First brew this weekend! Thoughts on my plan?

[wingedcoyote]

Hey dudes! After lurking these forums and doing my research, I'm getting ready for my first brew day this weekend. I picked up this here kit along with a five gallon stainless kettle and some Starsan, and I'm headed back tomorrow for my ingredients.

I'm not big on following recipes verbatim, but here's what I've thrown together after looking at a variety of simple APAs. What I'd ideally like is to get something with mild to moderate bitterness for the style but nice floral aroma, and with maybe a little more body and malt character than a "standard" pale.

1# Crystal Malt 10L
7# Pale LME (half early, half late)
0.5oz Amarillo @60min
1.0oz Amarillo @20min
1.0oz Amarillo @5min
1 package US-05

Should come out to OG 1.051, 35.7 IBUs, 8.8 SRM, 5.2% ABV. I'm pretty much just guessing on the amount and type of specialty malt, and obviously the hop selection is based on "I like the name and blurb of this one". Does it look feasible? Anything I should change?

 

[ImNoExpert]

It looks good to me. I might go a little darker with a 20L Crystal Malt, but it sounds like a good first beer!

 

[billl]

Looks good to me. If you are looking for a lot of aroma from your APA, you can dry hop for a week once fermentation is done.

Are you in Raleigh or did you buy that kit online?

 

[wingedcoyote]

Dry-hopping is definitely something I've considered, but will probably skip this time in the name of KISS for my first batch. Definitely open to advice about the specialty grain selection, as I'm pretty much shooting in the dark on that bit.

And I am indeed in Raleigh! Dude at the Atlantic HBS was super helpful and if I wasn't already crazy excited about this hobby, I would be after going in there and getting that "kid in the Lego store" feeling.

 

[estricklin]

I agree with using a little darker Crystral, like 20 or 40, but if you use 40 you may want to cut the amount back to half a pound for an APA. But who knows? Honestly never used 10L so it may be great in that quanity.

 

[billl]

If you haven't bought the grains already....

a lb of caramunich III would be great. It's like a c50 or so, but with more a bready/malty character and less sweetness.

c10 and c20 are pretty generically sweet without a lot of malty flavor. Not bad for an APA, but your description sounds like you would prefer a little more malty goodness.

Generic tip - the grain bins are all open at atlantic and the guys don't mind if you smell/taste a sample.

And don't be afraid of the dry hop. Brew this one up as you have it now. Let if ferment 2 weeks and take a taste/smell. If it is where you want, great. if not, dryhopping is super easy. Just toss an ounce or 2 in one of those cheapo grain bags, tie the top, and toss it in the bucket.

 

[The542]

Can't go wrong with Amarillo! (IMHO) I'd still consider dry hopping that mug. The super fresh and crisp taste of dry hopping with Amarillo can't be beat. A step worth taking Again IMHO.

 

[strambo]

That will be a good APA as is, Amarrillos are great. I'd also advise a dry hop of a couple oz. you can just dump them ( pellet or leaf) in the primary after 10 days, leave them in for 5, the put a hop sack over your siphon when you rack to bottle.

I can understand not dry hopping your 1st as well. It will take the beer from good to "wow" though.

 

[dracus]

The hop sack and or pain strainer bag work well to to filter out the dry hops.

IF you want to keep it simple add some hopes at flamout out it will give you a big boost to aroma.

 

[wingedcoyote]

Post-shopping update!

Bad news is, no Amarillos. I guess everybody else had the same inclination I did. 'cause the FLHBS says they can't keep the suckers in stock for a minute. Went with a split between Cascade and Centennial instead, which they suggested as not a substitute but maybe something that would scratch the same itch. Also I ended up getting a pound of 20L crystal -- might toss the whole thing in or just use half, not sure yet.

Brew day is Saturday evening or Sunday morning. I'm so stoked you guys!

 

[ImNoExpert]

Let us know how it goes. Remember, there's not much you can do to screw it up. Just sanitize well, keep a list of your steps, and visualize your actions for your next step once you've finished the previous.

