LME, DME, a Partial Mash and Hops OH MY!!! (a newbie manifesto)

[crucial]

Ok, gonna do a quick introduction...

Been a US Sailor for little over 12 years now, figured I love to cook, I love to drink beer, why not start brewing my own beer. Now these are the 'brew notes' I've taken in a little log book, if you will, over my first two brews...none of these brews has even seen a bottle yet so I'll update this thread with the notes from that adventure after I cross that bridge...

2-19-11 First Brew Day...Northern Brewers "waldo lake amber"

Ingredients:
1.5lbs wyermann carared
.5lbs melanoidin
3.15lbs amber malt ext
3.15lbs golden malt ext
1lb corn sugar

1oz cascade hops (first wort hop)
1oz magnum (60 min)
1oz centennial(0 min)
(all hops pellets)

Pretty straight forward for my first beer I should say. I have a 22L pot that I usually do low-country boils in for me and the wife at least once a month and that has been a godsend...multitask kitchen tools for the win!!!

This brew kit came with specialty grains that you have to steep from start until 170 degrees or 20 minutes...I guess I cheated and left 'em in there for 30 minutes while the water was creeping up to 150. My stove doesn't like to boil 2.5 gallons of water that quickly apparently...remind me to tell the wife that with the kitchen remodel I want a viking...

Once to a boil I added the second hops (I added the first hops right away...don't know if that was a mistake or not but I should find out in about six weeks LOL) I then turned off the gas added the LME, no boilovers no nothing, turned the heat back on and boiled away for 60 minutes...

During that 60 minutes, I had my "handy dandy sanitization bucket" Star-san + 5 gallons of water...I had everything in that bucket at one point or another...I think my dog Hiro and even my 1 year old daughter made it into the bucket at least once during the boil. I'm a lazy bastage so no rinse = win in my book, one less step.

Oh yeah about my yeast, I purchased the Wyeast 1450 Denny's favorite 50 (I think they use it in their Moons Over My Hammy Sammich but I'm not too sure) it was a slap pack...so I slapped it...a few times...wasn't sure about teh breakage...let it rise till it could rise/puff no more...then I made a 1 liter starter...2 cups of water/1 cup extra light DME and let it cool to 70 and added the yeast...then put the nice little foam stopper in my graduated cylinder and let her sit for ~36 hours on the counter...

Ok, so boil is done...I cooled off the wort in the sink with an ice bath took about 25 minutes of stirring and adding ice (went through about 15lbs of ice pretty quickly.) I then funneled the wort from the pot to my 6 gallon better bottle. I let it slosh and splash around...it did need to aerate and all...once it was all in there, I shook the hell out of it...everyone in the house was looking at me funny...SWMBO, mini-SWMBO, and my two dogs who must be obeyed...

yeast was pitched...I know I was using a slap pack but whatever, it seems that the yeast feast and orgy before ever making it to the better bottle made my brew prettty airlock active in about 2 hours.
Overnight, a thick krausen was formed and this think was belchin off gas worse than SWMBO after taco night.

Day 3: bubbling has slowed a bit but it's still a bubble every second or two...
This waiting crap is gonna kill me...

Day 4: I'm gonna need more fermentors soon...this is fun

Day 6: SG reading @ 70degrees 1.021 kinda looks like a cloudy amber ale, kinda tastes like one to. Only difference here is there is a big alcohol kick on the back end of the sampling from my hydrometer tube...

Day 9: SG reading @ 70 degrees 1.015 lighter in color, smells like a decent amber, still very cloudy and still a nice alcohol kick to the face on the back end, 'amber hoppy' flavor there on the front end but it's a little light.

Day 12: SG reading @ 70 degrees 1.010 and been there for the last couple. racked to secondary to make room for my oatmeal stout I'm planning this weekend...yeah...I really need more fermenters...

