First beer - IPAish all grain

[Llarian]

While my efficiency wasn't what I was hoping for, things appear to have worked out well regardless and its bubbling away in my primary at the moment.

Might as well give the recipe first:

Grain bill:
12# American 2-row
1# 40L Crystal
.5# flaked barley
.5# Cara-pils
1oz Black patent

Hops:
1.5oz Chinook (60 minutes - full boil)
.5oz Chinook (15 minutes)
1oz Kent Goldings (2 minutes)
1oz Kent Goldings (dry hop, not in yet)

Pitched with Wyeast 1056.

The recipe looked interesting and not much like what I'm used to in terms of IPAs, and I got it for free with my starter kit, so I figured what the hell. The OG calculated out to 1.076, but I ended up with 1.061, which is a far cry short. (around 61% efficiency) I'm guessing a good deal of this is the fact that the borrowed mash tun I was using had a copper manifold that came disconnected when we started draining the first runnings, so we had to drain, reconnect, and recirculate in order to get all the hulls and such out of the wort. I'll have my own 10G cooler mash tun in a week or so, just got impatient to do the first batch.

Otherwise, it looks excellent and should still be a decent beer from what I can tell, just not upwards of 7% like I was hoping.

Anyways, I'll add something else to this thread once its bottled, conditioned, and tasted. This was just a more apropos way of saying hi. =)

-Dylan

 

[david_42]

You can always do a second round of dry hopping with a different hop, for fine tuning.

 

[Boston]

Despite the problems you had, it still looks like you'll get a kickass IPA out of it

 

[Llarian]

That's the hope! =)

Ain't bad for my first shot at brewing I figure. I think I'll do something simpler like the Bridgeport Clone as my next beer and see if I can get my efficiency up to 75% where it should be before hitting another big IPA.

I did realize that I most certainly need a brew kettle that's bigger than 7.5 gallons. That just ain't gonna cut it!

-D

 

[Llarian]

Racked this batch into the secondary today, and made quite a mess getting the hops into the carboy. =)

Anybody have suggestions for dry hopping? I considered using a bag, but it seems like it'd be impossible to get it back out the neck of the 5 gallon carboy. I ended up just putting it in directly, although it seems like its not contacting the beer as much as I'd like. Hopefully it'll settle into the beer more as it absorbs liquid.

Time to wait a couple weeks to see how this turns out.

-Dylan

 

[Brewpastor]

First brew, first all-grain, results well within the range of the style. I say you are doing great and well on your way to having a serious brewing habit. Congrats and welcome to the club. "Hi, my name is BP and I am a brew-aholic..."

 

[fast-fish]

Congrats on going all grain right out of the gate.

Sounds like you did your homework, and everything is comming out great.

 

[Llarian]

Well that's a bit of a surprise. Bottled this beer last night, and it ended up being excellent despite missing my efficiency target.

The big surprise came in the form of a terminal gravity of 1.013 for an apparent attenuation of 78%! Considering that I mashed too hot and not long enough, I'm extremely surprised I saw that much fermentation.

Looking forward to trying this beer out when its chilled and carbonated. =)

(Already brewed my second and am planning my third for a couple weeks from now when I have another weekend free. Guess I'm addicted!)

-Dylan