 

[fuzzy2133]

Hey dudes! After lurking these forums and doing my research, I'm getting ready for my first brew day this weekend. I picked up this here kit along with a five gallon stainless kettle and some Starsan, and I'm headed back tomorrow for my ingredients.

How are you going to boil the wort and what volume? My stove top tends to not like more than 3 gallons and your results will vary.

 

[ImNoExpert]

Good question. I guess I always envisioned this as a partial boil. Then again not all stoves are created equal. I've brewed all of my all grain beers on electric and gas stoves. I do all grain with 6+ gallons on my gas stove and have no issue with maintaining a rolling boil.

Of course when we purchased a new stove a year after moving into our house, I looked for one with good and high BTUs!

 

[wingedcoyote]

Partial boil, top up in fermenter. I did a test run with water and my (electric, glass top) stove does indeed struggle to keep 3 gallons at a rolling boil. It gets up there with the top on, but settles down to a kind of half-hearted boil with the top off.

However! I talked to my buddy / landlord who used to live and brew here, and he said it worked OK for him. I've had a few of his beers and didn't detect any faults that would come from insufficient boiling AFAIK, so I think I should be ok.

 

[fuzzy2133]

Have fun and don't make make too big of a mess

 

[wingedcoyote]

Okay, we're doing this! Watch out, wall of text coming.

Steeped 1lb 20L crystal malt by heating a bit under a gallon of bottled water to 160deg in my tea kettle and pouring it over the grain bag in a smaller pot, which I then lidded and left for 30 minutes. This may not have been an ideal method, as the temperature after 30min had fallen to 130deg, but it did seem to produce a dark and aromatic liquid.

Meanwhile heated remainder of 2.5gal water in brew kettle, adding crystal malt liquid after its timer went off, until the whole thing (eventually) boiled. Removed from heat, added about half of 7gal LME, returned to heat. Getting it to boil again was a struggle, but eventually got there and added bittering hops (0.5oz Cascade, 0.5 Centennial) and set 60min timer. From this point on I occasionally lidded the pot for a few minutes at a time to help bring the pot back to a rolling boil, as it would calm down to a simmer after a while uncovered. Also wrapped foil around the pot and turned the oven up to 550 for added heat (I'm choosing not to think about the effect of all this on my power bill).

At 15min left I added the rest of LME and the next hop addition (0.75 Cascade, 0.25 Centennial). I did not take the pot off the heat this time because I didn't want to spend half an hour getting it back to boil, so I just stirred vigorously while slowly adding LME. Seemed to work. Stil took about 10min to get a rolling boil back. At this time I added 5min to the timer, on the theory that I could use some extra boiling to make up for the low spells.

At 0min, removed pot from heat and added another (0.25 Centennial, 0.75 Cascade). Placed pot in sink full of ice water, went through a lot of stirring and ice-pack-adding to try to get the temp down, eventually got frustrated and just stuck the kettle in my fridge. Waiting on it to finish cooling now.

 

[wingedcoyote]

Eventually pitched somewhere hopefully around 75, maybe a little north. Next time I'll be much more prepared for the cooling step -- definitely keeping top up water in the fridge beforehand, at the very least. OG was about 1.05, just where expected.

 

[estricklin]

I used to buy jugs of water for top off, and I'd put them in the freezer and just barely let the outside start to freeze. Also, you can set your fermenter in a sink full of water, preferably ice water. Even water that's 60F will probably be a lot faster than placing it in the fridge.

 

[wingedcoyote]

Yeah, I started out by moving the kettle into the sink and running water around it, and chucking in all the ice and ice packs I had on hand. After a while when the ice had all melted and the water was staying pretty warm, I abandoned that in favor of the fridge... in retrospect even room-temp water was probably still a better bet. Live and learn.

