What the hell did I do?

I brewed 10 gallons yesterday. It was going to be two dogfish head IPA's, one with Wyeast American Ale and one with Wyeast American II.

Well.. I was also teaching some friends how to brew, so I made a few changes. On the first batch I decided not to bother continuously hopping.. I wanted to keep things simple for them and also didn't want to bother with hop sludge. This obviously completely changes the recipe so I figured I was just making a house IPA at this point and said f@ck it. This is what I ended up doing for the first batch:

8lbs DME
1lb Crystal 40
.5oz Warrior (60 min)
.5oz Warrior (35 min)
.5oz Amarillo (35 min)
.5oz Simcoe (30 min)
.5oz Simcoe (20 min)
[dry hopping to come]--suggestions?
Wyeast American II

Original Gravity: 1.074

Now here's where it got interesting. I let the other guys choose the hop schedule on the second batch. They got excited about the prospect of a double IPA... and I let them do what they want. Except I didn't change the malt quantity, so there's not going to be any more fermentables in this hoppier version than in the first one. Here's what they ended up choosing:

8lbs DME
1LB Crystal 40
2oz Simcoe (60 min)
2oz Warrior (20 min)
2.5oz Amarillo (7.5 min)
Wyeast American Ale
[Dry hop?.. I'm assuming when you don't have a late addition hop in an IPA, dry hopping is pretty much essential?]

So I think what I ended up with was two very different house IPA's. I haven't been brewing long enough to look at a recipe and tell if it's completely unbalanced.

*Aeration and 1L starters were used. Both primaries are fermenting VERY well ~ 72 deg.

So what do you guys think? Dry hopping suggestions? What about adding additional fermentables to the secondary in the hoppier batch to balance the bitterness? With the high OG.. maybe it will be balanced?

Thanks!

Where's any late additions? Yeah you'll definitely need to dry hop these two a ton. The point of an IPA and iipa isn't necessarily to have malt and hops balanced. So I wouldn't add any more fermentables. Just dry hop the hell out of both of them because you do want a good balance between hop bitterness and flavor/aroma in these styles.

On the first one for next time:
Move the warrior at 35 to the 60. Move the Amarillo at 35 to 5 or 0. Move all of the simcoe to either 5 or 0 or both.

On the second one:
Move the warrior to 60, if you need more ibus add more warrior at 60. Move the simcoe to either 5 or 0. Move the Amarillo to either 5 or 0.

Then for both look up what a hopstand is and employ that next time to get lots of aroma.

Thanks for the reply! I'm definately going to experiement with hopstands on my next batches.

The reason there's no late addition hops is because I was working off the popular dogfish head recipe. The schedule for that one is:

1.25 oz Warrior [15.00 %] (60 min) Hops 26.7 IBU
(Read notes!)

1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (35 min) Hops 10.0 IBU
1.00 oz Simcoe [12.00 %] (30 min) Hops 13.1 IBU
(Read notes!

1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops
0.50 oz Simcoe [12.00 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops

These are continuously added, although I thought my process would be okay, just "different".

Anyway.. I'll dry hop these. 3 oz in each? Hop recommendation?

Yeah your process is definitely different! Haha no it's just that you really need some big late additions to get some good flavor/aroma.

Yeah I would go with prolly 2-3 ounces in the first one and then 3-4 ounces in the second one. Maybe equal parts of Amarillo and simcoe.

Thanks! I'm excited for this one.. especially with the high OG. If it finishes properly it's going to be my biggest beer yet

You're right up at teh tippy top of the temp range there. Have you had good success fermenting that hot?

Yeah I stopped reading before the mention of the ferment temp. Is this fermenter temp or room temp? If it's room temp you're likely in for a slew of off-flavors.

So I'll add, next time for both ferment at a fermenter temp of 68.

Room temp is about 72. The fermenter is probably closer to 70. It's sitting in my basement on concrete, which is the best I can do in my old house when it's 95 outside. I went back and reread the DFH recipe. I feel like an idiot. Continuous hopping all the way to flameout.. not 60-35 like I thought. Oh well! It seems like most of the time the answer is "it'll be fine."

Now to decide how I want to dry hop Reading up on primary vs secondary dry hopping/throwing in pellets vs bags etc

Also.. Wyeast lists both those yeasts to have a temp range of 60-72. If my fermenter was at 72, why would I be getting off flavors? Wouldn't they be likely to occur above 72? Thanks!

well if the temp strip on the side of your bucket is 72, the temp of the yeast in the middle of that 5gallons of wort is probably 75 or higher

Yeast are exothermic, they create heat as they munch those sugars and create alcohol. If your room temp is 72F the wort can be up to 8F warmer than that. You need to measure the temperature of your fermentor not the ambient air.

