Anyone brewed Ferocious?

Has anyone brewed Ferocious from Midwest Supplies? I just ordered it. This will be my second brew ever. My first brew is still in the primary. Its been there for a week and has one more to go.

If anyone has brewed Ferocious do you have any recommendations or tips to ensure success?

It's a clone of Surly Furious...The greatest IPA ever made!

I'm sure it's a great kit

This is on my list. I got my beginners kit from Midwest, but I got their HopHead extract kit for my first batch...

Northern brewer actually has a surly furious kit, not a clone...a collaboration with surly's masterbrewer. If done right, it's AMAZING!

It does say on Midwest's description of Ferocious that it was, "Created with the brewers of Surly Brewing in Minnesota..." fwiw. Midwest's kit is also slightly cheaper than NB's btw.

MMJfan said:

It does say on Midwest's description of Ferocious that it was, "Created with the brewers of Surly Brewing in Minnesota..." fwiw. Midwest's kit is also slightly cheaper than NB's btw.

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Yeah, I actually read that yesterday while on midwest's website. Midwest's recipe is different though. The nb kit is perfect...a buddy of mine has brewed it several times, and it's amazing

I'm sure NB's kit is great, but MW's has a ton of 5* reviews of it's own and I'm sure there isn't that much of a deviation...

I brewed this 2 years ago and it was amazing fresh. I would like to try it again now that i keg instead of bottle.

MMJfan said:

I'm sure NB's kit is great, but MW's has a ton of 5* reviews of it's own and I'm sure there isn't that much of a deviation...

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I'm sure the Midwest version is good, and all this talk has made me wanna buy their version...that's why I was on the site the other day.

I will say, there is actually a very big difference in the recipe from one to the other. Check it out.

Brewed MW's version of this clone over the weekend and it smells great in the fermenter! Have one ounce of each of Ahtanum, Amarillo and Simcoe for the dry hop which I'm planning to add in 2 weeks...

I've brewed this a few times and it is delicious. Ferment on the cool side of your yeast profile if your able and be ready for lots of trub if you let the hop debris into the fermenter.

ThreeSheetsBrewing said:

I've brewed this a few times and it is delicious. Ferment on the cool side of your yeast profile if your able and be ready for lots of trub if you let the hop debris into the fermenter.

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My brew pot has a mesh filter on the other side of the ball valve spigot so much of the trub remained behind. I know there will still be some that transferred though. I was able to get the wort down to 74 before I pitched the yeast. I was very happy with that temp since my previous brew I could only get it down to 79. I brewed yesterday and it is happily bubbling away in the primary.

When should I transfer to the secondary carboy?

Usually 2-3 weeks after fermentation has started. I'd wait the 3 and check the gravity.

I'm not transferring mine. I'm leaving mine go in primary and plan on dry hopping the third week...

Do I need to transfer to a secondary to dry hop? If I do I was thinking of putting the 3 ounces of hops into a mesh bag with some glass marbles as weight and then racking the beer on top of it.

Any thoughts on this method? Should I even do this or should I just throw the hops in the primary?

Secondary is a matter of preferece. You will get varying opinions here, but the predominant one would be to skip the secondary. I would agree with the previous poster and leave it in primary and dry hop there. If you do a search on the board you should find numerous threads on the thinking of secondaries and you can formulate what works best for you.

On to the dry hopping. Again you'll find numerous processes on how to do it. I like to just toss them in and let them float around in order to keep things simple. After a few days I may swirl to make sure they all get contact with the beer. That being said I've read multiple accounts of people dry hopping just as you described and again you'll need to develop a process that works best for you.

ThreeSheets pretty much covered it. I've found that there really is no right or wrong answer when it comes to transferring to secondary or letting it ride in primary. More a matter of preference.

My preference is to let it ride due to the fact that my first homebrew was an IPA and I had to dry hop. The directions in the kit said to transfer it to the carboy after one week and then dry hop after 2 weeks with whole leaf hops. Well, I made a HUGE mess trying to get the whole leaf hops into the carboy and then when I was racking to my bottling bucket, my auto-siphon was getting clogged like crazy and I probably lost about a gallon of beer because of the hops in the carboy.

Ever since then, I've just let it ride in the fermenting bucket and added the hops. I too use a mesh hop sack weighted with sanitized marbles and tied to my handle with fishing line. Much easier and cleaner...

