bmooney33
Member
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2012
- Messages
- 13
- Reaction score
- 0
hey there everyone.
first off i've gotta say, this site is an awesome resource for pretty much everything homebrew! the DIY suggestions are top notch, and the information stream is seemingly endless. i love it!
so, a bit about myself... i've been brewing for only a couple months now, mostly with a buddy of mine, a fellow novice who has a degree in mechanical engineering, so i tend to let him do most of the calculations.
so far in this little time, i've done 4 brews.
1- Honey amber extract kit with another buddy of mine. this was my intro day to brewing, and i had no clue about ANYTHING nevermind the fact that we should have a hydrometer or strain the wert, or well.... no idea about anything really.... i wasn't there for the bottling process or any of that, so i honestly have no clue what took place during my time away from the brew
-a brief back story to this first brew.... my buddy and i both have pregnant wives, due within a week of each other (in Feb.) so we thought it would be cool to each brew a batch of beer, and i'd make up labels to go on the bottles with the babys' names and our family crests, or something cool like that.... so yea... that's pretty much why i started brewing, now i'm hooked!
2- partial mash american IPA extract kit-this went much smoother got the directions online, and just followed them step by step. had an OG of .050, and it was in the primary a little over a week, and yesterday when i put it into the carboy we were at about .010-.012 and better yet, it smelled and tasted like BEER. so that was a big confidence boost for the 2 of us. so, now we wait another week or so and this IPA will be kegged and ready to rock.
3- german weiss extract kit- i'm a moron and got the hops pellets mixed up and put the finishing bag in first and the bittering in second.... yea, good one brendan.... so, we'll see how that comes out.....
4- all grain blueberry wheat-brewed yesterday. so, we're all excited... all grain brew day! yeehaw!! 10 minutes in, the grain mill snaps a gear, yea... not cool... so we went with the rolling pin technique. which appears to not have worked as well as we hoped because the calculations after the mash tun gave us an efficiency of about 50%, so we added about a pound of dry malt extract hoping that the added sugar would help us in the fermentation process. we also boiled for an additional half hour and didn't add any water afterwards (bringing us under 5 gal.) so... time will tell on this one... but the all grain experience was a lot of fun, and it's always interesting what little hiccups occur along the way....
i don't have the recipe in front of me for the exacts, but we shot from the hip (and used our free trial of beersmith) to create this pretty simple recipe
-8lbs wheat malt
-1lb caramel crystal malt
-.75oz cluster hops
-1oz hallertauer hops
-1lb dry malt extract
-blueberry extract will be added right before bottling...
like i said, i don't have the exact #s in front of me as far as the name of the wheat malt, or the SRM or acid of the hops. but that's the bare bones recipe
with the low efficiency and even with the added malt extract, we only ended up with an OG of .030.... so it looks like this is going to be a rather low alc/vol beer... but a great learning experience. only one way to learn how to swim, right?
if anyone has any suggestions, i'd love to hear them... not breaking the grain mill is a pretty obvious one lol
thanks
~Brendan
first off i've gotta say, this site is an awesome resource for pretty much everything homebrew! the DIY suggestions are top notch, and the information stream is seemingly endless. i love it!
so, a bit about myself... i've been brewing for only a couple months now, mostly with a buddy of mine, a fellow novice who has a degree in mechanical engineering, so i tend to let him do most of the calculations.
so far in this little time, i've done 4 brews.
1- Honey amber extract kit with another buddy of mine. this was my intro day to brewing, and i had no clue about ANYTHING nevermind the fact that we should have a hydrometer or strain the wert, or well.... no idea about anything really.... i wasn't there for the bottling process or any of that, so i honestly have no clue what took place during my time away from the brew
-a brief back story to this first brew.... my buddy and i both have pregnant wives, due within a week of each other (in Feb.) so we thought it would be cool to each brew a batch of beer, and i'd make up labels to go on the bottles with the babys' names and our family crests, or something cool like that.... so yea... that's pretty much why i started brewing, now i'm hooked!
2- partial mash american IPA extract kit-this went much smoother got the directions online, and just followed them step by step. had an OG of .050, and it was in the primary a little over a week, and yesterday when i put it into the carboy we were at about .010-.012 and better yet, it smelled and tasted like BEER. so that was a big confidence boost for the 2 of us. so, now we wait another week or so and this IPA will be kegged and ready to rock.
3- german weiss extract kit- i'm a moron and got the hops pellets mixed up and put the finishing bag in first and the bittering in second.... yea, good one brendan.... so, we'll see how that comes out.....
4- all grain blueberry wheat-brewed yesterday. so, we're all excited... all grain brew day! yeehaw!! 10 minutes in, the grain mill snaps a gear, yea... not cool... so we went with the rolling pin technique. which appears to not have worked as well as we hoped because the calculations after the mash tun gave us an efficiency of about 50%, so we added about a pound of dry malt extract hoping that the added sugar would help us in the fermentation process. we also boiled for an additional half hour and didn't add any water afterwards (bringing us under 5 gal.) so... time will tell on this one... but the all grain experience was a lot of fun, and it's always interesting what little hiccups occur along the way....
i don't have the recipe in front of me for the exacts, but we shot from the hip (and used our free trial of beersmith) to create this pretty simple recipe
-8lbs wheat malt
-1lb caramel crystal malt
-.75oz cluster hops
-1oz hallertauer hops
-1lb dry malt extract
-blueberry extract will be added right before bottling...
like i said, i don't have the exact #s in front of me as far as the name of the wheat malt, or the SRM or acid of the hops. but that's the bare bones recipe
with the low efficiency and even with the added malt extract, we only ended up with an OG of .030.... so it looks like this is going to be a rather low alc/vol beer... but a great learning experience. only one way to learn how to swim, right?
if anyone has any suggestions, i'd love to hear them... not breaking the grain mill is a pretty obvious one lol
thanks
~Brendan
