First Time Brewer, Too Ambitious?

[SJMC]

Hi guys, long time beer enthusiast but (potential) first time brewer here. I was wondering if my aims are too ambitious and I need a reality check.

I'm a big fan (as I'm sure a lot of people on here are) of the New England/Vermont/Northeast style IPAs, Trillium especially, and was wondering how possible it is for me to brew something similar at home with a reasonably humble BIAB setup. I'm well aware it's an ambitious project for a first time brewer, especially as I'd like to do it all grain, but I like to chuck myself in at the deep end with things, and I will be brewing with a friend who has done several ready made kits before.

I was looking at a 5 gallon brew, which I want to achieve by getting a large stock pot (around 7 gallons), as well as a BIAB bag, a fermenter, thermometer and all the necessary syphoning equipment. This SEEMS to make it possible to do all the steps necessary, even if it involves more time/effort than it would with better equipment (I'd have to manually maintain the temperature, manually whirlpool the wort etc).

I have a good idea on which recipe I want to go with, it's mainly this with a few tweaks (either due to equipment or availability of ingredients in the UK): https://www.themadfermentationist.com/2017/07/cryo-lupulin-neipa-citra-mosaic.html

Will this work? The only real flaw seems to be that I don't/won't have a kegging system, so dry hopping a second time round in the keg won't be possible, but will I still get a same-ballpark result without that step? I'm aware bottle conditioning tends to lessen the shelf life of this particular type of beer, but as it's my first brew I'm intending to share it with as many people as possible if it goes well so I'm expecting it to go quite quickly!

If I posted a step by step rundown of how I expect things to go, would someone here be willing to either pick holes in it or approve it? As far as I can tell it's all possible if I'm diligent with my temperatures and sanitisation, but I'm worried the research I've done isn't deep enough and I'm oversimplifying the process, potentially leading to unexpected roadblocks.

 

[wishingiwasfishing]

Most times I would say just go for it. But in this case I'd recommend running through a couple of regular ale recipes first, they can certainly be IPA.

The reason being because the adding hops during active fermentation is just a bit different., as is some of the yeast strains you use for a NE IPA.

I'd really like you to see how you do at brewing a regular IPA first. Let's see how comfortable you are running through the process, getting gravity readings, etc. What are your finished results, how's it taste, what FG did you hit, how'd mash temps go, etc.

You can certainly still follow the general recipe though, just use a typical ale yeast (1056 or...) and use regular dry hop additions.

But, if you really want to do a NE IPA on your first go (can you control ferm temps?)...have at it.

 

[vampirebeer]

You are gonna need a bigger kettle.

 

[wishingiwasfishing]

You are gonna need a bigger kettle.

certainly have to cut down the batch size.



May be good to run through process and equipment being used. First batch, you'll have a few surprises come up that you didn't think about.

 

[jlinz]

Can you do it? Maybe. Probably will need a bigger kettle as mentioned.

I would say though, slow and steady wins the race. Start with something basic, like Palmer's book and an IPA extract kit. Get familiar with the process and then work your way into all grain and designing recipes.

This advice comes from not following the advice I'm giving you.

 

[mongoose33]

I'm still new enough to remember being a newbie at this, but I've got 40 batches under my belt now and so there's a bit of the voice of experience here too.

I think wishyfishy's advice is largely spot on. The more complicated you make your first brew day and first brewing experience, the greater the likelihood something will go wrong, and there you are. I believe for the first 2 or 3 brews, simpler is better. Nail down the process, see how it all works, discover mistakes (hopefully small ones), and get comfortable.

Brew a kit to start. Fewer decisions to make. Or an established recipe that is simple. There are lots of very simple recipes that are really very tasty.

Another thing I'd recommend is see if you can find someone who brews who will let you watch. I did that before my first time brewing and it was invaluable. What I read made much more sense, and the entirety of the process made much more sense as well.

And along those lines--I'd consider doing an extract brew or two before trying to do all grain. Can you get the water right? Maintain mash temp correctly? Get the right crush of the grain?

I'm not saying it can't be done well by a brand-new brewer, but what I am saying is, it's not the way to bet. The more moving parts you have at the outset, the more likely one will snag on something. And if the beer doesn't turn out very well, to what can you attribute that?

Finally, your kettle is too small for a full 5-gallon BIAB effort. I use, generally, 7.25 gallons of water in mine. I have a 10-gallon kettle, it's about right.

Anyway, good luck and enjoy the learning, and the beer!

 

[Dcpcooks]

My first batch was all grain. A two hearted clone kit I got at the bells general store.

The lesson learned was I didn't know what I didn't know. I made beer and it was drinkable but it was not great.

I wouldn't say don't brew a neipa I would say you need to understand the challenges involved with making that style.
Fermentation control is important. By that I mean limiting oxygen contact after you've pitched yeast. Controlling fermentation temps is also important but limiting oxidation is critical.

You should read the threads on neipa's to get a good understanding of what works and what doesn't.

I also think you should ask yourself how you learn best. Can you get all you need and retain it from reading? Or do you learn best by "doing" it. If your the latter I'd consider making the neipa after a few test batches.

 

[203PH]

Crawl. Walk. Run. Couldn't agree more with other posts. Keep it simple out of the gate. There are nice all grain kits out there. With detailed instructions to help guide you through the process, it will make your brew day a little less stressful.

Agree on the pot size too. The best advice given to me when I first started was to get a 10 gallon pot for a 5 gallon batch. Bayou Classics are relatively inexpensive and gives you plenty of room during the hot break.

Good luck. Welcome to our hobby, otherwise known as obsession.

 

[SJMC]

Most times I would say just go for it. But in this case I'd recommend running through a couple of regular ale recipes first, they can certainly be IPA.

