Going to fire up my second brew

[Birdskull]

Me and a pal recently (3 weeks ago) brewed a 5gal batch of Cooper's IPA. Foolish as we were, we followed the recipe on the can. In addition, we did a bunch of other rookie mistakes. It's still in the bottle, so we haven't had the chance to try it yet, but I suspect it's less than perfect...

During the holidays, I've read up on brewing with extract, and I want our next batch to be a little bit more "professional". Since this is our second time brewing, we'd like some help pointing out errors or problems with our recipe and planned procedure. There is a high chance that we haven't thought of everything. Hopefully, we're not completely lost with this stuff.

This is our recipe

Is there anything in that recipe that looks strange, or off?

As for our procedure, we plan on mostly following howtobrew.com's "Brewing Your First Beer With Malt Extract" with a minor adjustment. Yes, I know we should keep it simple the first few times, but we're idiots.

Some questions we would be very happy if someone could help us with:

- What we want to do is some first wort hopping. After boiling the 3gals of water and mixing in the DME we plan to use, I thought it would be a good idea to add 35 grams of Ahtanum and leave it (covered) for an hour. Is it really a good idea, or does this reflect on me being an idiot?

- We plan on cooling our wort by packing ice cubes around the bottom (we have no other practical means to do it). Are there any other great ways to cool it quickly? Like putting som cubes in a plastic bag (sanitized) and dumping right in the wort?

- Aeration: Wort needs to be cool, and it doesn't matter if the yeast is added or not. Right...?

Thanks in advance for any help we might get!

 

[joyceman]

Im only on my 5th batch but here my input...

Not sure what you mean by the first question... You should use hops in your boil, its pretty much a necessity (unless you are using prehopped extract). The wort needs to remain boiling while hops are added for a period of time depending on the bitterness you want in the beer. If you're talking dry hopping, that a different story.

Without a chiller, the best option is an ice bath. Use a tub or a sink filled with half water and a good amount of ice (ive use 3-4 frozen pop bottles) and some salt. Ive never tried icing the wort directly.

So for as aerating, I have only done it when the wort is cool, and usually by pouring the wort directly onto the toppoff water, that seems the best way to make sure you get a good mix with the wort (get your wort down to 90F and mix it with an equal amount of refrigerated water at 50F, after mixing your wort is at pitching temp). I'll stir it hard after that, pitch, and stir again.

 

[Birdskull]

Thanks for the reply!

Palmer explains first wort hopping here:
http://howtobrew.com/section1/chapter5-1.html

I don't know if I should do it though, since we do an extract brew, and the wort isn't slowly coming from a lauter tun.

 

[ZombieBrew83]

I developed a pretty efficient method for cooling my wort. I developed this from information I found throughout this forum:

I plug my sink with a little paper towel so that the sink can still drain slowly. I fill the sink with cold tap water and dip my kettle into the water right after flame out. The slow drain allows the water to cycle through the sink while slowly adding more cool water from the tap. I also add about a gallon of sterilized ice from those handy ziplock/glad plastic containers. With the ice in the kettle, I swish the pot back and forth gently to help mix the wort and the chill water in the sink. I can get my boiling wort down to ~70F in around 15 minutes this way.

I prepare the sterilized ice a couple nights before brew day by boiling the water for 20 minutes and then pouring it (after it has cooled!) into the ziplock containers soaked in StarSan. I put the sealed containers in the freezer.

Yeah, it adds more preparation work before brew day, but it is the most effective way I could figure to cool my wort. My kitchen faucet is not able to accept the connections for an immersion chiller and I am in an apartment now so I don't have access to a garden hose.

 

[zeekage]

- What we want to do is some first wort hopping. After boiling the 3gals of water and mixing in the DME we plan to use, I thought it would be a good idea to add 35 grams of Ahtanum and leave it (covered) for an hour. Is it really a good idea, or does this reflect on me being an idiot?

This isn't really first wort hopping, since it's not hte "first wort" out of the mash/lauter tun and in fact the boil is already completed. What you're doing is actually a flame out hop addition, and then letting it sit. You can do it for sure, It's just not FWH I don't believe, and I think the resulting flavor/aroma/bitterness will be different than a FWH. Also, if you're going to let the wort steep after boiling you need to be careful of sanitation. Part of the reason for chilling fast is to get the yeast in there as soon as possible so that they can out pace any sort of bacteria that end up in there. There is lots of info about No Chill brewing, where you let it chill naturally but it's done in closed sanitary vessels to protect against that as much as possible.

- Aeration: Wort needs to be cool, and it doesn't matter if the yeast is added or not. Right...?

Usually aeration happens before the yeast. Sometimes it is done again at a set time after the yeast have been pitched, but only in addition to before/immediately after yeast pitching. For most beers doing it before you pitch the yeast is best since the purpose is to promote yeast reproduction.

 

[Birdskull]

Thanks for good answers! I think we'll steer away from my "version" of first wort.. And that chilling-idea was something I hoped was possible!

 

[Ramitt]

You would get very little bitterness from a flame out addition. I suppose you could pre -steep the hops in the water before boiling as it comes to a boil and somewhat simutlate FWH, not sure if the water will react wth the hops the same as wort though.