Technicals to this point:
Primary: 19FEB11
OG: 1.065
Secondary: 2MAR11
FG:not yet
ABV:not yet
Bottled: not yet


Ok, those are the notes I took so far for my amber...here in a minute I'm gonna be posting the notes from my Oatmeal Stout (which is a partial mash)

Best advice I can give to ANY new brewer is
1.) READ
2.) READ
3.) when you think you have your process down in your head READ SOME MORE
4.) do the preps BEFORE you brew and try to be ready for any event that could go wrong...the better your prep...I believe the better your brew will be...

 

[crucial]

5MAR11 Northern Brewers Partial Mash "Oatmeal Stout" kit

Kit Ingredients:
2.5lbs Maris-Otter
.5lbs Black Malt
.5lbs Simpsons Dark Crystal
.5lbs flaked oats
3.15lbs dark malt syrup
1lb briess dark dme

Hops:
2oz US Fuggle pellets (60mins)

Yeast:
Wyeast 1945 NB Neo Britannia


Let me first start off by saying this thing was a freaking monster, not because of anything in particular going on/wrong per say, just because this was only my SECOND batch of homebrew ever and I was doing a partial mash.

From the day my first homebrew (the amber above was in primary) was racked, I've been obsessing about this beer and the process to make it.

That being said...besides some mash temp swings...and I'm only talking about +/- 6 degrees max...doing this on the stovetop via Deathbrewers sticky made it a piece of cake!!! I was prepared with heated water and cold water to help minimize the huge fluxes while I was dialing in the gas on the stove.

What made this brew a little have a little more 'pressure' on top of it was two buds that came over to see how it was done and generally just have a few beers and shoot the BS around...

I started the mashing process about 30 minutes before they arrived at 9am. (I have a little daughter so I have to go with the early brew days). By time they got here, I was already steady on temp of about 155 degrees. Per the Deathbrewer thread, we batch sparged it. I wasn't sure how to check for proper conversion, so I just tasted the mash pot wort and it was very sweet. So I'm thinking it was all good. I have since learned that iodine can be used to test this.

I guess I should also have recorded a pre boil gravity. But I think this may be more for AG brewers so they can determine efficiency and I think it would be pretty difficult to get an accurate efficiency calculation from a partial mash/partial boil anyways....

Started the boil, all went well...added all the extracts...my friend was the one pouring and I was stirring...(oh yeah, with your LME, put it in some hot water in the container so it's easier to pour).

Never once did we even come close to boilover, the aroma in the house from this was heavenly...though SWMBO said it smelled bad...I think her nose is broken...

Did the whole ice bath thing again...only 10lbs used to get it down to 70 degrees...

Again, funnel, splish splash, jiggly gooo, and shaking like a paint mixer, pitched the yeast from my 1 liter starter...(I'm beginning to think that starters are the way to go no matter what, take the time and resources to do it and just knock it out...you know you have good yeast and they may have popped out some baby beasties so your count when you pitch should be pretty good.)

We all then went out to eat (Jacksonville, FL people this is for you!!!) we went to Kickbacks Gastropub...easily the BEST beer selection and bar food in JAX....EASILY...if you get a sammich/burger...for your side get the mac and cheese and thank me later...after lunch we went to Just Brew It where I picked up a couple of things including a new fermenter and stuff...then went to Bold City Brewery (easily located right next door to the LHBS) grabbed a pint and a couple of growlers...

Got home about ~3.5 hours later nice krausen starting to form on top...active bubbling in the lock.

Day 2: Nice layer of Krausen, I'm digging the fact that I can see the whole thing kind of 'breathing' and gas out the lock pretty bad ass as well.

So for now, I'm relaxing, not worrying and having myself a local micro brew!!!

Technicals so far:
Primary Fermentation: 5Mar11
OG: 1.058 (was supposed to be around 1.045 dunno what happened here)
Sec: probably not
FG: not yet
ABV: not yet
Bottled: not yet


I know I haven't posted that much...but I want to give a shout out to 3 members who have been absolutely instrumental in making my first 2 brews, what I see at this point, as successful. Those people are in no particular order:

Deathbrewer
Revvy
I can't remember his SN but he has the Indian as his avatar...