The reason being because the adding hops during active fermentation is just a bit different., as is some of the yeast strains you use for a NE IPA.

I'd really like you to see how you do at brewing a regular IPA first. Let's see how comfortable you are running through the process, getting gravity readings, etc. What are your finished results, how's it taste, what FG did you hit, how'd mash temps go, etc.

You can certainly still follow the general recipe though, just use a typical ale yeast (1056 or...) and use regular dry hop additions.

But, if you really want to do a NE IPA on your first go (can you control ferm temps?)...have at it.

Although I agree with this being solid advice, there's something about brewing that makes me want to jump right in. The idea of brewing a 'normal' IPA doesn't excite me like a NEIPA does. I've done tonnes and tonnes of research into it including reading blogs, scanning forums, comparing recipes, watching videos (not just for NEIPA's, for all sorts of different brews).

The only thing there seems to be less solid information on is controlling the ferm temps, I've read about blankets and the like, but is there any solid bits of advice you could offer to keep it within the boundaries?

 

[Tarpon87]

I brewed a NEIPA as my first batch, all grain Biab. I brewed Braufessors recipe swapping azacca for galaxy. Came out awesome! I don't know why everyone wants to make it seem like brewing this beer is so much more complicated than brewing a "normal" ipa. You dry hop earlier....ok. You also don't need to keg hop it, you don't even need a second dry hop. Braufessor has been experimenting with a single large dry hop and hasn't reported any noticeable differences. Brew what you want, it's your money and your experience.
Are you fermenting in a basement or closet? I am assuming by your question you don't have a temp controlled chamber, you might want to look into a swamp cooler depending on the ambient temp of wherever you will be doing it at.

 

[SJMC]

certainly have to cut down the batch size.



May be good to run through process and equipment being used. First batch, you'll have a few surprises come up that you didn't think about.

I realised this almost immediately after posting. I'm currently looking at a 30 litre Burco Cygnet water boiler (7.93 gallons), is that still cutting it fine for a 5 gallon batch?

The recipe I've made up ends up with 12.75lb of total grains and Beersmith is telling me I'll need 8.42 gallons of volume in my mash tun, is that accurate? I realise the water combined with the grains will add to a considerable amount more but that's more than I expected for a 5 gallon batch! I'm happy to cut down as a 30 litre boiler is all I can afford right now (I've found a good deal on a second hand one).

Aside from the scale of the recipe, my plan was sort of like this:

- Put the right amount of water into my kettle for mashing (depending on the answer to my scale question but let's go with 1.41 gallons for now)
- Add 10g of Calcium Chloride and 8g of Gypsum (for *apparently* softer, sweeter taste but I've not read too much into this) and half a teaspoon of Lactic Acid.
- Heat to 150 degrees, add all of the grains into my BIAB bag and stir, keeping the temperature constant for 60 minutes.
- After 60 minutes, remove BIAB bag, let it drain into the wort.
- Increase the heat to a boil (intentionally not adding any hops yet, not going for an overly bitter flavour).
- Make sure everything is sanitised, including fermentation bucket and all syphoning equipment.
- 45 minutes into the boil, add 1.25oz of Columbus hops
- After 60 minutes, turn the heat off, cool wort to 170 degrees
- Create a whirlpool manually with a large spoon, introduce the Citra and Mosaic hops (2oz of each) and let stand for 30 minutes
- Cool the wort to fermentation temperature of 67 degrees.
- Transfer to fermentation bucket, aerate the wort and take a sample to check the original gravity, check batch volume.
- Add OYL-052 yeast to the wort in the fermentation bucket, seal and leave in a cool, dry place. Maintaining the temperature of 67 degrees.
- Leave to ferment for 7 days (?), adding 4oz each of Citra and Mosaic at 5 days in order to dry hop for 2 days.
- After 7 days, sanitise all bottles and bottling equipment.
- Add the beer to the bottles, also boiling the priming sugars to add to them and seal them.
- Wait two weeks to carbonate before opening.

I'm sure I've missed a couple of things but that's why I'm doing this! Also excuse any laughable mistakes with the temperatures, I'm from the UK so I've been doing a lot of back and forth conversions. Am I in the right ballpark or am I way off? Anything I've missed or anything I'm doing incorrectly? I've wrote that quite quickly!

 

[SJMC]

I brewed a NEIPA as my first batch, all grain Biab. I brewed Braufessors recipe swapping azacca for galaxy. Came out awesome! I don't know why everyone wants to make it seem like brewing this beer is so much more complicated than brewing a "normal" ipa. You dry hop earlier....ok. You also don't need to keg hop it, you don't even need a second dry hop. Braufessor has been experimenting with a single large dry hop and hasn't reported any noticeable differences. Brew what you want, it's your money and your experience.
Are you fermenting in a basement or closet? I am assuming by your question you don't have a temp controlled chamber, you might want to look into a swamp cooler depending on the ambient temp of wherever you will be doing it at.

That's good to hear! I was worried I was getting a bit ahead of myself reading and watching all the information about it as it did seem pretty straightforward. Definitely more complicated than your standard but by no means ridiculously difficult to grasp. It seems the main thing is discipline with timing and temperature, which I think I'll be able to do well, especially with a number of gadgets helping me out (phone/laptop timers etc).

My main issue is temperature control actually, I live in a shared house (the friend who I may be brewing with is my housemate) and we don't have a basement so that may be an issue. I'm going to kickstart this whole process soon so I'll have a wander around and figure out the best ambient temperature in the house. Any other tips for controlling it? Is it just insulation blankets and the like?

