Be forewarned: This is long. (the jokes write themselves boys)
OK, so I have been here for a couple weeks now, and on r/homebrewing on reddit, I have read most of Palmer's 1st edition online, and now have the recent version hardcopy as a reference. I received a really nice kit from morebeer for Christmas (nicer than I would have bought for myself), including a Heavy Duty SS 8 gallon kettle with ball valve, and a wort chiller.
I'm doing their Irish Red Ale kit as a first try, since it is a beer style I am fairly familiar with.
My favorite beers are Belgian Dubbels/Strong Dark ales/Quads (Chimay Blue, Ommegang Abbey Ale and 3 Philosophers). I also like most amber/red/brown ales: Boont amber, 20" Brown, Smithwicks I like. Mission St. Brown and Newcastle are sort of my bud-light beers, very drinkable, but not a ton of flavor. I like Guinness both nitro and Extra Stout bottles. Firestone Double-Barrel Ale is about as much flower-ey/perfumey hops taste I can tolerate. SNPAa is a beer I will drink if given, but has too strong a hops character for me to buy on my own. This is by no means exhaustive, but hopefully gives an impression of my palette for discussion of my questions below.
My Primary fermenter is a 6-gallon Plastic Carboy.
Now for the questions:
Boiling:
I test-boiled 7+ gallons in my kettle last night, from 60 Degree tap water. It took just under 2 hours to reach a full rolling boil right now, while covered. It was able to keep a decently turbulent boil when uncovered afterwards. I assume it is OK to leave the lid on during steeping and coming up to a boil, as long as I do my actual boil with it off? It should do a bit better with the 6 gallons or so I will boil for an Extract batch. My Stove's "Large" burner is a 15,000 BTU Natural Gas burner.
I am thinking of ideas to get it to boil faster, and one thing I was thinking is that I could get a piece of 1/4" Aluminum plate stock that would span the burner beside the one I am using and allow me to use the heat from 2 burners instead of 1. Has anyone tried something similar?
Alternatively, is there any CHEAP version of the Crap-cookers/Turkey Fryers that are made for natural gas? They all seem to be propane. I have natural gas hookup outside for my grill, and an extra hose with quick-disconnect, but all the ones I have found are LPG only.
Measuring Volume: I have a stainless spoon, should I just Grind lines or notches into it as 1/2 gallon increments or something?
Extract Addition: Beginning or end of boil? I have LME. Instructions call for boiling the extract for 60 minutes whilst doing hop additions. Other brewers online I have seen recommend steeping and hops only, then add the LME at the end of the boil.
Fermentation:
I have White Labs Yeast. guy at morebeer said don't worry about a starter, so I think I will just warm them up and pitch? Bad idea? OK for a low gravity brew?
Temps inside my house are 66-68 right now. probably a little warmer than ideal so I will try and find the coolest places? garage is a bit cold at 50ish in the mornings.
Blowoff tube vs airlock? Do I just use the carboy hood and attach the blowoff tube to that and then into a jar of vodka? Add a sanitized bung/airlock once the krausen dies down?
Hops:
I am not a hop head, really prefer malty beer, haven't yet found an IPA I can enjoy. I am trying to understand how the different hop additions change the beer. I really don't like the flowery/potpourri/perfume taste of a lot of beers that put the hop flavor up front. I am nervous that at 40-45 IBUs that the Irish Red from Morebeer will be quite a lot hoppier than I enjoy, especially if I am doing a full boil. Should I be dialing back the amount on that a bit to suit my tastes? any recommendations?
Looking Forward:
I have an STC-1000 on order, so I will be making a fermentation chamber of some kind when it come in, and I find an appropriate fridge/freezer. Temperature probe on the fermenter? In a temperature well? just in the air? benefits of using a chest freezer vs a regular kitchen-style fridge?