I always rack off to a secondary for a few reasons. I only have one 6 gal bucket/primary, so i like to move the beer out of the way so I can use the 6er, also to recycle the yeast cake. More money spent on beer less money spent on fishing tackle. Also you tend to get a clearererer beer, cloudy beer dosnt bother me, but you can ditch alota solids with a racking. I usualy rack when I know all the Hardcore fermentng is done. It'l foam up all the way to the top, then settle back down, thats about the time I rack to 2ndary, but its all preference. I've been lazy and just let stuff ferment all the way out in the primary, but then your only getting 5 gal every 3weeks as opposed to every week

Skrufbrewer said:

I always rack off to a secondary for a few reasons. I only have one 6 gal bucket/primary, so i like to move the beer out of the way so I can use the 6er, also to recycle the yeast cake. More money spent on beer less money spent on fishing tackle. Also you tend to get a clearererer beer, cloudy beer dosnt bother me, but you can ditch alota solids with a racking. I usualy rack when I know all the Hardcore fermentng is done. It'l foam up all the way to the top, then settle back down, thats about the time I rack to 2ndary, but its all preference. I've been lazy and just let stuff ferment all the way out in the primary, but then your only getting 5 gal every 3weeks as opposed to every week

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I'd suggest buying more buckets. I've got 3 fermenting buckets and a glass carboy and the only beers I rack to my carboy are the ones that don't involve dry hopping.

Sounds good fellas. I think I will leave it in the primary and buy another fermeting bucket. I do have a 6.5 gallon glass carboy that my neighbor gave me (He goes right to the keg now) but I think I will save that for a beer that may benefit from the secondary. I absolutely love this forum for all the advice I get on here. Hopefully one day I will have enough knowledge to give some advice of my own.

Cheers gentlemen!

Surly Furious is one of my top 3 IPA's and its local for me. Any updates on how the Midwest clone kit turned out? I don't normally buy kits, but with the MW or NB Surly clones, you don't save anything by buying ala cart with the massive hop additions.

Some differences I noted between the two. Malt: Midwest uses all Golden Promise for base malt plus a lb of Munich. Less crystal. NB uses 2row for half of the base malt, adds more crystal (no munich) and a splash of roasted Barley. I would tend to give MW the advantage here with the all GP malt which shines through in the original.

Hops: MW adds some late Citra addtions that aren't present in NB's hop schedule. Dry hop is 3 oz total of Simcoe, Ahtanum, and Amarillo. NB uses 8.5 ounces in their dry hop alone!! Very heavy on simcoe, a little less of ahtanum, and a tad of warrior and amarillo.

Wondering if anyone has brewed both, or if anyone has a comparison of either to the original Surly? I am inclined to go with MW and add some extra dry hop. Although even at 4 or 5 ounces there will be some serious beer loss in hop absorption!

I brewed the extract version of the MW kit and I thought it turned out fantasic. I've never had the original, but I surely (sorry, couldn't resist) liked what I brewed. I like it so much I'm making it my house IPA. I've since switched to doing BIAB so the next time I brew I will be going with the AG recipe so I'm excited to see how much better it turns out doing AG!

I just brewed this and it is abosolutely awesome! It's funny because I'm in the exact position as you, this was my second batch. My first batch was the Autumn Amber Ale that came with my Groupon starter kit. I used the $25 gift code towards the Ferocious kit.

I followed the instructions to the T and it came out awesome! After bottling my first batch, I quickly realized that it is inevidiable that I'd be kegging at some point, so my ferocious just went into my new, pieced together keg setup.

I have never had Surly's Furious, but I love my hoppy IPA's. If I were to compare it to something, mine tastes kinda like an Oskar Blues Deviant Dale's.

Good luck man

One quick note. The instructions advise that you will "get more out of you hops" but not using the dry hop bag. I skipped the bag (my kit didn't come with one, it was supposed too though) and dryhopped in my glass carboy secondary, it really makes a mess of the beer. If you want nice clear beer, I'd use the hop bag, I know I will next time.

I also "cold crashed" before kegging. I just learned of it and is amazingly effective at clearing the beer.

The super fine mesh hop bags are so worth the investment. I dry hopped 2 or 3 times without and now always use one. I like to dry hop in the keg after the beer is cold, that way no aroma fade as you work your way through it.