Started my first brew last night and I'm unsure about some potential issues I may be having. Hopefully someone out there can let me know if I have a real problem or not. Here is the IPA recipe I'm working with and I'll get to the issues after:
- 9 Lbs Pale Malt Extract
- 16 oz Caramel grain - 10L, 20L, and 60L (not sure what those numbers indicated so if someone can tell me that would be great)
- 1.5 oz Columbus Hops (14.0%) - 60 min
- 1.0 oz Cascade Hops - 15 min
- 1.0 oz Columbus Hops - 0 min
- White Labs yeast
and my procedure:
- Added grains to small pot with 3 quarts of water at 165 degrees, removed heat, stirred and covered at 150 degrees, let sit 30 minutes.
- Slowly mixed in malt extract to big pot in 2 gallons of water at 165 degrees while constantly stirring. Removed pot from heat before adding extract.
- strained grain tea into the big pot and let that get to a roaring boil.
- once foaming ceased I began hoping process adding 1.5 oz at beginning, then 1 oz of cascade with 15 min left, then columbus again at 0.
- made sure to dissolve the final hops and remove heat and immediately put pot in ice bath.
- waited until temp reached 65 degrees and strained into fermentation bucket, adding water until it reached 5 gallons and mixed.
- added dry yeast after rehydrating in a cup of water for 20 minutes.
- mixed, inserted blowoff tube and placed end of tube in sanitized glass of water.
Now here are my concerns -
- I have seen some procedures on youtube that insist that the grain tea should brew for an hour over heat instead of 30 minutes starting at 165 degrees and letting it cool down to 150. What would the difference be in the final product?
- while straining the beer into the fermentation bucket, the strainer would completely clog up after about every 2 quarts leaving behind a think poopy goop. I know some clogging is normal but this seemed like an excessive amount of half-dissolved soggy hops. Is this an issue I should be worried about in the future?
- I also am concerned that I may have let wort reduce too much while boiling. I began with around 4 gallons of wort and ended up with around 2.5 gallons. I had to add about 2.5 gallons of water to the fermentation bucket in order to reach 5 gallons making the mixture about 50% water. Is this over diluting the beer?
- It has been about 14 hours since I added the yeast to the fermentation bucket and I am seeing no krausen or bubbles. I mixed the yeast in by gently shaking the bucket. When should krausen begin to appear? Is there any reason why my brew is not releasing those gases?
My final question is about secondary fermentation. I was given two 5 gallon buckets with this kit and assume that the second bucket would be for secondary fermentation. When and how should I transfer the beer into the second bucket and what does this accomplish?
Thanks for the help!
- 9 Lbs Pale Malt Extract
- 16 oz Caramel grain - 10L, 20L, and 60L (not sure what those numbers indicated so if someone can tell me that would be great)
- 1.5 oz Columbus Hops (14.0%) - 60 min
- 1.0 oz Cascade Hops - 15 min
- 1.0 oz Columbus Hops - 0 min
- White Labs yeast
and my procedure:
- Added grains to small pot with 3 quarts of water at 165 degrees, removed heat, stirred and covered at 150 degrees, let sit 30 minutes.
- Slowly mixed in malt extract to big pot in 2 gallons of water at 165 degrees while constantly stirring. Removed pot from heat before adding extract.
- strained grain tea into the big pot and let that get to a roaring boil.
- once foaming ceased I began hoping process adding 1.5 oz at beginning, then 1 oz of cascade with 15 min left, then columbus again at 0.
- made sure to dissolve the final hops and remove heat and immediately put pot in ice bath.
- waited until temp reached 65 degrees and strained into fermentation bucket, adding water until it reached 5 gallons and mixed.
- added dry yeast after rehydrating in a cup of water for 20 minutes.
- mixed, inserted blowoff tube and placed end of tube in sanitized glass of water.
Now here are my concerns -
- I have seen some procedures on youtube that insist that the grain tea should brew for an hour over heat instead of 30 minutes starting at 165 degrees and letting it cool down to 150. What would the difference be in the final product?
- while straining the beer into the fermentation bucket, the strainer would completely clog up after about every 2 quarts leaving behind a think poopy goop. I know some clogging is normal but this seemed like an excessive amount of half-dissolved soggy hops. Is this an issue I should be worried about in the future?
- I also am concerned that I may have let wort reduce too much while boiling. I began with around 4 gallons of wort and ended up with around 2.5 gallons. I had to add about 2.5 gallons of water to the fermentation bucket in order to reach 5 gallons making the mixture about 50% water. Is this over diluting the beer?
- It has been about 14 hours since I added the yeast to the fermentation bucket and I am seeing no krausen or bubbles. I mixed the yeast in by gently shaking the bucket. When should krausen begin to appear? Is there any reason why my brew is not releasing those gases?
My final question is about secondary fermentation. I was given two 5 gallon buckets with this kit and assume that the second bucket would be for secondary fermentation. When and how should I transfer the beer into the second bucket and what does this accomplish?
Thanks for the help!