Second brew

[soccerguy83]

I finally got around to brewing my second batch yesterday. It was a West Coast Imperial IPA. The wife is due in mid August, so this was her pick as she is an IPA lover!

See my first brew here.

Everything went very smoothly, no problems at all with the brew-day. I had a late LME addition that caused a second hot break that I wasn't prepared for and almost boiled over, but I saved that one right at the last second by cutting the flame. It took forever to get the wort chilled as it was a very hot day out yesterday. I might have to look at an inline plate chiller to throw in a cooler full of ice water before it goes to the copper chiller in the wort for future summer time brews.

Only thing that was a bit off was that my OG was supposed to be 1.086 and it came out to be 1.073. This is the second time I have had an OG ~0.010 off from expected. I started the brew with 6.5 gallons of water, I think the next brew I do I will start with about 5.5 gallons and if I go below 5 at flame out add what I need to bump me back up to 5.

Only 4 hours after pitching the yeast I already had bubbling out the blow off. This morning I had a nice foam cap going on in the carboy!

This brew was much more intense than my first one, I got to try several new techniques; First Wort Hopping (FWH), Late LME addition, Hopstand, dry hopping, etc. I'm really looking forward to this one, it smelled great and hopefully will taste just as good!

 

[eadavis80]

How much wort ended up in the fermenter? If you ended up with about 5.5 gallons in the fermenter because you started with 6.5 (1 gallon of boil off per hour is pretty normal) then that would account for your lower OG. Hope your wife enjoys the brew (and you do too). It's always fun to try SOMETHING new each brew, I find. Congrats on the forthcoming baby n' brew

 

[soccerguy83]

I'm not sure exactly on final volumes, I just know it was more than 5 gal as I measured where 5 gal was on my spoon and it was above that. This one had quite a bit of hop in the bottom at the end of it so I wasn't able to transfer all into the carboy, so I couldn't get an accurate reading there. I need to get a gal marked stick for brew day haha.

I would agree though that my low OG was from having too much volume. Thanks for backing that thought up!

Thank you very much for the congrats on the baby, we are very excited!

 

[Shawnanigans]

I had the same problem with an IPA I did this weekend. Ended up at 1.054 instead of the 1.072 target. It's the first beer I've missed the OG on since getting beersmith dialed in. I'm writing it off to older grains. The LHBS went out of business a couple months ago and had a everything must go sale so I bought up everything I could.

 

[ncbrewer]

Cobgrats on the second brew. And trying some new techniques can keep things interesting.

 

[soccerguy83]

Now reading up on dry hopping; duration, temp, if into primary or secondary, rack on top or add after racking, etc.

Thinking at the moment:
Primary 2-3 weeks
Rack to secondary add dry hop pellets on top 5-7 days
Cold crash
Keg
gas
Beer

 

[kh54s10]

Now reading up on dry hopping; duration, temp, if into primary or secondary, rack on top or add after racking, etc.

Thinking at the moment:
Primary 2-3 weeks
Rack to secondary add dry hop pellets on top 5-7 days
Cold crash
Keg
gas
Beer

This is OK, but you can just wait for FG, add your dry hops to your primary for 5-7 days, cold crash, then package.