I'd skip both the secondary fermentor and the hop bag for the dry hop (unless you've got a bucket). Those hops swell up a lot during the dry hop, trying to get 3oz of hops stuck in a bag through the opening of the carboy is an exercise in frustration. Secondary isn't required for a dry hop, just extra work with extra risks for no added benefit.

Thanks for the info! I didn't know there was a large difference between outside and inside carboy temps.

I did some research though and multiple experiments have showed a negligible difference here.. 1 degree or less.

Ambient temp however can be 8 or 10 degrees off.

I might employ the water bath/wet tshirt method, just to be on the safe side. It's been fermenting for less than 24 hours- albeit violently. Is it worth cooling it now, or would any off flavors already have formed?

I've heard the first 48-ish hours are the most important for ester formation, I'd try cooling it down now if you can but the damage may already be done. Just keep it in mind for the next batch.

Wet towels are on. Water bath is out of the option as I don't have a container/space for it. I'm thinking it's ok. 19 hours at 72-73.. probably 70-71 with the towels. I also don't know how accurate the sticker I have on is. Either way, I'm feeling optimistic! Only time will tell. I'll take a sample when I dry hop. Thanks for the replies.

Those two yeasts have an upper threshold of 72f and a lower of 60f. Why don't you ferment down apx 66 so you have the ability to take swings in temps without risking off flavors and yeast esters overload??

at this point, if you're going to try to cool it, don't go about doing that quickly. you'll shock the yeast, and they'll quit. if these have big enough hop aroma/flavor from a big dry hop, you could potentially mask the flavors from the esters. just stick with your towels for this batch, next batch figure out some way to get that sticker temp into the 65-68 range for the first 5-7 days of fermentation. then you can let it free rise up to the 72 ambient temps after that.

for dry hopping:
primary, pellets, no-bag (unless you're going to try to keep the yeast), and don't just throw them in. gently pour them in making sure to spread them out evenly over the top. sanitize anything that might come in contact with the inside of the bucket except for the hops. sanitize even the package the hops are in and the scissors used to cut it open. just to be safe.

Way too hot.

cannman said:

Those two yeasts have an upper threshold of 72f and a lower of 60f. Why don't you ferment down apx 66 so you have the ability to take swings in temps without risking off flavors and yeast esters overload??

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f**k it- I'm just going to turn my a/c down for the next 3 or 4 days!

joshesmusica said:

at this point, if you're going to try to cool it, don't go about doing that quickly. you'll shock the yeast, and they'll quit. if these have big enough hop aroma/flavor from a big dry hop, you could potentially mask the flavors from the esters. just stick with your towels for this batch, next batch figure out some way to get that sticker temp into the 65-68 range for the first 5-7 days of fermentation. then you can let it free rise up to the 72 ambient temps after that.

for dry hopping:
primary, pellets, no-bag (unless you're going to try to keep the yeast), and don't just throw them in. gently pour them in making sure to spread them out evenly over the top. sanitize anything that might come in contact with the inside of the bucket except for the hops. sanitize even the package the hops are in and the scissors used to cut it open. just to be safe.

Click to expand...

I put towels on. No fan, no water bath. I then turned my a/c down to 70, which will mean about 62 ambient in the basement. This is probably the best compromise between shocking the yeast and reducing the temp.

I think this is the first batch I've done in the summer.. new lessons to be learned!

I'm also going to look into building a controllable chamber on the cheap! Thanks everyone.

That is a lot of Crystal malt for an IPA in my opinion.

brewpug said:

I put towels on. No fan, no water bath. I then turned my a/c down to 70, which will mean about 62 ambient in the basement. This is probably the best compromise between shocking the yeast and reducing the temp.



I think this is the first batch I've done in the summer.. new lessons to be learned!



I'm also going to look into building a controllable chamber on the cheap! Thanks everyone.

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If you have Craig's list in your area, search for chest freezers, fight to find one under $100, then build an stc1000. I have two outside in the shed, it's 106f outside, I have one lagering and serving at 1.5c, and another lager ferm chamber at 12c

Best deal ever

cannman said:

If you have Craig's list in your area, search for chest freezers, fight to find one under $100, then build an stc1000. I have two outside in the shed, it's 106f outside, I have one lagering and serving at 1.5c, and another lager ferm chamber at 12c

Best deal ever

Click to expand...

I'm definitely going to have to invest in something like this. Winter is just around the corner.. it turns fast here in salt lake city. I think over the winter I'll be ok. All of my previous (winter) batches have managed to stay at a nice 68 - which is where the current batch is now, by the way.

I'm taking the plunge into all grain with my next batch. Around spring time I'll definitely build a ferm chamber.

douglasbarbin said:

That is a lot of Crystal malt for an IPA in my opinion.

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If you head over to the recipe section and look at the dogfish head IPA thread near the top, I'm sure this has been brought up. I think there's about 100 pages