Critique/Advising please...

[zhubbell]

Hey Guys, I'm about to do my second brew, and on top of that, its my first all grain brew. Here is the document I'm working up to work off of brew day. I wasn't sure on volumes for how much water I should use being my first all grain, so obviously, I'm looking for advice on that, but also just the whole thing, any steps that are done wrong, or things missing that are important, I'm trying to be as detailed as possible here so things go smoothly and I end up with a quality beer.
And yes, I know this seems like a recipe, but since I'm more looking for advice on the process than the recipe (although those comments are welcome too - its based on the fresh squeezed IPA from here, I only subbed a couple things)
Anyway - cant wait to hear!

Ingredients:
12.1# American Two Row
1.1# Cara-Pils
1.1# Crystal 40
.5# Munich
2.25oz Citra Hop Pellets
2.5oz Simcoe Hop Pellets
2.5oz Amarillo Hop Pellets
2.5oz Cascade Hop Pellets
1oz American Medium Toast Oak Cubes
1tab Irish Moss
1pack S-05
10g RO/DI water brought to pH 5.2

Additive Schedule:
90min .5oz Citra
.5oz Simcoe
60min .25oz Citra
.25oz Simcoe
30min .25oz Citra
.25oz Simcoe
15min .75oz Citra
.75oz Simcoe
.5oz Amarillo
1tab Irish Moss
10min 1oz Cascade
0min .5oz Citra
.75oz Simcoe
@temp 1pk S-05
1oz Oak Cubes
7d 2oz Amarillo
1oz Cascade
.5oz Citra
.5oz Simcoe
15d Remove Oak
21d Remove Dry Hops

Instructions:
Soak Oak Chips in Bourbon for 3 days before brewing.
Gather, sterilize and organize all ingredients and equipment. Hop separate and combined in Muslin bags for each hop addition. All grain in a sterile 5g bucket together, and processed through grain mill.
Bring Xg H2O up to correct temperature to Mash at 152 degrees (based on Beersmith equation), add to 10g Rubbermaid mash tun.
Start heating Xg H2O of water to 170 degrees.
Slowly add processed grains to the mash tun while stirring with stainless steel kettle spoon.
Seal container and leave for 60 minutes, checking occasionally to ensure proper temperature.
Open valve of mash tun slowly and allow to drain until the wort runs very clear through the vinyl tubing, at which point start draining to boil kettle. Reserve cloudy run off to add to the mash tun again, very carefully not to disturb the grain.
Pour X gallons of 170 degree water to sparge excess sugars, let sit for 10 minutes.
Open valve of mash tun slowly and allow to drain until the wort runs very clear through the vinyl tubing, at which point start draining to boil kettle. Reserve cloudy run off to add to the mash tun again, very carefully not to disturb the grain.
Repeat this process with the remaining half of the reserved 170 degree H2O.
Put on stove top and bring to a boil.
Add Hops/Additions according to Hop Schedule. *The recipe calls for a 90 minute boil – but I saw a few ppl on the page for this recipe cut it down to a 60min boil when switching to a 5g batch. Why would that be?
Submerge wort chiller and cool to 65 degrees.
Siphon Wort from the boil kettle to a 5g Rubermaid fermenting bucket.
Add yeast and Oak Cubes. Take Hydrometer reading for Initial Gravity.
Swirl vigorously for 5min.
Cover and put airlock into place.
Continue to follow Hop Schedule, and transfer to secondary fermenter on day 15.
On day 30 add corn sugar. **At any point should I be swirling/aerating this other than right after adding the yeast?

 

[wtfDean]

edit: my post wasn't very helpful. i will address the questions in the process.

you can skip the 2 step sparge and do a single sparge if you have the space in your mash tun (which you do with a 10gallon rubbermaid)

60 vs 90 minute boil is a matter of personal preference. if you are not using pilsner malt then it is not necessary to do a 90 minute boil and i would suggest 60 minutes to save some time.

best of luck getting an immersion chiller to take your batch to 65*, sometimes you have to settle for the low 70s

i haven't oaked a beer, but what i do know is that it's better to oak after primary fermentation when you have transferred your beer to secondary.

you do not need to wait a full 15 days to transfer your beer to secondary. you can do it a week or so when primary fermentation has finished.

21 days for dry hops is a long time. it may take on a grassy taste.
edit: oops, that's 14 days for dry hops. still, a long time. i have been told that dry hopping longer than a week can cause the beer to taste grassy, though i have never experienced this myself. i dry hop for 5-7 days max.

do not introduce air/o2 into your beer any time after the initial aeration for yeast propagation. it will cause staling reactions.

i would suggest forgetting about the oak cubes and cutting down on the amount of time you will be dry hopping

 

[zhubbell]

Thanks a lot! Any advice for a new AG-er as to how much water I should be using?

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

1.25qts of water per pound if grain is average for me. Sometime use 1.5. Mostly 1.25 though.

 

[hehawbrew]

That is a long time to dry hop. I usually drop hop 3 to 5 days before I bottle.

Like he said, can be grassy.

I've done wood chips with barley wine and ciders, but, both of those sit for months and months.

Not sure how much flavor you'll get, so plz let us know!


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[hehawbrew]

After rereading: if you can get em, I've found using leaf instead of pellets can help with clarity. You don't get that sludge.

To play devils advocate, transferring to secondary is a very debated topic here. My opinion is if you use leaf, Irish moss, let it sit for at least a month, dry hop with leaf, and are careful when you bottle, you will be good. Especially with an IPA. They are quick n easy beers.

Or you could be baller and get a fancy conical fermenter.


