First Beer Recipe - Will this work?

[rodwha]

You could submerge the LBK (Mr Beer fermentor) in a tub of water and use frozen ice bottles to maintain the temp.

This is what Fermentis says about US-05:

"12-25°C (53.6-77°F) ideally 15-22°C (59-71.6°F)"

So 72* is about as warm as you'd want the beer to get. But it's generally best in the low to mid 60's with high 60's being OK. Above that and it produces some flavors. Below high 60's and it's neutral.

 

[rodwha]

What I've noticed in my IPA's is that when I use an equal "balanced" hop schedule (Ie 1 oz 60/20/5 mins) it that I get a more bitter beer (I go for 65+ IBU's). But the less hops I use at the bittering addition and yet still bring it up to the same IBU level, I get much more flavor with a small hint of bitter. But this approach will also require a little more hops.

 

[rodwha]

If you submerge your LBKs I wouldn't use the spigots as you won't know they are sanitary.

Maybe you could fill a plastic tub with enough water to get it close to the spigot and use a towel to wrap over them and turn a fan on them. The towels would draw water around them helping to create a thermal barrier I'd think. Not sure how well it works though.

 

[ejf063]

I am not sure if you are looking to go bitter IPA style or smooth APA style, with a rounded bitterness. It sounds like you are going for something a little more rounded.
The last 4 APA's I have done have all been late hop additions. The last 2 have been SMASH beers, with Citra in one and Columbus in the other (different base malts in each). For my 5 gallon batch I used 8 ounces (ya heard!), all within the last 20 mins of the boil with an ABV of just about 5%. The Citra one was awesome. (Citra is not a very stable bittering hop, next time I will use something different –Centennial would be perfect- for the 20 min addition). The Columbus is a little more dank, still really good but the Citra one.... Man, flavor, aroma, smooth bitterness...... I plan on doing another SMASH with the same hop schedule with yet a third base malt and add either Simcoe and Centennial.
So, I like the idea of splitting the batch and do one with Citra, one with Simcoe. But, I also like the idea of trying to smell the difference between the two batches with different dry hops. What’s great is, this is completely up to you. My advice? If you want the flavor and aroma to ring through, do every hop addition within the last 20 minutes. Don't be afraid if an IBU calculator tells you your IBU's will be in the hundreds. My Citra SMASH was supposed to be 148ish IBU and it was smooth. I would up your hops to around 5 ounces at least, and dry hop with more than only one once. One once doesn’t seem to generate a lot of aroma. So you could nix the whole dry hop and just flip-flop your last hop additions, if you decide to split the batch. Do like 1 oz Citra at 10, then 1 oz Simcoe at 5, 1 and one more at flameout. Then, do 1 oz of Simcoe at 10, then 1 oz of Citra at 5, 1 and flameout. If you hit your wort with late hop additions (in the last 10 mins, down to flameout addition), I promise you will get a fantastic smelling beer.
I read the following article, was skeptical but wanted to try it anyway. I will more than likely never do a 60 minute addition again on an APA.
Cheers and keep us posted. Welcome to the stress of recipe development. (it’s not stressful at all once you do it a few times, BTW. If you screw it up, you'll still have beer, right?)


http://www.mrmalty.com/late_hopping.php

 

[deadphish]

The beer or the air temp?

Air temp. Unfortunately I dont have much room and it will have to ferment in the basement. (Usually a little cooler than than standard room temp.) Its usually somewhere between 68-72

 

[deadphish]

I am not sure if you are looking to go bitter IPA style or smooth APA style, with a rounded bitterness. It sounds like you are going for something a little more rounded.
The last 4 APA's I have done have all been late hop additions. The last 2 have been SMASH beers, with Citra in one and Columbus in the other (different base malts in each). For my 5 gallon batch I used 8 ounces (ya heard!), all within the last 20 mins of the boil with an ABV of just about 5%. The Citra one was awesome. (Citra is not a very stable bittering hop, next time I will use something different –Centennial would be perfect- for the 20 min addition). The Columbus is a little more dank, still really good but the Citra one.... Man, flavor, aroma, smooth bitterness...... I plan on doing another SMASH with the same hop schedule with yet a third base malt and add either Simcoe and Centennial.
So, I like the idea of splitting the batch and do one with Citra, one with Simcoe. But, I also like the idea of trying to smell the difference between the two batches with different dry hops. What’s great is, this is completely up to you. My advice? If you want the flavor and aroma to ring through, do every hop addition within the last 20 minutes. Don't be afraid if an IBU calculator tells you your IBU's will be in the hundreds. My Citra SMASH was supposed to be 148ish IBU and it was smooth. I would up your hops to around 5 ounces at least, and dry hop with more than only one once. One once doesn’t seem to generate a lot of aroma. So you could nix the whole dry hop and just flip-flop your last hop additions, if you decide to split the batch. Do like 1 oz Citra at 10, then 1 oz Simcoe at 5, 1 and one more at flameout. Then, do 1 oz of Simcoe at 10, then 1 oz of Citra at 5, 1 and flameout. If you hit your wort with late hop additions (in the last 10 mins, down to flameout addition), I promise you will get a fantastic smelling beer.
I read the following article, was skeptical but wanted to try it anyway. I will more than likely never do a 60 minute addition again on an APA.
Cheers and keep us posted. Welcome to the stress of recipe development. (it’s not stressful at all once you do it a few times, BTW. If you screw it up, you'll still have beer, right?)


http://www.mrmalty.com/late_hopping.php

I like the idea of this. If i didnt go with the Superstructure, could you reccomend a different malt? and how much?

