IPAddiction
New Member
Wanted to share this story for the newer brewers out there who are still questioning everything they do for fear of ruining their latest batch.
Back in February I made the transition from extract to Partial Mash (which quickly gave way to All Grain... but that's another story for another time). I'm one of those guys that drinks IPAs 90% of the time so I figured for my first Partial Mash batch, I'd take a stab at trying to replicate some of the best IPAs I'd had in the past year. This involved hours of research followed by that moment where you just say "that's it, I'm winging it!"
Ended up creating a West Coast Style Citra/Mosaic IPA (will post the recipe once I get BeerSmith back up and running): 2-Row, small amounts of Crystal 40 and 60, and Pale Extract; some sugar added during the boil to dry it out; a 60 minute bittering addition (Magnum), followed by a substantial amount of hops (equal parts Citra/Mosaic) during the final 20 minutes, and 3 total ozs of Citra and Mosaic added for a 5 day dry hop. OG was 1.067, FG 1.012. ABV ~6.8.
This post, however, is not about the recipe. It's about everything that went wrong both during and after brew day:
1) Extended Chilling Time: Assembled my wort chiller the day before, tested it out, thought everything was good to go. Turned the water on on brew day and wtf water everywhere, inc. in my wort! Managed to turn the water off quickly, but was convinced I'd ruined my beer... Follow that up with not having enough ice on-hand so had to drop everything and run to store to grab what I needed; left my wort sitting in an inadequate ice bath... got home, loaded up the sink, but 20 mins had already elapsed... didn't get my wort to pitching temp for at least 90 mins. Now I was really convinced this beer might be ruined.
2) Airlock Blow Out: Pitched my starter and watched fermentation take off w/in 8 hrs. Everything was looking good... then the whole family came down with the stomach plague which knocked us out for 48 hrs - didn't check on fermentation the entire time. Once I felt like I could look at/smell a beer 2-3 days later, I headed to basement only to find an airlock on the floor, wort on the ceiling, and an open carboy (no idea how long it had been like this). Quickly inserted a blow off tube. If water or chilling issues hadn't ruined this beer, surely unplanned open fermentation would...
3) Whacky Bubbles post Dry Hop: After 3 weeks, and multiple FG readings of 1.012, I dry hopped the beer in the primary. Two days later active fermentation had seemingly restarted - bubbles every 4 seconds! Had no idea what was going on, though research had me believing that pellet breakdown was giving off CO2 and making it appear as if fermentation had restarted... By the time I got to my planned bottling day, bubbles were incredibly active. FG readings, however, were consistent so I went for it anyway. So many "issues" up to this point, if I ended up with bottle bombs, I could live with it!
4) Stuck Siphon: The second I started siphoning into my bottling bucket, hop sludge plugged up my siphon, causing bubbles to form in the tube, and ultimately resulting in beer splashing everywhere!! Every time I pulled the siphon up and pushed down, more bubbles... both in the tube and now the beer in the bottling bucket. Oxidation nightmares set in. Eventually I got the beer to flow, but by this point I was, once and for all, convinced that this brew (which smelled downright fantastic at this point) was done for.
The end result
3 weeks later I cracked open a bottle, ready to taste every off flavor imaginable (I'd read up on them all, just in case, as I thought it'd be fun to pin point the exact issue that led to the destruction of a beer with such a promising hop bill). To my surprise, it tasted amazing; possibly one of the best IPAs I'd had in weeks - was this for real?!? Friends have since confirmed and I'm now looking at possibly even entering this beer in local competition. Never would have predicted.
The takeaway...
Believe what the guys on this site have said time and again, not only about patience but about how hard it really is to ruin a beer (that is, as long as you're careful about sterilization and cleanliness)! If anything, this brewing experience has caused me to question less and simply look forward to the experience more - a welcome change that has made this hobby of mine that much more enjoyable.
Back in February I made the transition from extract to Partial Mash (which quickly gave way to All Grain... but that's another story for another time). I'm one of those guys that drinks IPAs 90% of the time so I figured for my first Partial Mash batch, I'd take a stab at trying to replicate some of the best IPAs I'd had in the past year. This involved hours of research followed by that moment where you just say "that's it, I'm winging it!"
Ended up creating a West Coast Style Citra/Mosaic IPA (will post the recipe once I get BeerSmith back up and running): 2-Row, small amounts of Crystal 40 and 60, and Pale Extract; some sugar added during the boil to dry it out; a 60 minute bittering addition (Magnum), followed by a substantial amount of hops (equal parts Citra/Mosaic) during the final 20 minutes, and 3 total ozs of Citra and Mosaic added for a 5 day dry hop. OG was 1.067, FG 1.012. ABV ~6.8.
This post, however, is not about the recipe. It's about everything that went wrong both during and after brew day:
1) Extended Chilling Time: Assembled my wort chiller the day before, tested it out, thought everything was good to go. Turned the water on on brew day and wtf water everywhere, inc. in my wort! Managed to turn the water off quickly, but was convinced I'd ruined my beer... Follow that up with not having enough ice on-hand so had to drop everything and run to store to grab what I needed; left my wort sitting in an inadequate ice bath... got home, loaded up the sink, but 20 mins had already elapsed... didn't get my wort to pitching temp for at least 90 mins. Now I was really convinced this beer might be ruined.
2) Airlock Blow Out: Pitched my starter and watched fermentation take off w/in 8 hrs. Everything was looking good... then the whole family came down with the stomach plague which knocked us out for 48 hrs - didn't check on fermentation the entire time. Once I felt like I could look at/smell a beer 2-3 days later, I headed to basement only to find an airlock on the floor, wort on the ceiling, and an open carboy (no idea how long it had been like this). Quickly inserted a blow off tube. If water or chilling issues hadn't ruined this beer, surely unplanned open fermentation would...
3) Whacky Bubbles post Dry Hop: After 3 weeks, and multiple FG readings of 1.012, I dry hopped the beer in the primary. Two days later active fermentation had seemingly restarted - bubbles every 4 seconds! Had no idea what was going on, though research had me believing that pellet breakdown was giving off CO2 and making it appear as if fermentation had restarted... By the time I got to my planned bottling day, bubbles were incredibly active. FG readings, however, were consistent so I went for it anyway. So many "issues" up to this point, if I ended up with bottle bombs, I could live with it!
4) Stuck Siphon: The second I started siphoning into my bottling bucket, hop sludge plugged up my siphon, causing bubbles to form in the tube, and ultimately resulting in beer splashing everywhere!! Every time I pulled the siphon up and pushed down, more bubbles... both in the tube and now the beer in the bottling bucket. Oxidation nightmares set in. Eventually I got the beer to flow, but by this point I was, once and for all, convinced that this brew (which smelled downright fantastic at this point) was done for.
The end result
3 weeks later I cracked open a bottle, ready to taste every off flavor imaginable (I'd read up on them all, just in case, as I thought it'd be fun to pin point the exact issue that led to the destruction of a beer with such a promising hop bill). To my surprise, it tasted amazing; possibly one of the best IPAs I'd had in weeks - was this for real?!? Friends have since confirmed and I'm now looking at possibly even entering this beer in local competition. Never would have predicted.
The takeaway...
Believe what the guys on this site have said time and again, not only about patience but about how hard it really is to ruin a beer (that is, as long as you're careful about sterilization and cleanliness)! If anything, this brewing experience has caused me to question less and simply look forward to the experience more - a welcome change that has made this hobby of mine that much more enjoyable.