After pitching at about 3PM Sunday, active fermentation started sometime before I got up at 6AM Monday. That morning I had noisy bubbling and plenty of starsan suds piling up on top of the airlock lid, no actual popping or wort/krausen pushing through though. The scent coming out was very strong grapefruity hops with a quite earthy vegetable background, like I imagine a pile of cut Cascade vines just starting to turn into compost might smell. Since then it has changed quite a bit, now I'm still getting a little citrus but in a sweeter and perhaps slightly chemically mix, with notes that might be somewhat white wine / cidery and fruity or melon candy like... pretty interesting stuff. Still got bubbles every couple seconds, no more froth on top though. Got the AC set to hold at 70 and my fermometer seems to be showing 72-74 in the wort, though I imagine it's going lower at night.

 

[NewWestBrewer]

Yeah, I started out by moving the kettle into the sink and running water around it, and chucking in all the ice and ice packs I had on hand. After a while when the ice had all melted and the water was staying pretty warm, I abandoned that in favor of the fridge... in retrospect even room-temp water was probably still a better bet. Live and learn.

After pitching at about 3PM Sunday, active fermentation started sometime before I got up at 6AM Monday. That morning I had noisy bubbling and plenty of starsan suds piling up on top of the airlock lid, no actual popping or wort/krausen pushing through though. The scent coming out was very strong grapefruity hops with a quite earthy vegetable background, like I imagine a pile of cut Cascade vines just starting to turn into compost might smell. Since then it has changed quite a bit, now I'm still getting a little citrus but in a sweeter and perhaps slightly chemically mix, with notes that might be somewhat white wine / cidery and fruity or melon candy like... pretty interesting stuff. Still got bubbles every couple seconds, no more froth on top though. Got the AC set to hold at 70 and my fermometer seems to be showing 72-74 in the wort, though I imagine it's going lower at night.

Congrats on joining the obsession. A word of advice...72-74 ferment temp is too high and can lead to off flavours. Try to get it down to mid 60's. Research swamp cooler on here if you can't do it naturally.

 

[wingedcoyote]

Temp is definitely tricky, as it'll still be quite a while before NC is below 70 in the daytime and we don't even have basements. And it's going to get worse, because I can't really justify blasting the AC for the full course of the brew -- probably just the next few days while it's at peak activity.

I've looked at swamp coolers and it's definitely something I could try, but having open standing water in my house doesn't feel right somehow. Maybe I'll try the water bath + frozen water bottles trick, then I can at least throw garbage bag over the top or something to keep it somewhat contained.

 

[wingedcoyote]

Took my first gravity sample today, 7 days after pitching. Got about 1.015, which is 70% attenuation from my starting 1.50. Hopefully that will keep going down a little more, but at least it's gone most of the way.

Sample tasted pretty good -- not amazing, but definitely beer and I didn't dump any away. Pretty strong bitterness and grapefruit, but with a somewhat sweeter finish than I'd like. Was very cloudy, but of course that's no surprise at this stage.

 

[billl]

"Sample tasted pretty good -- not amazing, but definitely beer and I didn't dump any away. Pretty strong bitterness and grapefruit, but with a somewhat sweeter finish than I'd like."

Carbonation will definitly change the taste, so I'd reserve judgement for now.

 

[wingedcoyote]

Today was bottling day!

Recap: a week ago I took another grav sample (seems stable at about 1.14, although I realized later that I haven't been reading my hydro quite right) and tossed an ounce of whole Centennials into my fermenter. Two days later moved the fermenter into my fridge to crash for 5 days.

On opening the lid today I was surprised to find that most of the dry hops were still sitting right on top where I left them. Oh well. I found racking and bottling to be pretty easy (especially with my lovely wife giving me a hand), and the beer is crystal clear and quite tasty -- light bodied with nice bracing bitterness and pleasant caramel and herb/peppery notes. Nowhere near as much citrus as I expected, but I can live without it.

My only significant mishap was in cleanup, where I learned that my somewhat decrepit garbage disposal does not like chewing up wet leaf hops. Oops! Got everything working again after a lot of grumbling with my arm down the drain. Also I only had a final yield of ~4 gallons, which makes me think I may overcarb some since I calculated based on 5.

 

[The542]

Still sounds good! Keep us up to date on the carbed tasting session.