 

[pepindavid]

Process seems ok, but a few questions
- what efficiency did you enter in Beersmith? You're doing a no-sparge BIAB, so efficiency may be on the low side
- Do you know your water profile before adding anything? You can't just add gypsum, chloride and lactic acid without knowing what your base water is (and what these additions should do to your water profile)

Also, to do BIAB, in my opinion you need at least double the size (so, you can aim for a 15L batch, I guess). The other option is to do a "Maxi-BIAB", in which you do a more concentrated wort, that you dilute in the fermenter. I did that for almost two years and it works well. You just need to set up Beersmith properly to account for a different hop utilization (more concentrated wort yields less IBU for the amount of hops).

 

[Smellyglove]

I realised this almost immediately after posting. I'm currently looking at a 30 litre Burco Cygnet water boiler (7.93 gallons), is that still cutting it fine for a 5 gallon batch?

The recipe I've made up ends up with 12.75lb of total grains and Beersmith is telling me I'll need 8.42 gallons of volume in my mash tun, is that accurate? I realise the water combined with the grains will add to a considerable amount more but that's more than I expected for a 5 gallon batch! I'm happy to cut down as a 30 litre boiler is all I can afford right now (I've found a good deal on a second hand one).

Aside from the scale of the recipe, my plan was sort of like this:

- Put the right amount of water into my kettle for mashing (depending on the answer to my scale question but let's go with 1.41 gallons for now)
- Add 10g of Calcium Chloride and 8g of Gypsum (for *apparently* softer, sweeter taste but I've not read too much into this) and half a teaspoon of Lactic Acid.
- Heat to 150 degrees, add all of the grains into my BIAB bag and stir, keeping the temperature constant for 60 minutes.

- After 60 minutes, remove BIAB bag, let it drain into the wort.
- Increase the heat to a boil (intentionally not adding any hops yet, not going for an overly bitter flavour).
- Make sure everything is sanitised, including fermentation bucket and all syphoning equipment.
- 45 minutes into the boil, add 1.25oz of Columbus hops
- After 60 minutes, turn the heat off, cool wort to 170 degrees
- Create a whirlpool manually with a large spoon, introduce the Citra and Mosaic hops (2oz of each) and let stand for 30 minutes
- Cool the wort to fermentation temperature of 67 degrees.
- Transfer to fermentation bucket, aerate the wort and take a sample to check the original gravity, check batch volume.
- Add OYL-052 yeast to the wort in the fermentation bucket, seal and leave in a cool, dry place. Maintaining the temperature of 67 degrees.
- Leave to ferment for 7 days (?), adding 4oz each of Citra and Mosaic at 5 days in order to dry hop for 2 days.
- After 7 days, sanitise all bottles and bottling equipment.
- Add the beer to the bottles, also boiling the priming sugars to add to them and seal them.
- Wait two weeks to carbonate before opening.

I'm sure I've missed a couple of things but that's why I'm doing this! Also excuse any laughable mistakes with the temperatures, I'm from the UK so I've been doing a lot of back and forth conversions. Am I in the right ballpark or am I way off? Anything I've missed or anything I'm doing incorrectly? I've wrote that quite quickly!

Do brew whatever you like, but NEIPA is about freshness and hops (like all IPA's), but in a NEIPA there are just so many hops and also with a high amount of myrcene in them, so it's more difficult.

To brew a NEIPA like a (good) reference, the quest is already lost where I put bold in your quote. It will probably taste fantastic, since you're starting out, but it will most likely noe taste like an NE american reference, due to oxygen and warmer temperatures. It's more about what your reference is actually. If you're from UK and taste american NEIPAs they are most problably way past their prime, so if that's the reference then maybe you'll be able to ballpark it.

Go for it. Homebrewing is about trying, experiencing, taking experiences with you, and having a good time

 

[grampamark]

This board needs a popcorn emoji.

Mark

 

[bleme]

The things you need to nail down, that most of us run into on our first brew are things like:

Keeping the temperature constant for 60 minutes - How?
Make sure everything is sanitized - How?
Cool the wort - How?
Transfer to fermentation bucket - How?
Aerate the wort - How?
Maintain the temperature - How?
Add the beer to the bottles - How?

I studied homebrewing intensively for 3 months before I jumped in and there were still surprises. Those sound like easy processes. Once you have done them a couple times they certainly can be easy. That first time, you are flying by the seat of your pants and it is all trial and error.

 

[Jayjay1976]

I'm just starting out in AG with the same goals, here are some thoughts:

1. There is nothing humble about BIAB, it's awesome and also how babies are made.
2. You need at least 10 gallons of room to brew 5 gallon batches.
3. Good sanitation practices are more valuable than anything you can buy.
4. I really don't like IPAs so I doubt we will get along. Unless you're into licking pine cones, why don't you brew something with a little soul like a nice farmhouse saison? They ferment well without temp control and are proven to make you more popular with your preferred gender.

 

[SJMC]

Process seems ok, but a few questions
- what efficiency did you enter in Beersmith? You're doing a no-sparge BIAB, so efficiency may be on the low side
- Do you know your water profile before adding anything? You can't just add gypsum, chloride and lactic acid without knowing what your base water is (and what these additions should do to your water profile)

Also, to do BIAB, in my opinion you need at least double the size (so, you can aim for a 15L batch, I guess). The other option is to do a "Maxi-BIAB", in which you do a more concentrated wort, that you dilute in the fermenter. I did that for almost two years and it works well. You just need to set up Beersmith properly to account for a different hop utilization (more concentrated wort yields less IBU for the amount of hops).

I left it at whatever was standard, not sure off the top of my head but didn't know what to enter!

I don't, that's one thing I'll need to look into. Since leaving that comment I have managed to get a water profile for my area of London which I've started to enter into Beersmith. I might need a little guidance with working out how to treat my water/work out the right amount of treatment.

