Hey guys, I'm new to home brewing and just joined the forum. Nice to find such a great community for this!
This is my third brew, the previous two having been from kits that involved steeping grains and then boiling with extract. I'd like to get into all-grain soon, but this time I'm going the same approach with steeping grains and extract, except with a recipe I devised myself after a lot of research online.
I'm currently brewing as I type this! Being the overly-eager person I am, I wanted to get experimental right away. I cut up three medium-sized sweet potatoes and baked them in the oven at 350F for about a half hour, until they were soft. I didn't skin them. I put them in the water (about 4 gallons, split between two 3 gallon stock pots), and let them soak as the grains steeped for a half hour at ~155F. Then I removed the sweet potatoes and set them aside.
I used:
1lb Crystal 60L
1lb CaraRed
2oz Light Roasted Barley
I'm going to add an ounce of Chinook hops once this stuff comes to a boil, then top it off with an ounce of Cascade towards the end! As usual, there's 6lbs of light malt extract going in there too.
For extra sweet potato flavor, I'm going to put the chunks of sweet potato in a paint-straining bag (what I used to steep the grains) and boil for the last few minutes. After flame-out I'm going to add a few cinnamon sticks and pitch. I plan on dry-hopping with just a half ounce of each hops after transferring to secondary (I'm a hop fiend!).
I'll keep you guys updated as things turn out, but I was eager to start posting here asap. Feel free to offer suggestions as I am definitely still in the beginning stages of learning.
This is my third brew, the previous two having been from kits that involved steeping grains and then boiling with extract. I'd like to get into all-grain soon, but this time I'm going the same approach with steeping grains and extract, except with a recipe I devised myself after a lot of research online.
I'm currently brewing as I type this! Being the overly-eager person I am, I wanted to get experimental right away. I cut up three medium-sized sweet potatoes and baked them in the oven at 350F for about a half hour, until they were soft. I didn't skin them. I put them in the water (about 4 gallons, split between two 3 gallon stock pots), and let them soak as the grains steeped for a half hour at ~155F. Then I removed the sweet potatoes and set them aside.
I used:
1lb Crystal 60L
1lb CaraRed
2oz Light Roasted Barley
I'm going to add an ounce of Chinook hops once this stuff comes to a boil, then top it off with an ounce of Cascade towards the end! As usual, there's 6lbs of light malt extract going in there too.
For extra sweet potato flavor, I'm going to put the chunks of sweet potato in a paint-straining bag (what I used to steep the grains) and boil for the last few minutes. After flame-out I'm going to add a few cinnamon sticks and pitch. I plan on dry-hopping with just a half ounce of each hops after transferring to secondary (I'm a hop fiend!).
I'll keep you guys updated as things turn out, but I was eager to start posting here asap. Feel free to offer suggestions as I am definitely still in the beginning stages of learning.