I just chilled and served my second batch to myself and my beautiful wife. Here are the results! I have a burning question that I certainly don't know the answer to: Why is my beer flat? Here is the whole process. Like I said, this is my second batch, perhaps there is something I am missing. Here is my full write up so everyone will have all the details. I plan to drink what I have as is and do better next time.
Background- My beer started out as a Pinstripe Red Ale, extract clone scaled for 2.5 gallons, but I erred and created a 2 gallon batch.
For my specialty grains, I used 6.3 oz. Cara-pils/Dextrine, 4.2 oz. Caramel/Crystal malt 80L, 2.1 oz. White Wheat Malt, 1.1 oz. Caramel/Crystal Malt 120L. Steeped for 30m at 155.
Extract - Should have put in 3 lbs of extract for a 2.5 gallon finished product. Ended up with 3lbs for 2 gallons finished. OG 1.073
Hop schedule was 60m x 2 oz. Liberty and
.5oz. Tettnang at 2m. Was concerned that it would come out overly bitter.
Yeast - Put in 4/5 of a package of SafAle English Ale into my two one gallon fermentors. Shook the effing crap out of the two one gallon fermentors before adding the dry yeast (sprinkled) and then shook the crap out of it again.
Fermentation was very active starting at 12 hours and continued like a motha for 24 hours. I lost about 20 oz. in blow off. Switched to airlocks containing lemon vodka at 24 hours and active fermentation continued for several days. Let the brew hang out for another week or so to let the yeast "clean up". 2 weeks total in the primary.
Bottled in 16 oz. EZ cap bottles and put back into my cooler for another 2 weeks. FG was 1.012 at bottling. Added 4 pills of Brewers Best conditioning tablets per bottle.
While in my cooler during beer making, I use an ice pack like you would put in a lunch box to keep my brew cooler than my house's room temp 78 degrees. Many people in Phoenix keep their houses warmer than mine, some up to 88 degrees, if you would believe it! I also leave a thermometer in my cooler and check the temp when I change out the ice pack (about 2 times per day) and sometimes just for fun. I have never seen the temp higher than 70 degrees or lower than 58 degrees. I like to peek a lot, so these temps are at all of the different variations in my cooler. I would say that 90 percent of the time the cooler is between 60 and 64 degrees. 10 percent of the time the cooler is at the other temps. Temps were usually colder rather than warmer. I didn't change the temps after bottling.
Here is the result of my beer and the reason I am posting something other than, my beer is great!
The Good: Great flavor. Sweet grainy aroma as well as a mild honey scent that I suspect is a result of the Tettnang hops. My beer has a nice bitterness that balances well with the malt and body. The body has a fullness which is not over attenuated. No dicetyl that I can detect and has a nice clean finish. I was worried that it would be too bitter based on my 2.5 gallon vs. 2 gallon actual, but I think that some IBUs boiled off on the blow off. I tasted the blow off and man was it bitter. My beer is probably a 45 or 50 IBU. I love that this beer is strong yet drinkable!
The Bad: Bad I don't know, but this is my second batch and both have made the people who drank it really sleepy. Does homebrew make people sleepy, is this just my house special voodoo magic? My first batch was like 3.2 beer, this was more in the 8.2 ABV range, but both made everyone who drank it sleepy as heck. Also, the beer is a little cloudy. Clearly less cloudy than a Hefe, within the bounds of an IPA though towards the cloudy side of that.
The Ugly: Very poor carb. I can tell there is carbonation in my beer, but there is definitely no head no matter how fast I pour. So since I was worried about my beer being too bitter when I bottled, I put in 4 pills instead of 5. In my first batch I put 5 and the carb level was great, but this batch has very little fizz to it. Are my yeast lazy after doing such a good job on the ferment. This beer would be awesome if I could force carb it, but I am not set up for that nor will I be since I want to make good beer with my current process before I upscale.
Theories for poor carb -
1. 4 pills instead of 5. Perhaps there is a bit of a breaking point where that one last pill would have made the difference or maybe put in 6. The directions say 3 pills low carb, 4 pills medium carb, 5 pills high carb, but I am using 16 ounce bottles instead of 12 ounces and my LHBS guy said 5 pills would be good on my first batch and it worked out well last batch.
2. Bigger beer need more pills. Maybe since this is a thicker beer than my first batch, I needed to use more priming sugar.
3. Seals on EZ cap not holding well on my second batch. Discounting this theory mostly since I only used 6 bottles on first batch and my 3 test bottles so far are all flat. This theory will hold salt if I open a bottle and it has better carb.
4. Watched temps more closely this time. The first batch there was a day or two that temps went above 70 after bottling. I was a lot more careful with this batch. Maybe I needed to let the bottles carb for 3 weeks instead of 2? Or let it sit at around 70 degrees or more for a little while?
