first time with nugget and falconer's flight

14# vienna
10oz honey malt

1oz nugget @60
.33oz FF @ 15
.33 FF @ 10
.33 FF @ 5

going to be a low mash since it's freezing outside and i want to keep sweetness in check. pitching a large amount of wlp007

OG: 1.061
FG: 1.012
IBU: 46
ABV: 6.3

any comments, tips or concerns? i also have some amarillo and simcoe in the fridge.

welp. resting at 148 right now. i think my thermometer is off a bit. i pull some kernels out and boiled them for a bit and added them back to try to bring my temp up. went up "6 degrees" to the now 148. just going to leave it at this point. i was aiming for 150 but this should work out.

btw it's not too late to call an audible on the hops.

Nugget is great for bittering, also very nice flavor and aroma. I use nugget in alot of recipes. Never used FF but should make a good ipa.

hoping for a bit more conversion here. vorlauf is at 1.058 corrected.

racked to keg. this was a mess. broken thermometer wouldn't read over 140's even after boiling water additions. OG 1.054, FG 1.010. i've added 1# of DME and a half # of sugar to adjust this mess.

from tasting i've learned:

1. Nugget is nice for bittering. It's excessive in this application because of the poor conversion but it still doesn't come off horrible. Very dry/astringent/papery bitterness up front but quickly washes away too. If this had turned out I would think the Nugget would've been a great success.

2. A small amount of honey in a dry beer is a good thing. Tasting with out carbonation I don't pick up any direct honey flavors but there is a gentle sweetness to this. Highly recommend this for anyone looking to add sweetness back to a beer without adding caramel flavors.

3. 1oz of late hops isn't enough for any beer. I whirpooled with an ounce of simcoe to get some late hop love back and i'm still lacking a bit from first impressions. I'm hoping the carbonation will shake something to life.

I've added an ounce of cascade to the keg in a spice ball. another attempt to bring some late hop to this beer. cool thing is this spice ball floats.

Spice Ball

So here we are about two weeks after kegging. Been drinking this one all week. What I've noticed this week is that the bitterness is fading fast. Early on the nugget character was front and center and pretty abusive on the tongue. Almost turned me off of it. At this point the bitterness is pretty balanced and the nugget spice/character is drastically improved. There's still plenty of bitterness hanging around as well as a fair amount of nugget in the nose.

I think only 1oz of aroma hops was a flaw with this recipe. I should've gone for 2. I think had that adjustment been made I'd have a pretty nice beer right now which is pretty good since i was flying blind the whole time.