 

[rodwha]

What efj just mentioned is basically what I mentioned having recently done. All of my hops are from 30 mins on down to 5 mins, though mine didn't get too far above 100 IBU's (70 is limit for IPA).

That type of hop schedule will be bursting with flavor and aroma. But it's also atypical from what I understand, though if I understand correctly there are several west coast breweries doing this for theirs.

I'd also, if it's possible, try going with one type of hop for each and targeting 70+ IBU's. I assumed that the 4 oz of hops you mentioned were what you had on hand and wanted to use. I know this hobby can get expensive quick, and don't know what kind of budget this beer may have. But if you can use just one hop per test batch this would really give you the best way to see what it offers.

If you have a little money to spend and have the tools and enjoy building stuff you could make a small fermentation chamber like a fellow here named skitter did. Use a frozen water bottle, fan, and thermostat to keep his Mr Beer kegs cold enough. Not sure how much it cost to build.

 

[rodwha]

There's no reason not to use the LME jugs you have. They'll work fine, and give you more $ to spend on hops if you'd really like an over the top flavorful IPA.

 

[rodwha]

I changed up what I had to use only Centennial, and using 1/2 oz at 30, 20, 10, and 5 mins would give you ~74 IBU's if they are 10.5 AA's. Then you could use at least another oz to dry hop for 3-7 days prior to bottling.

Assuming you have the hops mentioned you could figure out which of them you'd like to try first and buy another 2+ oz for the other.

Then you'd need 10 muslin hop bags, additional hops, 1 lb of light DME, and one packet of US-05 yeast.

If your basement gets as warm as 72* your beer will easily be 5-10* higher than that, which would put you a little beyond the recommendations. Maybe that's a part of why your Mr Beer brews weren't great.

 

[deadphish]

I guess it ended up being more complicated than I thought.

I dont have any of the hops on hand, and I dont really need to use the Superstructure, so I can order whatever I need. I have a bigger brew kit being given to me as a gift, but not getting it for another month and wanted to get going on something else before. Hence just using the Mr Beer lbks for now.

So basically I just want to come up with a relativity simple IPA recipe with whatever.. I want to brew it all together, split it up and dry hop with the Citra in one and Simcoe in the other.

 

[deadphish]

So maybe I do like you said with Centennial, using 1/2 oz at 30, 20, 10, and 5. Then dry hop with the other.

 

[rodwha]

No. keep it all the same is what I meant. That way you KNOW what Centennial is like. And then do the same with either the Citra or the Simcoe, and save the other for next time (keep it in the freezer).

 

[rodwha]

I didn't read your response at the end of pg 4…

OK. Do each using just one hop. This would require about 2-4 oz each.

Were it me, and doing extract I'd see about getting Briess golden light LME (it was made with carapils to help with head retention), and then use a bit of crystal for color and a slight flavor. Hops flavor is what we are after so you don't want to put too much crystal flavor to war over.

The Superstructure may be a good deal for you as it has the crystal in it. No steeping necessary (this time ), but what makes it the easiest is that most places won't sell exact amounts of grains or extract. The 3.15 lb jug with 1/2 lb of DME works out great.

 

[deadphish]

So just 3.15 lb jug with 1/2 lb of DME will be enough for 4-5 gallons?

 

[rodwha]

No. That would fix you up for a 6.1% 2.25 gal batch. You'll need two jugs and 1 lb of DME along with 2 oz of hops for the boil and 1-2 oz for a dry hop for each small batch, and 1 packet of US-05 yeast to split between the 2 batches.

 

[rodwha]

Do you have sanitizer? If not I highly recommend Star-San.

I bought tongs for pulling the hop sacks out of the wort, and a strainer to drain them and my grains through.

I also have a regular sized and a large Pyrex measuring cup as these can handle going from room temp to boiling wort without a problem. This way I can get everything into my beer (DME will stick to whatever you put it in).

Make sure you have a scale that can measure at least to the 1/10 of a gram. Being able to get to 1/100 is even better if/when you get into adding salts to adjust your water when you get into mashing, though it may help anyway. But that's another day…

Buy a small notebook and keep detailed notes on what you do. This will help with tweaking recipes or figuring where problems may have occurred.

 

[deadphish]

Great! I should be all set. Thanks for all your help!