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!
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!