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[zhubbell]

How much sparge water should I use if I use 20qts in the mash

 

[andy6026]

Two things:

1) Be sure to submerge your wort chiller into the boiling kettle around 15 minutes before the end of the boil - this ensure that it's sterilized, i.e. any bacteria that was introduced to the kettle along with it will be killed off.

2) Try using an online water calculator such as this one for your volumes and temps. After a few batches you'll be able to adjust it's default assumptions to better suit your equipment, for example, I always have to heat my strike water a few degrees higher than it recommends. http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php

 

[Teromous]

Check your mash tun in advance with just water and see how well it retains the temperature and how long it takes to drop off. Try opening it some to let some steam out to mimic checking temps. If you can pre-heat your mash tun with even hotter water (not too hot or you'll warp the plastic) you can dump the water, and add your real mash water to the warm mash tun. There's a lot of headaches and heartache with getting too low of a mash temp.

 

[novahokie09]

Gather, sterilize and organize all ingredients and equipment. Hop separate and combined in Muslin bags for each hop addition. All grain in a sterile 5g bucket together, and processed through grain mill.

No need for this to be sterile or even sanitized for that matter. It's preboil.

Start heating Xg H2O of water to 170 degrees.

This needs to be 180 - 190F if you want your actual sparge water at 170F. 170F water added to sparge will be closer to 155F-160F range after thoroughly mixed.

Pour X gallons of 170 degree water to sparge excess sugars, let sit for 10 minutes.

Really no need to let sit for 10 minutes. You should just thoroughly stir and vorlaugh until the runnings come out clear. (~1 gallon or so of wort).

*The recipe calls for a 90 minute boil – but I saw a few ppl on the page for this recipe cut it down to a 60min boil when switching to a 5g batch. Why would that be?

Not sure, but it could be their brew pot couldn't hold the extra volume required to boil an extra 30 minutes? I lose around 1.25 gallon per hour boiling, so 90 minutes would be 1.875 gallons.

Whatever you decide to do, you'll need to account for the boil-off rate impacts as well as the hop utilization/bitterness impact of a longer/shorter boil. Obvioulsy, 90 minute boils will impart more bitterness due to the extra hop utilization.

Submerge wort chiller and cool to 65 degrees.

I would put the wort chiller in around 10-15 minutes from end of boiling to help santize the chiller.

Siphon Wort from the boil kettle to a 5g Rubermaid fermenting bucket.
Add yeast and Oak Cubes. Take Hydrometer reading for Initial Gravity.
Swirl vigorously for 5min.
Cover and put airlock into place.

I'd probably attach a blowoff tube for the first 3 - 5 days of fermentation. Then you can switch to an airlock.

Continue to follow Hop Schedule, and transfer to secondary fermenter on day 15.
On day 30 add corn sugar. **At any point should I be swirling/aerating this other than right after adding the yeast?

You should minimize swirling/aerating after adding the yeast. You don't want to increase your dissolved oxygen, which will lead to premature staling. The only other time necessary would be to stir when you add the priming sugar to your bottling bucket.

Recipe Changes
I recommend cutting down on the crystal to around 0.5 lb. Also, not sure why you'd want a bourbon soaked oak flavor in an IPA, but let me know how that turns out. I'd recommend trying to brew a clean IPA before trying to alter it, but just my opinion.

Good luck.

 

[zhubbell]

Thanks for the link - looks like 4.92g for the mash, 4.74g for the sparge.

I'll be re-writing my sheet based on all of your recommendations this evening and I'll re-post for more revisions.
Thanks everyone for your help!

 

[novahokie09]

Sparge water is really a function of how much pre-boil water you'll need based on how much wort you recover from mashing and how much you'll lose to hop/hot break and boil-off during the boil.

For instance, if my target volume into the fermentor is 5 gallons, I need to add back all of the losses.

If you mash with 5 gallons, you're going to probably end up with 3 - 3.5 gallons after accounting for dead tun space and grain absorption. You'll learn this number after you mash a few times.

Then, you'll probably lose 0.5 - 1 gallon to the post-boil transfer to the fermentor due to trying to avoid transferring hot break and hop material into your fermentor.

You'll probably lose 1.5 - 2 gallons due to boil off in a 90 minute boil. Again, this is what you're going to find out, and it's unique for everyone's system and boil intensity.

So, you're going to need (5 gallon into the fermentor) + (0.5 - 1 gallon fermentor losses) + (1.5 - 2 gallon boill off losses) = 7 - 8 gallons of pre-boil volume. Let's assume you end up recovering 3.5 gallons from mashing. Worst case, you'll need 8 gallons - 3.5 gallons = 4.5 gallons of sparge water, or best case, you'll need 7 gallons - 3.5 gallons = 3.5 gallons of sparge water.

Also, you're probably not going to hit your gravity number. Don't worry, if you overshoot your pre-boil gravity, you can add the appropriate amount of water to dilute. If you undershoot, you should have some DME to figure out how much to add.

The most important take away is to take detailed notes on your volume losses during each stage of your brew day. If you put in 5 gallons of water into mash, note how much you recover. Then, you can figure out how much grain absorption you have. If you start with 8 gallons of pre-boil volume, note how much you have after a 90 minute boil. Then you can calculate your boil-off rate. You will use this information to better dial-in your process for the next brew.

 

[zhubbell]

Any advice on the best place to order while leaf hops from? Looking for somewhere w a good selection so I can order a few different ones all from the same place.


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[novahokie09]

Any advice on the best place to order while leaf hops from? Looking for somewhere w a good selection so I can order a few different ones all from the same place.


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hops direct, hop shack are both decent.

Just a word of advice, hop pellets are typically fresher than whole leaf hops.

Also, pay attention to what year harvest your hops come from. Some will try to pass off 2011/2012 years harvest, so try to pay attention. If it doesn't say 2013 harvest, it's definitely older year's hops.