The Maxi-BIAB sounds interesting, a quick skim of a thread on it seems to suggest it takes a lot of the calculation work out of it, but also adds a fair few more steps that I'm not experienced with, more to keep track of. I fear it might be too complicated for a first go, but maybe I've overcomplicated it in my head.

I might just lower my batch, I know you can never have too much beer but would I still end up with a decent amount if I 'brewed within my means' as it were? I guess I hear a lot of people talking about their 5 gallon brews and I wanted to join the club!

 

[SJMC]

I'm just starting out in AG with the same goals, here are some thoughts:

1. There is nothing humble about BIAB, it's awesome and also how babies are made.
2. You need at least 10 gallons of room to brew 5 gallon batches.
3. Good sanitation practices are more valuable than anything you can buy.
4. I really don't like IPAs so I doubt we will get along. Unless you're into licking pine cones, why don't you brew something with a little soul like a nice farmhouse saison? They ferment well without temp control and are proven to make you more popular with your preferred gender.

Sounds like good advice aside from the taste clash

For the 10 gallon kettle, what are you using and roughly how much did it cost you? Money is a factor here, especially as I know the NEIPA ingredients will set me back more than the average! The cheapest kettle I can get that is of a working standard would be great. As I say, I've found a great deal on a 30 litre water boiler but that's still shy of the 5 gallon mark

 

[Enemygod]

I brewed a NEIPA as my first batch, all grain Biab. I brewed Braufessors recipe swapping azacca for galaxy. Came out awesome! I don't know why everyone wants to make it seem like brewing this beer is so much more complicated than brewing a "normal" ipa. You dry hop earlier....ok. You also don't need to keg hop it, you don't even need a second dry hop. Braufessor has been experimenting with a single large dry hop and hasn't reported any noticeable differences. Brew what you want, it's your money and your experience.
Are you fermenting in a basement or closet? I am assuming by your question you don't have a temp controlled chamber, you might want to look into a swamp cooler depending on the ambient temp of wherever you will be doing it at.

I completely agree with this post. I don't really see the need to brew a kit or a "normal" IPA style first. Really the only difference is whirlpool/dry hops and both of those things either come at the very end/after the brew day. Plus you have done research and will have a friend with you who has a few batches under their belt.

All of the things people are mentioning that you need to watch out for like temp control, water chem, larger pot, etc are the same things you need to watch out for with pretty much every style you brew.

There is nothing inherently more difficult about this style. With that being said, I say go for it so you can really enjoy your first brew, rather than brewing something you may not enjoy as much.

Also I know money is a factor, but I wholeheartedly agree with all of the posts about getting a 10g kettle. If you cannot afford it now, I highly recommend waiting/saving until you can afford it. You will not regret the wait.

 

[Jayjay1976]

I use a 44qt bayou classics SS pot with basket which I drilled for weldless bulkheads, but I don't know what you have access to in UK.

 

[Kharnynb]

As a dutchie in Finland, I wish you had left metric in there

doing 20 liters in a 30 liter pot is doable, but you might need a second pot to do some sparge-leftover boildown.

I realised this almost immediately after posting. I'm currently looking at a 30 litre Burco Cygnet water boiler (7.93 gallons), is that still cutting it fine for a 5 gallon batch?

The recipe I've made up ends up with 12.75lb of total grains and Beersmith is telling me I'll need 8.42 gallons of volume in my mash tun, is that accurate? I realise the water combined with the grains will add to a considerable amount more but that's more than I expected for a 5 gallon batch! I'm happy to cut down as a 30 litre boiler is all I can afford right now (I've found a good deal on a second hand one).

Aside from the scale of the recipe, my plan was sort of like this:

- Put the right amount of water into my kettle for mashing (depending on the answer to my scale question but let's go with 1.41 gallons for now)
You want to make your total volume as close to the top of the kettle minus a liter or 2 if you want to keep the temperature passively by insulating with a blanket or such for an hour
- Add 10g of Calcium Chloride and 8g of Gypsum (for *apparently* softer, sweeter taste but I've not read too much into this) and half a teaspoon of Lactic Acid.
it won't hurt, but until you know your water, this is mostly pointless, your best basic water treatment is a campden tablet against chloride if needed
- Heat to 150 degrees, add all of the grains into my BIAB bag and stir, keeping the temperature constant for 60 minutes.
with biab of the bag style, direct heat is not needed if you wrap your kettle in a blanket after you add the grains and only open to stir once half-way, just heat the water a bit more, about 70-72 degrees C depending on water and grain amounts.
- After 60 minutes, remove BIAB bag, let it drain into the wort.
you want to sparge, your kettle won't allow you to do a full volume mash, so here you will sparge the grainbag with the extra water needed
- Increase the heat to a boil (intentionally not adding any hops yet, not going for an overly bitter flavour).
- Make sure everything is sanitised, including fermentation bucket and all syphoning equipment.
syphoning equipment shouldn't be needed if you only transfer from kettle to bucket
- 45 minutes into the boil, add 1.25oz of Columbus hops
- After 60 minutes, turn the heat off, cool wort to 170 degrees
- Create a whirlpool manually with a large spoon, introduce the Citra and Mosaic hops (2oz of each) and let stand for 30 minutes
- Cool the wort to fermentation temperature of 67 degrees.
how are you cooling, if you do bath-tub cooling, it might be easier to transfer first to your bucket and cool in the bucket, I do this myself as well.
- Transfer to fermentation bucket, aerate the wort and take a sample to check the original gravity, check batch volume.
aerate is just shaking or splashing during transfer i guess?
- Add OYL-052 yeast to the wort in the fermentation bucket, seal and leave in a cool, dry place. Maintaining the temperature of 67 degrees.
- Leave to ferment for 7 days (?), adding 4oz each of Citra and Mosaic at 5 days in order to dry hop for 2 days.
- After 7 days, sanitise all bottles and bottling equipment.
- Add the beer to the bottles, also boiling the priming sugars to add to them and seal them.
bottling is easiest if you first syphon to a bottling bucket, on top of the full batch of primingsugar syrup instead of bottling straight from the fermenter and priming bottles individually
- Wait two weeks to carbonate before opening.
and at least a few days in the fridge after...trust me on this
I'm sure I've missed a couple of things but that's why I'm doing this! Also excuse any laughable mistakes with the temperatures, I'm from the UK so I've been doing a lot of back and forth conversions. Am I in the right ballpark or am I way off? Anything I've missed or anything I'm doing incorrectly? I've wrote that quite quickly!