Moving to all-grain: I have a cooler and have removed the vinyl core from a 48" SS Braided hose, working on making a mash tun. Given my above issues with stove power, is it reasonable to think I can make it work with the 8-gal kettle, plus a little help from an 8 QT stockpot and an electric water kettle? Should I walk before I run here and work on the temp controls before making the all grain jump?
Bottling: I have amassed a pretty good collection of 12s, 22s, and a dozen or more Chimay/Ommegang 750ml bottles. The corker from morebeer is $125, way more than I am willing to spend to salvage these bottles, but is there some other method for doing belgian-style corks on the cheap? First batch will be done with the regular 12s and 22s. I will maybe some day do some kegging, but since I do so much of my beer drinking at my parents, my wife's parents, my brother in law, etc... I know bottling will always be a major part of my beering.
Next brews: I am thinking I'll do another extract brew or two, but maybe a Belgian Dubbel? The morebeer kit is only 5.9%, which to me seems fairly low for a dubbel, can I adjust that by adding more LME/DME and/or Candi syrup to get something closer to say 7-8%? or am I better off just finding an extract recipe that is closer to what I want to begin with? I am also concerned that maybe I shouldn't try belgians until I have fermentation temp controls running due to the yeast being such a major part of the character? I also like the sounds of the Scotch ale (very malty, higher-gravity 8%abv, low IBUs), but I have read that "bigger" beers take more time to get good. is an 8% scotch ale considered 'big" and require more than 3 weeks primary +3 weeks bottle?
Where does a beer get big enough to need a secondary?
I am planning on buying another 6 gallon plastic carboy - do I need to get a 5 gallon carboy for a secondary on some of the belgians I would like to brew? I assume 6 gallon is too much headspace. What about the idea in the pro/con sticky about using like a gallon worth of sanitized marbles or something to take up the additional headspace? Is that purely tongue in cheek or is taking some space with sanitized mass actually a good idea?
OK. Yes I know I am over thinking all this. Yes I will RDWHAHB... or more likely, RDWHA-STORE-BOUGHT-BEER. But research? Analyzing? Yeah, that's what i do with hobbies.
OK, so I have been here for a couple weeks now, and on r/homebrewing on reddit, I have read most of Palmer's 1st edition online, and now have the recent version hardcopy as a reference. I received a really nice kit from morebeer for Christmas (nicer than I would have bought for myself), including a Heavy Duty SS 8 gallon kettle with ball valve, and a wort chiller.
I'm doing their Irish Red Ale kit as a first try, since it is a beer style I am fairly familiar with.
My favorite beers are Belgian Dubbels/Strong Dark ales/Quads (Chimay Blue, Ommegang Abbey Ale and 3 Philosophers). I also like most amber/red/brown ales: Boont amber, 20" Brown, Smithwicks I like. Mission St. Brown and Newcastle are sort of my bud-light beers, very drinkable, but not a ton of flavor. I like Guinness both nitro and Extra Stout bottles. Firestone Double-Barrel Ale is about as much flower-ey/perfumey hops taste I can tolerate. SNPAa is a beer I will drink if given, but has too strong a hops character for me to buy on my own. This is by no means exhaustive, but hopefully gives an impression of my palette for discussion of my questions below.
My Primary fermenter is a 6-gallon Plastic Carboy.
Now for the questions:
Boiling:
I test-boiled 7+ gallons in my kettle last night, from 60 Degree tap water. It took just under 2 hours to reach a full rolling boil right now, while covered. It was able to keep a decently turbulent boil when uncovered afterwards. I assume it is OK to leave the lid on during steeping and coming up to a boil, as long as I do my actual boil with it off? It should do a bit better with the 6 gallons or so I will boil for an Extract batch. My Stove's "Large" burner is a 15,000 BTU Natural Gas burner.
I am thinking of ideas to get it to boil faster, and one thing I was thinking is that I could get a piece of 1/4" Aluminum plate stock that would span the burner beside the one I am using and allow me to use the heat from 2 burners instead of 1. Has anyone tried something similar?
