Airlock Aromatics & Becoming a Beer Chef

[distributistdad]

Yesterday morning, I brewed an extract kit for an Irish Red Ale.

Recipe:

6 lb Light LME
1 lb Light DME

12 oz of steeping grains including I think chocolate (however what they were wasn't disclosed as far as I can tell)

2 oz. Williamette bittering @ 60
1.5 oz. Fuggle aroma @ 2

I added Irish Moss @ 15 min.

Steeped at 155 for 30 min, rinsed grains and brought water to about 6.25 gallons. Brought to boil, added 25% of LME. Brought back to boil and followed recipe, incorporating the remaining extract @ 15 min.

Chilled to about 65 and pitched a packet of munton's yeast

I've brewed a handful of batches on my own and quite a few more with family, noting different things about the process. I am actually a pretty decent cook and my wife and I love to preserve food (i.e. canning, smoking, etc) so I like the process. Anyway, I've been doing things to get used to "cooking" with beer like tasting ingredients, smelling things at particular points in the process and, of course, reading lots of HBT for advice.

So, fermentation began about 8 hours after pitching the yeast and has been going very well for about 30 hours now. I've been smelling the airlock -- this beer smells amazing. Not like anything else I've brewed before. This is the first time I did a full boil, but the hop aroma is unreal. I just want to devour this beer -- right. now.

My questions -- did doing a full boil affect the utilization of the hops that much? Is the scent coming from the airlock a good indication of what the nose of the finished product will be?

I've been reading here from some of the vets and it seems to me that I can (for the most part) do away with racking my beers to secondary carboys to let them bulk age (excepting bigger beers, fruit, & dry hopped). Is that what you all would do, to capture that hoppy aroma?

Finally, I had planned on brewing up a "hop tea" that I'd read about on here with some local, whole leaf cascade (maybe .5-1 oz steeped in a quart of water at 160 degrees) and adding this to the bottling bucket. Good idea? Bad? Maybe do the .5 oz and only add to 2.5 gallons of the beer and try the other half without?

Signed, the most longwinded aspiring beer chef on HBT (maybe).

 

[OKCAg2002]

I'm still considered a beginner, but I have noticed the smells from the airlock are not indicative of what the finished product will be. The gas is rich with CO2 and is pretty pungent (though not unpleasant) in my experience.

As for your other questions, I won't have much insight.

 

[AT-JeffT]

As a veteran airlock sniffer, and after sniffing starters; I can say the aromas from the airlock are largely dependent on the yeast strain and the stage the yeast is currently in. S-04 gives off lots of sulfur towards the end of fermentation. WLP002 gives off a lot of acetaldehyde (green apples) in the beginning of fermentation.

A lesser degree seems to be the aroma hops. Which is would also back up why dry hopping works so well. The co2 will scrub the aromatics.

 

[bigbeergeek]

In two words: not representative.