Accidently brewed my first full-boil

[RogueVassar]

My wife took the kids yesterday and suggested that I should brew. I didn't think twice and jumped at it since I had recently gotten the ingredients for the 60 minute IPA Dogfish-clone from "Extreme Brewing." (I know there's a similar recipe on these boards but decided to go with this one first)

Luckily I did a quick read of the instructions to make sure there wasn't anything tricky and step one is to boil 6 gallons of water. I stare at my 5 gallon pot and the clock wondering how to handle it. Decided to run over to my neighbors and borrow their stockpot and split the batch up into two pots. There was a bit of craziness and my first boil over in the smaller pot (still cleaning that up!) but otherwise it seemed to be a success. I had wanted to do a full boil but assumed that I would have more than five minutes notice beforehand.

 

[Quietandsimple]

I know about the two pot boil craziness. I had my six gallon stock pot going, but I had miscalculated the displacement of all the malt I added, so I had to split it off to another two gallon stock pot. Turns out the two gallon stock pot was too full, so I had to use another sauce pan. Thank god my fiancee was home and we had fun brewing the batch together.

I've heard that doing full boils enhances the flavors of the beer, so I'm excited about mine, and excited for you. An IPA is a fairly strong beer from what I understand, did you rig a blowoff tube for your fermenter?

 

[RogueVassar]

My wife dropped our two kids off (1 & 3) just as I was steeping the specialty grains and she had to leave immediately. So I also had people here but they weren't able to help much (except licking the malt caps clean).

An IPA is a fairly strong beer from what I understand, did you rig a blowoff tube for your fermenter?

It's the fourth IPA that I've made and I haven't had any issues with them yet. I'm using dry yeast and it's 63 degrees in my house right now so I'm not expecting the yeasties will get too excited. Even so, the bucket's in our bathtub that we never use so wouldn't be too bad if it did blow up. Especially compared to the stories of geysers in a coat closet....

 

[Quietandsimple]

Sounds like you're all set up with the bathtub. I was very lucky the young lady was home. Our schedules are opposite, so I think the gods were smiling on my beer project by sending some help my way. Must be nice to be able to drop the house to 63. Down here in FL even in the winter I have to crank the AC to get the house to stay around 68.

 

[RogueVassar]

Must be nice to be able to drop the house to 63.

I don't think "drop" is the proper term in Michigan. Next you'll tell me you don't go out with a bucket to scoop up some snow to cool down your wort!

 

[Quietandsimple]

Snow? What's snow? Oh yeah, that powdery white stuff that would be super convenient to use a wort chiller. No, actually I had to buy almost $10 worth of ice to chill my wort. But to be fair, I did chill 10 gals of the stuff.

 

[GeorgeH]

I have a love/hate relationship with brewing in winter. It's easier to maintain fermentation temps and the ground water is great for my chiller, but since I got my propane burner I realized it's a lot colder in the garage than in the kitchen!

 

[Quietandsimple]

Cold is definitely relative here where I am. Colder in the garage might mean that it's 70 instead of 75 in the house. Using a propane burner and a wort chiller. This first time brewer is envious. I boiled on the stove, and cooled in the sink.

 

[jigidyjim]

My wife took the kids yesterday and suggested that I should brew. I didn't think twice and jumped at it since I had recently gotten the ingredients for the 60 minute IPA Dogfish-clone from "Extreme Brewing." (I know there's a similar recipe on these boards but decided to go with this one first)\

I know it's not the point of this thread - but I was going to try th e60 minute IPA clone next... any advice on how you decided to hop it? Did you drop a few pellets in every minute?

 

[RogueVassar]

I know it's not the point of this thread - but I was going to try th e60 minute IPA clone next... any advice on how you decided to hop it? Did you drop a few pellets in every minute?

Since I was home with the kids, I would say it was "sporadically hopped" rather than continuously hopped. I think if I was going to do it again, after mixing the hops together, I would have tried to put them in 6 equal piles and try to toss in a few pellets at a time and get through a pile in ten minutes.

 

[KFBass]

Snow? What's snow? Oh yeah, that powdery white stuff that would be super convenient to use a wort chiller. No, actually I had to buy almost $10 worth of ice to chill my wort. But to be fair, I did chill 10 gals of the stuff.

Never even thought to use snow for it! I could just go outside and drop the pot in a snowbank! For those of you not from Canada, imagine where the snow plough pushes all the snow from a parking lot into a small mountain at one end.

It's about -5C. warm here for january. Perfect for wort cooling.

keep everyone posted on that Recipe too! I read that book the other day and it had some interesting stuff in it.

 

[RogueVassar]

Never even thought to use snow for it! I could just go outside and drop the pot in a snowbank! For those of you not from Canada, imagine where the snow plough pushes all the snow from a parking lot into a small mountain at one end.

It's about -5C. warm here for january. Perfect for wort cooling.

With my previous batch, I tried just putting it in the snow bank and it actually didn't work well. It melted the snow touching it and then it basically insulated the pot. "Snowy" water allows for more circulation which cools it down faster. That being said, if it's -10 out, you can probably just place it outside but not in the snow (since the snow is 32 degrees even when it's -10 out).

 

[Quietandsimple]

The thermodynamics of snow.....that's plain mysterious to me. I walked outside today and the high was about 70.

On another note my beer stopped fermenting late last night and I couldn't help but pop open the fermenter today to smell it. Wow, it actually smells like stout. I know that my fermentation temperature was too high (there was no way that I could get the ambient temp in the house below 68 consistently), so I was afraid that my beer would have some serious off aromas. I hope that it tastes half as good as it smells.