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=525556

here's a basic idea of how i used to do a similar system as you are planning.

 

[pepindavid]

I left it at whatever was standard, not sure off the top of my head but didn't know what to enter!

I would go around 70%. It's not a big deal if you go higher or lower (it will obviously change the predicted ABV, but that's likely not a big deal

I don't, that's one thing I'll need to look into. Since leaving that comment I have managed to get a water profile for my area of London which I've started to enter into Beersmith. I might need a little guidance with working out how to treat my water/work out the right amount of treatment.

If you are going to go the route of water adjustment (a pretty adavanced technique, but it is apparently important for NEIPA), I would suggest you use Bru'n'water, or something similar. It allows you to see how adding what would affect what numbers.

For info on NEIPA, I haven't tried this recipe, but I trust the guy for water profiles and general techniques: http://www.theelectricbrewery.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31050. See the notes/process section.

The Maxi-BIAB sounds interesting, a quick skim of a thread on it seems to suggest it takes a lot of the calculation work out of it, but also adds a fair few more steps that I'm not experienced with, more to keep track of. I fear it might be too complicated for a first go, but maybe I've overcomplicated it in my head.

I agree : you may want to keep it simple first (a 4-gallon batch is not small), and you may want to look into maxi-biab afterwards.

Anyway, these are my 2-cents!

For what it's worth, my first 2-3 batches were sub-par (BIAB as well). The following improvements seem to have helped quickly (I don't know which ones are responsible!):
- quicker chill after boil (less bitterness)
- pitching the yeast when it's cool enough
- healthy yeast
- stable fermentation temp, on the low side


Have fun!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I will be brewing with a friend who has done several ready made kits before.

This will be a big help - have his kits been grain or extract? Even so, you'll likely end up doing all sorts of stupid cockups just because you aren't quite in the rhythmn of things. So I think I would aim for a flexible recipe, if it goes well you can add all the fancy hops at the end but if it's been a bit of a cockup then there's a plan B that will produce a drinkable beer without wasting £30 of hops etc.

Pans - big is always good, but 30l will be fine. There's no rule that you can't top up with boiling water from a kettle during the brew. Wilko is the best place on the High St for homebrew bits and bobs. Also simet(h)icone is your friend - either as antifoam from brewing shops or as stomach gas medicines from the pharmacy/supermarket - things like Rennie Deflatine. The latter isn't ideal as it has a bit of carbonate in, but my water's so soft it doesn't really matter.

Water. There's a reason why St Pancras was built less as a passenger station and more as a giant warehouse to receive shipments of Burton pale ales - London water is terrible for brewing anything except maybe porters. You can punch in your postcode into the Thames Water website to get a rough idea of what you're dealing with, but expect shed loads of carbonate among other things. If you pre-boil it you can drop out a chunk of the nasties, but you might want to consider the energy costs of doing so versus getting some low-salt bottled water. As I say, I have really soft tap water so don't need to worry about it, and I suspect UK forums will have advice on the best sources, but I'd just wander around and look at the labels of any cheap bottled water you come across. Volvic is really soft, but won't be the cheapest option (and no USians, we don't have the same culture of shops selling RO water as such, but there will be water sold as drinking water that is RO-based, but may be supplemented with minerals).

Hops - Current favourite combinations as a starter seem to be either Citra-Mosaic-Galaxy or Equanot-Citra-Bravo. Bear in mind that hop quality is really important for this style - you want them as fresh as possible and to have been stored cold - not at ambient like my local shop. It's hop harvest at the moment so any northern hemisphere hops you see will be 12 months old, I'd be tempted to either wait a few weeks for the new crop or use all southern-hemisphere varieties.

Yeast - Current thoughts seem to be drifting away from the Conan family such as the Omega one, the new favourite seems to be Wyeast 1318 London Ale III - supposedly one of the Courage strains. So particularly appropriate in your case. Madfermentationist mentioned that his one wasn't as good as Tree House Julius - well there's a thread on here where they've been DNA fingerprinting the strains in Julius and it seems to be a mix of Fermentis dry yeasts - probably somewhere around 86:7:7 S-04:T-58:WB-06. People who have tried both seem to think that the blend can produce better results than 1318 which is the current gold standard. S-04 is probably the Whitbread dry strain, so again appropriate for a London beer. In your situation I'd be tempted to get the three Fermentis yeasts which will cost about the same as a single vial of 1318 - if it's gone well use the S-04 with a pinch of the others, if it's gone badly then just S-04 on its own will still give you a pretty decent result and you can save the other two yeasts for another day without throwing good money after bad.

Fermentation temperature. This style wants esters, so you want to vary the fermentation temperature as that encourages esters. So don't sweat fermentation control too much. At the moment I'm ranging from 20.5C in the kitchen to 16.5C in the garage, and a bit less than that in the shed - I can usually find somewhere that's a comfy temperature for yeast (although I did struggle a bit in that really hot spell in June. Not been a problem since then though....) Supposedly Tree House seem to pitch their dry yeast at around 25C, let it drop to about 19C for 2-3 days then take it down further to 16C. So - the living room followed by the garage then!

