Hey guys, just enjoying my last APA i bottled a month and a half ago and getting things ready for hopefully another successful brew day tomorrow. Just thought I'd let you guys know, though I've only been brewing less than a year, I think I have come up with amazing amounts of time saving tricks
What I do is, on the night before. I clean and sanitize all my pots and pans and tubes to make sure I'm ready for a quick start up the next day.
I also prep the water. I'll get my big 20 quart pot out and do a full 4 gallon boil of just the water, which eliminates SO much of the time the next day. That way, the next day, I've cut out all the time trying to sanitize the dumb water.
Note: This does make it harder to do the rest of the work, but only slightly. Whisking DME into room temp water is really hard work, and most of the times I'll still get a nice sip of a DME 'bomb' as I call them out of the bottles. Nothing harmful just a bit unpleasant.
Also note that, because of the lower temperatures, alpha acid isomerization is harder to do. My recent APA tastes well balance because I've discovered to compensate for the low temperatures you need a full 40 oz of hops just for bittering alone (per 5 gal batch). I'm going to immediately rack the beer onto my dry hops, which is about 75 oz of hops. Most of my beers resemble floating salads, or the sort of habitat you'd think a hippo might enjoy. But they all look a mess before being poured into a glass right?
Share your tips and other stuff here to help out other new people!
What I do is, on the night before. I clean and sanitize all my pots and pans and tubes to make sure I'm ready for a quick start up the next day.
I also prep the water. I'll get my big 20 quart pot out and do a full 4 gallon boil of just the water, which eliminates SO much of the time the next day. That way, the next day, I've cut out all the time trying to sanitize the dumb water.
Note: This does make it harder to do the rest of the work, but only slightly. Whisking DME into room temp water is really hard work, and most of the times I'll still get a nice sip of a DME 'bomb' as I call them out of the bottles. Nothing harmful just a bit unpleasant.
Also note that, because of the lower temperatures, alpha acid isomerization is harder to do. My recent APA tastes well balance because I've discovered to compensate for the low temperatures you need a full 40 oz of hops just for bittering alone (per 5 gal batch). I'm going to immediately rack the beer onto my dry hops, which is about 75 oz of hops. Most of my beers resemble floating salads, or the sort of habitat you'd think a hippo might enjoy. But they all look a mess before being poured into a glass right?
Share your tips and other stuff here to help out other new people!