Alternatively, is there any CHEAP version of the Crap-cookers/Turkey Fryers that are made for natural gas? They all seem to be propane. I have natural gas hookup outside for my grill, and an extra hose with quick-disconnect, but all the ones I have found are LPG only.
Measuring Volume: I have a stainless spoon, should I just Grind lines or notches into it as 1/2 gallon increments or something?
Extract Addition: Beginning or end of boil? I have LME. Instructions call for boiling the extract for 60 minutes whilst doing hop additions. Other brewers online I have seen recommend steeping and hops only, then add the LME at the end of the boil.
Fermentation:
I have White Labs Yeast. guy at morebeer said don't worry about a starter, so I think I will just warm them up and pitch? Bad idea? OK for a low gravity brew?
Temps inside my house are 66-68 right now. probably a little warmer than ideal so I will try and find the coolest places? garage is a bit cold at 50ish in the mornings.
Blowoff tube vs airlock? Do I just use the carboy hood and attach the blowoff tube to that and then into a jar of vodka? Add a sanitized bung/airlock once the krausen dies down?
Hops:
I am not a hop head, really prefer malty beer, haven't yet found an IPA I can enjoy. I am trying to understand how the different hop additions change the beer. I really don't like the flowery/potpourri/perfume taste of a lot of beers that put the hop flavor up front. I am nervous that at 40-45 IBUs that the Irish Red from Morebeer will be quite a lot hoppier than I enjoy, especially if I am doing a full boil. Should I be dialing back the amount on that a bit to suit my tastes? any recommendations?
Looking Forward:
I have an STC-1000 on order, so I will be making a fermentation chamber of some kind when it come in, and I find an appropriate fridge/freezer. Temperature probe on the fermenter? In a temperature well? just in the air? benefits of using a chest freezer vs a regular kitchen-style fridge?
Moving to all-grain: I have a cooler and have removed the vinyl core from a 48" SS Braided hose, working on making a mash tun. Given my above issues with stove power, is it reasonable to think I can make it work with the 8-gal kettle, plus a little help from an 8 QT stockpot and an electric water kettle? Should I walk before I run here and work on the temp controls before making the all grain jump?
Bottling: I have amassed a pretty good collection of 12s, 22s, and a dozen or more Chimay/Ommegang 750ml bottles. The corker from morebeer is $125, way more than I am willing to spend to salvage these bottles, but is there some other method for doing belgian-style corks on the cheap? First batch will be done with the regular 12s and 22s. I will maybe some day do some kegging, but since I do so much of my beer drinking at my parents, my wife's parents, my brother in law, etc... I know bottling will always be a major part of my beering.
Next brews: I am thinking I'll do another extract brew or two, but maybe a Belgian Dubbel? The morebeer kit is only 5.9%, which to me seems fairly low for a dubbel, can I adjust that by adding more LME/DME and/or Candi syrup to get something closer to say 7-8%? or am I better off just finding an extract recipe that is closer to what I want to begin with? I am also concerned that maybe I shouldn't try belgians until I have fermentation temp controls running due to the yeast being such a major part of the character? I also like the sounds of the Scotch ale (very malty, higher-gravity 8%abv, low IBUs), but I have read that "bigger" beers take more time to get good. is an 8% scotch ale considered 'big" and require more than 3 weeks primary +3 weeks bottle?
Where does a beer get big enough to need a secondary?
I am planning on buying another 6 gallon plastic carboy - do I need to get a 5 gallon carboy for a secondary on some of the belgians I would like to brew? I assume 6 gallon is too much headspace. What about the idea in the pro/con sticky about using like a gallon worth of sanitized marbles or something to take up the additional headspace? Is that purely tongue in cheek or is taking some space with sanitized mass actually a good idea?
OK. Yes I know I am over thinking all this. Yes I will RDWHAHB... or more likely, RDWHA-STORE-BOUGHT-BEER. But research? Analyzing? Yeah, that's what i do with hobbies.
