine.rdwhahb
 
I bet it turns out just fine, its actually pretty tough to ruin a beer (so long as you sanitized things, and even then its hit or miss :)). The white chunkies are just your hot break proteins that are coagulating as you heat them up. I always think of egg-drop soup when I see them, but curdled milk is about the same.

I'm sure you're already thinking about this, but for full boils a wort chiller will be a life-saver. You can make one yourself if you are reasonably handy, check out the DIY subforum.

As far as the scorching, how do you add your extract? It really helps to turn the heat off and slowly add the extract while you're stirring to get it all mixed in. Otherwise the extract just sinks to the bottom and can scorch a little bit. If it was a regular IIPA you might be able to tell, but I'd bet it will just blend into the black roastiness. (Although, props on getting a full boil on the electric stove-top!)

You're also right on about the beer clearing over time. Right now you've got all those curdled proteins and yeast floating around in the beer, and both of those are light colored. Give that bad boy 4 weeks to ferment and drop out, and I'll bet its nice and dark.
 
That's going to be a big beer.

I've kept the cover on it while chilling before and didn't have any problems, but I wouldn't boil the wort with the cover on.
 
I think a lot of it is beginners paranoia. I almost always forget to add the irish moss until the very end. If you are going to continue to use the bathtub you need to replace the water pretty frequently. As the water pulls heat off of the kettle it become ineffective. Drain thw water when it gets hot add cold water and ice. Keep doing that until the wort is chilled.

I would highly recommend building a wort chiller. They are simple to build and I can chill my beer from boiling to 68 degrees on 10 minutes or less. I hook my chiller up to the garden hose.

As far as color goes I wouldn;t worry a lot about color just now. If I remember right, by Black IIPA may have also started brown. Give a week or two take a sample for a hydro reading and taste it then. My guess is it will be pretty good.
 
Yeah, I wouldn't worry about DMS so long as you don't cover it during the boil. Most of that gets boiled off during the extract production phase, so extract brewers don't have to worry about it nearly as much. Although, leaving the lid off will help it to cool faster.
 
I tasted it- didn't taste scorched. I didn't scrape the bottom at all.

And I took it off the eye to add the lme.
I normally would lower to medium once I got a boil, but I had to keep it on high just to keep it boiling. Now my coil is halfway burned out :)
 
The ONLY thing that I think could affect the beer's outcome is the burnt stuff. The other stuff is very normal. And I don't think that a bit of scorched wort on a Black beer is going to be that bad if it's even noticeable.

From here out, just make sure to ferment at a good low temperature for that yeast (62-ish) and let it ride.

I often forget to add irish moss and I have never used yeast nutrient up until I brewed my first Lager. RDWHAHB!! :mug:
 
It's a Black beer...Irish moss isn't going to make it clear anyway. I stopped using all clarifiers and my beers turn out crystal clear with enough cold conditioning.
 
Did my first boil last night and was worried about cooling down as I don't have an immersion chilled. Ice bath in a tub worked so well I'm wondering if I want to get a chiller.

From boil it took about 18 min to get to 78.

I was stirring and used water and 32lbs of ice.
It worked for me
 
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