5. Your theory. Based on my info, you the experienced brewer may see something that I am missing. The info is all here in this book I just wrote. What do you think?
Background- My beer started out as a Pinstripe Red Ale, extract clone scaled for 2.5 gallons, but I erred and created a 2 gallon batch.
For my specialty grains, I used 6.3 oz. Cara-pils/Dextrine, 4.2 oz. Caramel/Crystal malt 80L, 2.1 oz. White Wheat Malt, 1.1 oz. Caramel/Crystal Malt 120L. Steeped for 30m at 155.
Extract - Should have put in 3 lbs of extract for a 2.5 gallon finished product. Ended up with 3lbs for 2 gallons finished. OG 1.073
Hop schedule was 60m x 2 oz. Liberty and
.5oz. Tettnang at 2m. Was concerned that it would come out overly bitter.
Yeast - Put in 4/5 of a package of SafAle English Ale into my two one gallon fermentors. Shook the effing crap out of the two one gallon fermentors before adding the dry yeast (sprinkled) and then shook the crap out of it again.
Fermentation was very active starting at 12 hours and continued like a motha for 24 hours. I lost about 20 oz. in blow off. Switched to airlocks containing lemon vodka at 24 hours and active fermentation continued for several days. Let the brew hang out for another week or so to let the yeast "clean up". 2 weeks total in the primary.
Bottled in 16 oz. EZ cap bottles and put back into my cooler for another 2 weeks. FG was 1.012 at bottling. Added 4 pills of Brewers Best conditioning tablets per bottle.
While in my cooler during beer making, I use an ice pack like you would put in a lunch box to keep my brew cooler than my house's room temp 78 degrees. Many people in Phoenix keep their houses warmer than mine, some up to 88 degrees, if you would believe it! I also leave a thermometer in my cooler and check the temp when I change out the ice pack (about 2 times per day) and sometimes just for fun. I have never seen the temp higher than 70 degrees or lower than 58 degrees. I like to peek a lot, so these temps are at all of the different variations in my cooler. I would say that 90 percent of the time the cooler is between 60 and 64 degrees. 10 percent of the time the cooler is at the other temps. Temps were usually colder rather than warmer. I didn't change the temps after bottling.
Here is the result of my beer and the reason I am posting something other than, my beer is great!
The Good: Great flavor. Sweet grainy aroma as well as a mild honey scent that I suspect is a result of the Tettnang hops. My beer has a nice bitterness that balances well with the malt and body. The body has a fullness which is not over attenuated. No dicetyl that I can detect and has a nice clean finish. I was worried that it would be too bitter based on my 2.5 gallon vs. 2 gallon actual, but I think that some IBUs boiled off on the blow off. I tasted the blow off and man was it bitter. My beer is probably a 45 or 50 IBU. I love that this beer is strong yet drinkable!
The Bad: Bad I don't know, but this is my second batch and both have made the people who drank it really sleepy. Does homebrew make people sleepy, is this just my house special voodoo magic? My first batch was like 3.2 beer, this was more in the 8.2 ABV range, but both made everyone who drank it sleepy as heck. Also, the beer is a little cloudy. Clearly less cloudy than a Hefe, within the bounds of an IPA though towards the cloudy side of that.
The Ugly: Very poor carb. I can tell there is carbonation in my beer, but there is definitely no head no matter how fast I pour. So since I was worried about my beer being too bitter when I bottled, I put in 4 pills instead of 5. In my first batch I put 5 and the carb level was great, but this batch has very little fizz to it. Are my yeast lazy after doing such a good job on the ferment. This beer would be awesome if I could force carb it, but I am not set up for that nor will I be since I want to make good beer with my current process before I upscale.
Theories for poor carb -
1. 4 pills instead of 5. Perhaps there is a bit of a breaking point where that one last pill would have made the difference or maybe put in 6. The directions say 3 pills low carb, 4 pills medium carb, 5 pills high carb, but I am using 16 ounce bottles instead of 12 ounces and my LHBS guy said 5 pills would be good on my first batch and it worked out well last batch.
2. Bigger beer need more pills. Maybe since this is a thicker beer than my first batch, I needed to use more priming sugar.
3. Seals on EZ cap not holding well on my second batch. Discounting this theory mostly since I only used 6 bottles on first batch and my 3 test bottles so far are all flat. This theory will hold salt if I open a bottle and it has better carb.
4. Watched temps more closely this time. The first batch there was a day or two that temps went above 70 after bottling. I was a lot more careful with this batch. Maybe I needed to let the bottles carb for 3 weeks instead of 2? Or let it sit at around 70 degrees or more for a little while?
5. Your theory. Based on my info, you the experienced brewer may see something that I am missing. The info is all here in this book I just wrote. What do you think?
