My second batch, everything went smooth!

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avillax

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Hello guys, so this time I sanitized everything perfectly and waited 3 hours for the wort to cool down then pitched the yeast at 72f. I'm also combining cascade and citra hops, increased the amount a bit, and will dry hop with 1 ounce of citra and 1 ounce of cascade.

Here's some data:

IPA
Light Malt Liquid Extract
5 gallon
6 grams of cascade + 4 grams citra at beginning
10 grams of cascade + 5 grams citra after 45 minutes
20 grams of cascade + 25 grams citra after 15 minutes
flame off
cool down 3 hours
pitched yeast at 72 f.

OG: 1.50

cheers!
 
Last edited:
Sounds tasty..congrats on a successful brew! :mug:

For what it's worth, IMO, you should increase the dry hop amounts to 1.5oz of each. I've found 3 oz is a good amount for dry hopping. I did 4oz in my latest IPA (Galaxy/Citra/Columbus)

Also IMO, you should try to add some steeping grains to your next brew. A 1/4 - 1/2 lb of a Crystal 40 (or maybe 20) would help add a little malt sweetness for a nice balance of bitter/sweet in an IPA.
 
1/5 oz of Cascade and 1/7 oz of Citra for bittering in a 5 gallon batch of IPA??? Where does that put you for IBUs? That's only 2.5 oz of hops in the entire batch. And only 2 more oz for dry hopping? Mrgrimm is right, you should up that considerably. I think you might find the hoppiness and bitterness of this batch a little underwhelming for an "IPA." But at least you'll know for next time, and that's part of the fun of this hobby: learning and finding out how manipulating the various "levers" affects the end product. Keep those fermentation temperatures under control and let those yeasties do their job. Come back and update the thread to let us know how it turns out!
 
Yeah, actually I was just following the recipe they gave me last time and I simply placed citra into the mix this time and added 10% more hops overall and thought I was making a big difference. Last batch had OK bitterness but very little hop flavor and I was told to simply use dry hoping to fix this, I had no idea I should have added more during wort cooking.

I didn't really make any IBU calculations, any online IBU calculator link?

So the stuff is fermenting already, can I fix this during dry hoping? I have 1.19 ounces of cascade left and 2.32 ounces of citra left. Is this good enough? should I buy more hops? which ones? What dry hoping amounts?

Thanks.

1/5 oz of Cascade and 1/7 oz of Citra for bittering in a 5 gallon batch of IPA??? Where does that put you for IBUs? That's only 2.5 oz of hops in the entire batch. And only 2 more oz for dry hopping? Mrgrimm is right, you should up that considerably. I think you might find the hoppiness and bitterness of this batch a little underwhelming for an "IPA." But at least you'll know for next time, and that's part of the fun of this hobby: learning and finding out how manipulating the various "levers" affects the end product. Keep those fermentation temperatures under control and let those yeasties do their job. Come back and update the thread to let us know how it turns out!
 
1/5 oz of Cascade and 1/7 oz of Citra for bittering in a 5 gallon batch of IPA??? Where does that put you for IBUs? That's only 2.5 oz of hops in the entire batch. And only 2 more oz for dry hopping? Mrgrimm is right, you should up that considerably. I think you might find the hoppiness and bitterness of this batch a little underwhelming for an "IPA." But at least you'll know for next time, and that's part of the fun of this hobby: learning and finding out how manipulating the various "levers" affects the end product. Keep those fermentation temperatures under control and let those yeasties do their job. Come back and update the thread to let us know how it turns out!

Good points, I totally overlooked the amounts of hops. With 10 grams (0.35oz) of 60 minute bittering hops, I can't imagine this will be very bitter at all.. The 15 grams (0.52oz) at 45min will help increase the bitterness, but I still don't think it will be enough. Even the flavor additions will probably be quite underwhelming..45 gram (1.58oz) at 15 minutes sound like it will have a fairly mild hop flavor.

Some things to consider for your next IPA are to increase the 60 minute addition. I try to use an ounce of only 1 strain that gives a nice bitterness. I like Warrior, Magnum, Columbus, or Chinook..it depends if I want it to be clean or have a bite.

Also consider increasing the amounts of hops that go in between 10 minutes and flameout. Maybe 1/2 oz of each kind at 10 minutes and 1/2 oz of each kind at 0 min..even some at 5.. This will give a good amount of hop flavor and aroma
 
Yeah, actually I was just following the recipe they gave me last time and I simply placed citra into the mix this time and added 10% more hops overall and thought I was making a big difference. Last batch had OK bitterness but very little hop flavor and I was told to simply use dry hoping to fix this, I had no idea I should have added more during wort cooking.

I didn't really make any IBU calculations, any online IBU calculator link?

So the stuff is fermenting already, can I fix this during dry hoping? I have 1.19 ounces of cascade left and 2.32 ounces of citra left. Is this good enough? should I buy more hops? which ones? What dry hoping amounts?

Thanks.

That sounds like a good amount of dry hops.. You can always get more. I like to dry hop with the same strains I use in the boil. Dry hopping will give good aroma and some flavor.
 
I didn't really make any IBU calculations, any online IBU calculator link?

I don't know of any offhand, maybe someone else has a link they can post. I just rely on my brewing software (BeerSmith). Figuring a beer's theoretical IBU value is a somewhat complex calculation involving the age of the hops, their alpha acid content, the length of time they're in the boil, the hop utilization capacity of the wort and your equipment, and (probably) more I'm forgetting about. "Designing Great Beers" by Ray Daniels has a fantastic and thorough explanation of precisely how to calculate your beer's IBU value.