Efficiency - first time round I'd assume 65% brewhouse efficiency for no-sparge BIAB, I'm now getting about 72% without trying too hard. Some people report high-70s from no-sparge BIAB but I don't mind using an extra pound of malt in return for faffing about trying to tweak that last couple of points of efficiency.

Various useful bits :
Autosiphon - it just feels so wrong sucking a tube to start it siphoning
Heatresistant silicone gloves - quickly pay you back from the extra efficiency you get from squeezing your AH-AH-REALLY-HOT!!! grist bag, and also more sanitary than your hands for rescuing BIAB/hop bags that fall into the kettle/FV and such like. Not that I speak from experience...
Spray bottle of StarSan
Bottling wand - cheap and makes bottling much easier.
Benchtop cappers are more expensive than the grip ones, but are easier to use, quicker and safer. Or just find swingtop bottles like Grolsch.
Clear plastic 500ml bottle (old Coke/water bottle etc) for a bottling sample to allow you to check carbonation and (less relevantly here) colour/clarity.
Spare fermenting bucket - they're cheap and it's always useful to have one clean to eg measure grain into, dump the finished bag of grist into, soak stuff for sterilising in etc. And then you can always use it for fermenting a split batch to test different factors - I almost never just brew an entire batch on its own.

 

[Kampenken]

Although I agree with this being solid advice, there's something about brewing that makes me want to jump right in. The idea of brewing a 'normal' IPA doesn't excite me like a NEIPA does. I've done tonnes and tonnes of research into it including reading blogs, scanning forums, comparing recipes, watching videos (not just for NEIPA's, for all sorts of different brews).

The only thing there seems to be less solid information on is controlling the ferm temps, I've read about blankets and the like, but is there any solid bits of advice you could offer to keep it within the boundaries?

Jump in, and go for it!

I read only the first page of replies, but if the rest hold, then I'm clearly in the minority. My reasons :

1. It's homebrewing, not brain surgery.
2. You write as if you're confident you can follow directions, this is good.
3. You can F up a "simple" brew just as easy as this one.
4. You won't have all the equipment that the real pursuers of the NEIPA holy grail (i.e. O2 limits) have, so don't worry about it.
5. You're in the UK, in Sept. Ferm temps will be fine, even w/o control, just keep it in the dark and in a reasonably stable area (basement??).

I brewed many years ago first on extract- didn't really know about AG and the internet was in its infancy and HBT didn't exist. You have much more knowledge at your fingertips. Read. Follow it. Work with your friend.

Finally, don't worry too much. If your mash temp moves around a few degrees you're still a-ok. Many will state things that are simply unproven- go read Brulosophy- don't take that as gospel, just read how much "facts" have, at least in their test cases, been at least questioned.

Keep it clean, use fresh ingredients and brew on. Welcome to the hobby, I'm sure you'll find it enjoyable. Oh, and post how it turns out!

but, do get a bigger pot.

Cheers.

 

[Dcpcooks]

That hop combo is perfect for this style! I do like dipa yeast from omega better if you can keep temps under 66-68.

 

[madscientist451]

I'm saying go for it, but if you don't have kegging equipment and temp control for your fermentation, your clone recipe won't be come out as a clone.
There's nothing sacred about 5 gallon batches. If you want to use a 7 gallon pot, just multiply all the ingredients X .8 for a 4 gallon batch.
But, A better beer for a first time BIAB would be a porter or a stout. Get a couple of styles done and figure out how to limit oxidation of your beer after fermentation and then go for an IPA.

 

[SJMC]

As a dutchie in Finland, I wish you had left metric in there

doing 20 liters in a 30 liter pot is doable, but you might need a second pot to do some sparge-leftover boildown.



https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=525556

here's a basic idea of how i used to do a similar system as you are planning.

I'm metric myself (UK) but realised most people on here deal in gallons so thought I'd convert! Thanks for the tips on the process, definitely some very useful bits in there, especially the water treatment, direct heat on the mash, sparging and bottling bucket with the priming sugar syrup info. Much appreciated! I'll have a read through that thread too!

 

[SJMC]

I would go around 70%. It's not a big deal if you go higher or lower (it will obviously change the predicted ABV, but that's likely not a big deal




If you are going to go the route of water adjustment (a pretty adavanced technique, but it is apparently important for NEIPA), I would suggest you use Bru'n'water, or something similar. It allows you to see how adding what would affect what numbers.

For info on NEIPA, I haven't tried this recipe, but I trust the guy for water profiles and general techniques: http://www.theelectricbrewery.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31050. See the notes/process section.



I agree : you may want to keep it simple first (a 4-gallon batch is not small), and you may want to look into maxi-biab afterwards.

Anyway, these are my 2-cents!

For what it's worth, my first 2-3 batches were sub-par (BIAB as well). The following improvements seem to have helped quickly (I don't know which ones are responsible!):
- quicker chill after boil (less bitterness)
- pitching the yeast when it's cool enough
- healthy yeast
- stable fermentation temp, on the low side


Have fun!

Checking it today I had it set to 71%, which I think may have been copied from themadfermentationist's recipe, so that's all good!

In terms of the water treatment, that sounds like a rabbit hole that I'm not quite ready to squeeze into, I think I might keep it basic for my first brew and see how it comes out. I'll check that link shortly. In all likeliness this won't be my only ever brew so I'm happy to have a few things to improve on anyway, where's the fun in brewing your best ever beer first?! Nowhere to go after that

I've read those tips a few times across the site, especially the first two, so I'm hoping they're embedded enough for me to not panic on the brew day. I've spoken to my mate and it's going to end up around £70 each for all our equipment (excluding bottles which I may have just found a good deal on) including the first batch ingredients, going to wait until payday then we're good to go!

