Bell's Two Hearted Ale

[b128thopen]

A weekend ago I made the two hearted ale recipe that is posted on Bell's website...attached.

Somewhere along the way something went wrong b.c after I finished my wort only had 4.5 gallons. The gravity check was right on so I did not add more water. Just thought it was weird.

My question....
The recipe says to add hops a week into fermentation and "Allow beer to stay warm with hops for a week." Does this mean to take it out of my swamp cooler (ale temps) and let it sit closer to 75 degrees?

Question 2: "Crash Cool and cold age for a week" does that mean put the carboy in the fridge? If so, once I bottle do I need to put it directly back in the fridge or do I let it sit warm in the bottle for the next 2-4 weeks?

I may have bit off more than I can handle with this one! But damn its such a good beer!

 

[Homercidal]

First off, did you brew the extract version, or the All Grain version? The AG version might be off due to several reasons, one of them being deadspace somewhere in your system. This is common and is usually either corrected in the system or method, or the recipe is adjusted to account for it.

If it's Extract, there is not much chance of that, so I don't know what to tell you. I think you did the right thing by ignoring the top off water and keeping the OG where it is supposed to be.

As far as the Dry Hopping, a lot of people will ferment in the primary, and then rack to secondary and add hops then, keeping the beer at room temp.

Some people will simply add dry hops to the primary after fermentation and basically pretend the primary vessel is a secondary.

Some people who keg will add the dry hops to the keg and let it sit at room temp for a week (or not) before putting the keg in the fridge/kegerator.

There isn't a wrong way to do it. It depends on your equipment, methods, and preference. The one thing I think is very important is that you will get more hop flavor by letting it sit for 5-7 days at room temp, than you will at fridge temp. And IF you dry hop warm like that, you really need to pull the beer off the hops after that much time or risk getting grassy flavors. (If you aren't dry hopping in the keg, then you will naturally remove the beer from the hops when you bottle or keg.)

I personally like to dry hop in the keg and I leave the hops in the keg for weeks. The cold temp will help protect the hops from tasting bad and I find the kegged beer to have a much fresher hop flavor that way. If you bottle, I suggest drinking a hoppy beer like that sooner, rather than later.

Wow, I just saw the amount of dry hops! I might need to double check my 2H recipe! You might end up with just over 4 gallons after dry hopping!

As far as cold crashing, you will move beer to a fridge environment to help the beer clear. Then you can bottle and move to a warm location (70s or so) to let the beer carb. They will not carb in the fridge. Now there is some discussion of whether you need to let the beer warm up again before bottling. The reason is that the cold beer will retain a certain level of carbonation higher than a warm beer, and by adding the usual amount of priming sugar, the beer will be more highly carbed than it should be. The other option is to use a slightly less amount of priming sugar.

It's impossible for the home brewer to know exactly how much carbonation the cold crashed beer will actually have, so warming the beer and letting it offgas a bit is the safest method. In the end, the wort that is likely to happen is the beer is a bit too fizzy.

 

[Homercidal]

I forgot to mention that there is very good recipe in the recip section on HBT for this beer. I've made it a few times and lots of other have as well. It's a very simple recipe and easy to get it right, from what I've read in the forum thread.

Good luck!

 

[AnOldUR]

When cold crashing and using a carbonation calculator you should use the highest temperature the beer rested at after fermentation was complete. No new CO2 is introduced after that point and it will have released what is in suspension to reach equilibrium at that temperature.

Warming the cold crashed beer before bottling is not necessary. In fact it can be counterproductive to the settling and clearing process. Just remember to move the bottles to room temperature after bottling.