So the stuff is fermenting already, can I fix this during dry hoping? I have 1.19 ounces of cascade left and 2.32 ounces of citra left. Is this good enough? should I buy more hops? which ones? What dry hoping amounts?

Dry hopping won't affect the beer's bitterness. Bitterness comes from boiling hops for an extended time. The longer you boil them (up to a limit of 60 minutes), the more bitterness you get from the hops, at the expense of flavour and aroma. Hops you add at the beginning of the boil and boil for the entire 60 minutes contribute bitterness, but no flavour or aroma. Hops you add toward the end of the boil have less time to "convert" to bitterness, and thus contribute less bitterness, but more flavour. Hops you add after the wort has been cooled and fermented (i.e., dry hops) don't add much bitterness or flavour at all, and contribute almost entirely aroma.

All that to say, your dry hopping will add aroma, but will not affect the bitterness of the beer. If you were really worried about it, you could boil the hops in a small amount of water with a little DME and make a "hop tea" that could add more bitterness, but honestly I wouldn't bother. It's only your second batch, you've many more great beers to be made in your future, just ride this one out and see what you think. You might prefer it this way!

Since you have fractional amounts of the hops left, I'd add all of them to the dry hop (1.19 ounces of Cascade left and 2.32 ounces of Citra). Wait until fermentation has finished (about 2 weeks) before adding the dry hops. Otherwise, the CO2 offgassing from fermentation will carry away a lot of those volatile hop aromas that dry hopping contributes.
 
BTW I don't know if I'm reading this right, but I'm checking on this online IBU calculator and it says that my total IBU considering the boiling times I mentioned is around 17 IBU? While an IPA should have at least 70? This seems way too low, am I really reading the calculations right?

Anyways, can I still fix this with dry hopping? Like I mentioned I have I have 1.19 ounces of cascade left and 2.32 ounces of citra left. That's 3.51 ounces, is this good enough or should I buy more hops for dry hopping, which variety to go with these two?
 
BTW I don't know if I'm reading this right, but I'm checking on this online IBU calculator and it says that my total IBU considering the boiling times I mentioned is around 17 IBU? While an IPA should have at least 70? This seems way too low, am I really reading the calculations right?

Anyways, can I still fix this with dry hopping? Like I mentioned I have I have 1.19 ounces of cascade left and 2.32 ounces of citra left. That's 3.51 ounces, is this good enough or should I buy more hops for dry hopping, which variety to go with these two?

No, you cannot add bitterness with dry hopping. As mentioned by @kombat, you can only get bitterness from boiling hops for a long period of time..most often from the 60 minute additions. 45 minute additions will add some to the bitterness, but typically the 60 minute addition is the bittering addition. 20 minutes or less and you get flavor, and anything around 5-0 minutes is generally for flavor and aroma. Dry hopping is for aroma..which can play into flavor.

Do some research on those hops and if you really want to get different strains, find out which ones compliment the flavors of the Cascade or Citra. I think you will be fine dry hopping with just these 2 strains.
 
BTW I don't know if I'm reading this right, but I'm checking on this online IBU calculator and it says that my total IBU considering the boiling times I mentioned is around 17 IBU? While an IPA should have at least 70? This seems way too low, am I really reading the calculations right?

Anyways, can I still fix this with dry hopping? Like I mentioned I have I have 1.19 ounces of cascade left and 2.32 ounces of citra left. That's 3.51 ounces, is this good enough or should I buy more hops for dry hopping, which variety to go with these two?

With those hops, that is about right for IBUs.

Dry hopping will not help bitterness.

I'm not sure what you have made, it's not an IPA, or even a PA. Maybe a cream ale. Whatever it is, it is beer,
 
Update on this, I'm going to upload a pic soon but the beer went really good, I'm so proud.

This time, I've tried it after bottling it 4 days ago and it already has signs of being really good:

It was cooled down fast after brewing it, I kept it on the bathtub with cold water even adding ice often, keeping it exactly at 20c, after fermentation I dry hopped for 5 days with 1 oz citra + 1 oz cascade.

So it has no signs of high temp, also the malt was really fresh from here Czech Republic. It has herbal and mango fruity taste/smell, I call it fool's IPA because it only has about 20 IBU because I didn't use strong/right amount of first addition hops but it taste exactly like an IPA, it even fools you into thinking it is bitter because the hop taste is strong enough.

Compared to my first beer, the first beer was so irregular: each bottle was so different, some of them were OK, some others weren't. My first beer had off flavors such as soapy and also metallic, the malt was a bit oxidized not so fresh and it even had an IBU of about 16, it was basically a cream ale and I guess the soapy flavor was because I pitched the yeast at around 30c and remained hot for at least 2 days. My friends liked a few bottles that came out OK and were quite sweet since they like sweet beer, maybe they wouldn't will not like this new one because they don't like bitter beer even though it only has around 20 IBU but tastes like an IPA, Fool's IPA!

It even taste similar to Matuskas, exactly what I was going for, and of course, I can improve it next time with an IBU of 50 and maybe make a light/dark malt combination to get a reddish ale.

I had two tale's expedition ale at lunch and I think my beer is better: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/two-tales-expedition-ale-17o/306935/
 

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