 

[SJMC]

This will be a big help - have his kits been grain or extract? Even so, you'll likely end up doing all sorts of stupid cockups just because you aren't quite in the rhythmn of things. So I think I would aim for a flexible recipe, if it goes well you can add all the fancy hops at the end but if it's been a bit of a cockup then there's a plan B that will produce a drinkable beer without wasting £30 of hops etc.

Pans - big is always good, but 30l will be fine. There's no rule that you can't top up with boiling water from a kettle during the brew. Wilko is the best place on the High St for homebrew bits and bobs. Also simet(h)icone is your friend - either as antifoam from brewing shops or as stomach gas medicines from the pharmacy/supermarket - things like Rennie Deflatine. The latter isn't ideal as it has a bit of carbonate in, but my water's so soft it doesn't really matter.

Water. There's a reason why St Pancras was built less as a passenger station and more as a giant warehouse to receive shipments of Burton pale ales - London water is terrible for brewing anything except maybe porters. You can punch in your postcode into the Thames Water website to get a rough idea of what you're dealing with, but expect shed loads of carbonate among other things. If you pre-boil it you can drop out a chunk of the nasties, but you might want to consider the energy costs of doing so versus getting some low-salt bottled water. As I say, I have really soft tap water so don't need to worry about it, and I suspect UK forums will have advice on the best sources, but I'd just wander around and look at the labels of any cheap bottled water you come across. Volvic is really soft, but won't be the cheapest option (and no USians, we don't have the same culture of shops selling RO water as such, but there will be water sold as drinking water that is RO-based, but may be supplemented with minerals).

Hops - Current favourite combinations as a starter seem to be either Citra-Mosaic-Galaxy or Equanot-Citra-Bravo. Bear in mind that hop quality is really important for this style - you want them as fresh as possible and to have been stored cold - not at ambient like my local shop. It's hop harvest at the moment so any northern hemisphere hops you see will be 12 months old, I'd be tempted to either wait a few weeks for the new crop or use all southern-hemisphere varieties.

Yeast - Current thoughts seem to be drifting away from the Conan family such as the Omega one, the new favourite seems to be Wyeast 1318 London Ale III - supposedly one of the Courage strains. So particularly appropriate in your case. Madfermentationist mentioned that his one wasn't as good as Tree House Julius - well there's a thread on here where they've been DNA fingerprinting the strains in Julius and it seems to be a mix of Fermentis dry yeasts - probably somewhere around 86:7:7 S-04:T-58:WB-06. People who have tried both seem to think that the blend can produce better results than 1318 which is the current gold standard. S-04 is probably the Whitbread dry strain, so again appropriate for a London beer. In your situation I'd be tempted to get the three Fermentis yeasts which will cost about the same as a single vial of 1318 - if it's gone well use the S-04 with a pinch of the others, if it's gone badly then just S-04 on its own will still give you a pretty decent result and you can save the other two yeasts for another day without throwing good money after bad.

Fermentation temperature. This style wants esters, so you want to vary the fermentation temperature as that encourages esters. So don't sweat fermentation control too much. At the moment I'm ranging from 20.5C in the kitchen to 16.5C in the garage, and a bit less than that in the shed - I can usually find somewhere that's a comfy temperature for yeast (although I did struggle a bit in that really hot spell in June. Not been a problem since then though....) Supposedly Tree House seem to pitch their dry yeast at around 25C, let it drop to about 19C for 2-3 days then take it down further to 16C. So - the living room followed by the garage then!

Efficiency - first time round I'd assume 65% brewhouse efficiency for no-sparge BIAB, I'm now getting about 72% without trying too hard. Some people report high-70s from no-sparge BIAB but I don't mind using an extra pound of malt in return for faffing about trying to tweak that last couple of points of efficiency.

Various useful bits :
Autosiphon - it just feels so wrong sucking a tube to start it siphoning
Heatresistant silicone gloves - quickly pay you back from the extra efficiency you get from squeezing your AH-AH-REALLY-HOT!!! grist bag, and also more sanitary than your hands for rescuing BIAB/hop bags that fall into the kettle/FV and such like. Not that I speak from experience...
Spray bottle of StarSan
Bottling wand - cheap and makes bottling much easier.
Benchtop cappers are more expensive than the grip ones, but are easier to use, quicker and safer. Or just find swingtop bottles like Grolsch.
Clear plastic 500ml bottle (old Coke/water bottle etc) for a bottling sample to allow you to check carbonation and (less relevantly here) colour/clarity.
Spare fermenting bucket - they're cheap and it's always useful to have one clean to eg measure grain into, dump the finished bag of grist into, soak stuff for sterilising in etc. And then you can always use it for fermenting a split batch to test different factors - I almost never just brew an entire batch on its own.

Extract so far, he said his first few were awful but he got the hang of it by the end and ended up with some nice simple ales, so hopefully that experience will help. Nice idea with the plan B, I'm hoping we won't need it but will definitely get a plan in place!

Yeah someone above mentioned a sparge to fill the rest up (have I got that right?), think we'll head down that route in order to still get a decent amount without risking boil overs. No-one mentioned the antifoam yet, will look into that. I'm assuming it's transparent enough to not affect the brew itself?

In terms of water, I've had a look at the water report for my area and it's a lot of information to take in, I'm more than a rookie in terms of water chemistry so I'll have to do some reading. My girlfriend has a BRITA water filter, would that be beneficial at all? It'll take quite a few rounds of refilling as it's not very large but if you reckon it'll help I don't mind the extra labour.

Do you have any tips for getting fresh hops that have been stored cold in London? I don't think our brew day will be for another couple of weeks at least, potentially longer, so we might run over into the 2017 harvest sales.

