Simple pilsner

I don't know what i'm doing but from reading and researching, this is how i think i can somewhat achieve the beer i want. One of my favorite beer is mirror pond pale ale (not that i'm trying to make that)...

Boiled 6lbs of Briess pilsner LME for 60min with 2oz of cascade hop pellets and 2 cups of corn sugar

Chilled and transferred to carboy, topped off to 5gla with cold water, threw a package of Safale us-05 in there and 1oz Simcoe whole leaf hops. I'm going to let it sit for 3 weeks at room temp. and bottle with a 4oz corn sugar solution and let it condition for a month.

I'm i doing anything horribly wrong? My main question is did i use a normal amount of ingredients, hops especially? I refuse to follow a recipe as always...

 

Any water in the boil?

 

^^ agree with Lefou^^

The best I can say is it will be beer. It may even be drinkable.

I don't even know where to start. Learn some more and try again.

 

I'll start with the hopping. The bittering is a bit high.
If you used 2oz of Simcoe for the whole hour, you've practically doubled the minimum bitterness for the style. I use Brewer's Friend free calculators for the most part and like to keep my ingredients close to the accepted range.

 

Oh, wait ... Cascade for one hour and one ounce of Simcoe for aroma? My mistake.
THAT'S within range, or just over. Have to admit, though, my amusement got the better of my attention span.

Had I done it differently, I would've ditched the corn sugar and just used a half pound more LME... but you know, that corn sugar will help dry it out, and the sugar is what bugged me. It may work, but you may get a "hot" beer that needs to sit and condition longer.
Only you will know.

 

I haven't run the ingredients thru a calculator, but I think it will be fine. It probably won't be great. How much water did you use for the boil?

If I can make a suggestion for next time, if you're using LME or DME to brew a light-colored beer, just boil for a half an hour and use a little more bittering hops to compensate. A calculator (I like brewersfriend.com) will really help here.

 

i used 4.5gal for the boil, the topped it off with another 0.5gal in the carboy

 

My advice: Go on goolgle, search for free e-book "how to brew" by John Palmer.

Then read it. Happy brewing

 

Don't mind them too much. But do a little searching on here and see what works and don't. And don't be afraid to ask questions

 

I made a bunch of small batches of beer fairly similarly to that.

I boiled 1lb of wheat DME and added the hops to make 1 gallon beers, fermenting with US-05. The only difference was that I used 1oz of german hops as flavor/aroma additions at the end of the boil.

I wouldn't have added the corn sugar in the boil personally but I'm not quite sure how that'll affect your beer.

 

So i started drinking the beer, it's very dark and a bit sweet for what i was going for, what is a 30min boil going to do instead of a 60min?

 

Thanks, what is a "hot" beer? And what does "dry it out" means? Higher alcohol content? If yes that's what i was trying to do with the corn sugar...

 

The wort won't darken as much (and you'll energy and time.) The malt extract has already been boiled.

 

It has only been 2 weeks since you started this thread. What exactly have you started drinking? When did you bottle it? Is it carbonated yet?

 

oh yeah i started the beer before the thread, 3 weeks of fermentation, conditioned for 10 days so far, it's carbonated, many but very small bubbles and foamy thick head (surprisingly), it's delicious but next time i'm going to try the 30min boil and extra hops for sure.

 

well if she gets ya drunk bud keep brewing!


jesus fckin christ

 

I'm a HUGE fan of not having to think too much. There are some great kits at numerous different online brew stores; or even a local one. It's a great way to get started so you don't get discouraged, and/or go through a bunch of experiments that may or may not fail. Step by step instructions really take the hassle out of it. Once you perfect your process, move onto critiquing recipes to your liking. Just a thought.