That's interesting! I'd read about 1318 but thought Conan was still preferred for this style. I'm starting to realise that the beer brewing forums are much like the music engineering forums, tonnes of good information but everyone has their own theories that sometimes get presented as fact (although I will say, this seems to be the friendliest, and most open to sharing information, community I've got involved with, so thank you guys). I'll also have a look at the Fermentis yeasts, this is all very new to me so I might stick with simple for now but it's noted down!

Encouraging to hear about the temperature, I'm yet to find the perfect place but I think possible under the dining table in the living room might be the best shout. It's a pretty constant temperature and my girlfriend won't shout at me for having it in the bedroom

I'm not too sure on the efficiency thing yet, I guess I'll have to see what comes out at the end of the first brew! I'll be sure to keep everyone updated on here with how it goes.

I'd already looked at the autosiphon! I read somewhere about how sucking the pipe is a perfect way to introduce bacteria into your beer. The heatresistant gloves are also a great shout, these are exactly the bits I need to be told about before the day as I probably wouldn't have thought of that. All the rest are on the list too.

Thanks so much for all the great info, excited to get going now!

 

[jalc6927]

This may have been covered but if not, search the online brew stores to see if any of them have a kit similar to the NEIPA, you want and try it first as a partial/ extract. This will give you the best chance to be successful and in reality the difference between partial/ biab/ AG is small especially for a new brewer, there's always time to be a "beer snob" down the road, lol

 

[SJMC]

Quick update!

Bought a 30 litre Cygnet water boiler from a top bloke called Nick who was very generous and also gave me a great deal on some other equipment (if you're reading this - thanks mate!).

Now I have a 30 litre water boiler (with grill at the bottom to prevent burning), a bottling bucket with tap installed, a bottle filler, a BIAB bag and hop socks.

Now just need to get a primary fermentation bucket, thermometer, hydrometer, some bottles with caps and a bottle capper, a good brewing spoon and the ingredients! Although I am considering maybe kegging instead of bottling now, is there a good cheap way to do so? I'm not talking about a proper Corny keg setup yet, are there any viable cheaper options?

Thanks for everyone's help so far! Brew day is looming!

 

[bleme]

There is a good article about the 5-liter mini kegs. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/pros-cons-5l-kegs.html

You could get a carbonation cap and use 2-liter PET bottles.

You could do something like the Party Pig. http://www.homebrewing.org/Party-Pig-Beer-Dispenser_p_845.html

Or the Beer Box http://www.homebrewing.org/Beer-Box-kit_p_5083.html

All that said, I chose to go with a basic keg setup. I also have some carbonation caps but I only use those for homemade soda or for traveling with my beer.

 

[SJMC]

There is a good article about the 5-liter mini kegs. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/pros-cons-5l-kegs.html

You could get a carbonation cap and use 2-liter PET bottles.

You could do something like the Party Pig. http://www.homebrewing.org/Party-Pig-Beer-Dispenser_p_845.html

Or the Beer Box http://www.homebrewing.org/Beer-Box-kit_p_5083.html

All that said, I chose to go with a basic keg setup. I also have some carbonation caps but I only use those for homemade soda or for traveling with my beer.

Thanks bleme! I did some googling based on what you suggested and somehow found the collections of 500ml PET plastic bottles you can buy, 40 bottles for £10! I've got a bottling bucket so I'll just add the priming sugar in there and condition in the PET bottles.

Also heard it's good because you can check when the carbonation is done by feeling if the bottles are hard or need a little more time! A part of me feels like it's too good to be true for £10, any cons to that setup or should it work fine?

 

[bleme]

Those will work fine. As soon as they are carbed up, put one in the fridge. It needs at least a day to chill. 3 days is better, but nobody waits that long to try their first beer.

 

[mattdee1]

I've got about 2 cases of 500ml PET bottles and honestly, I love them. The only downside--if there is one--is that they look kind of cheesy. But if you pour your beer into a glass (as you should) then who cares?

As for starting recipe, I'm kind of inclined to be in the "brew whatever you feel like" camp. If you prepare yourself with basic process knowledge ahead of time--meaning, you proceed in an organized deliberate manner rather than always trying to hack, guess, and react your way out of perceived traps, etc.--the beer will almost certainly be good.

In fact, the "keep it simple" advice might actually work against you. To make a "successful" blonde ale, for example, you need to do everything right or you will get annoying off-flavors. With a hop-bomb, you can hide the rough edges. Bottom line, you're probably going to want to try all kinds of different styles eventually, so just pick one and go.

 

[SJMC]

Those will work fine. As soon as they are carbed up, put one in the fridge. It needs at least a day to chill. 3 days is better, but nobody waits that long to try their first beer.

40 500ml PET bottles have been ordered! As well as all the remaining equipment and ingredients for the first batch. Brew day is close!

 

[Kharnynb]

good luck, print a step by step guide in your own words, so you can follow it and at the same time get more familiar with your own personal process.

I do something like this with all my brews:

West vleteren 8 clone 10.9.2017

Malts
4.2 kg Pilsner
1 kg pale ale

Hops
Northdown 29g @ 60 minutes
Hallertau mittelfrue 29g @ 30 minutes
Styrian Goldings 14g @ 15 minutes

Mash
use 19 liters of water.
Mash in for 60 minutes @ 65 degrees c
step for 10 minutes @ 72 degrees
Mashout 15 minutes @ 77 degrees

sparge with 10 liters

Boil for 90 minutes with hops as prev.
Add sugars at 15 minutes.

 

[SJMC]

Mash is in progress! Think we've got the process down, hoping it all goes swimmingly, beer is coming!

 

[Dcpcooks]

Good luck sir!