First Brew without folowing recipe

[Orfy]

I had some left overs from doing a 40 pint recipe and used the following ingredients.

It had a OG of 1045 and a FG of 1002 in the primary after7 days. And I've just racked it to secondary.

It tastes mighty fine now.

Does anyone have the experience to predict its final charachter, if I have missed any thing obvious and how long it will need to be in the secondary considering the FG from primary is so low?


Cheers.





For 20 pints
0.9kg Indian Pale Ale extract (John Bull)
500g brewing sugar
30g Home Grown Hops (boil and leave in primary)
1 Sachet Yeast

Method
Fetch 0.5 gallon of water to boil add hops for 5 minutes remove from heat and IPA extract and brewers sugar.
Add 1 gallon of cold water to vessel. Add Wurt. Top up to 2 Gallon. Check temp is below 80f and add yeast. Rack to secondary at 7 days

03/10/05
Start of First Ferment
1045
10/10/05
Started Secondary
1002

 

[sudsmonkey]

I'm guessing It'll taste much like beer. Probably be pretty hoppy. How do whole hops compare to pelleted hops as far as the amount to use ? I've never used more than 3 oz. of pelleted hops at one time. I would expect fresh leaf hops to be stronger. Keep us posted.

 

[Walker]

leaf hops are actually weaker, ounce-for-ounce. The grinding that the pellets go through allows them to put off more flavor/acids when you use them.

Anyway.. the recipe seems light on malt. .9kg of extract is a little less than 2 lbs. that, combined with the sugar says to me that this will be a thin, dry beer with more hop characteristics than anything else.

-walker

 

[Orfy]

Walker, it's only a 2 gallon brew, so I thought 1.4kg of fermentables would of been enough. (I've been told I should aim for 3kg for 5 gallons)
My hops are pretty tame compared to commercials, so that's why I left them in the primary and used twiced the amount.(It's all an experiment)


Thanks for the feed back, I'm learning so much since frequenting the forum.

 

[Walker]

I had some left overs from doing a 40 pint recipe and used the following ingredients.

For 20 pints
0.9kg Indian Pale Ale extract (John Bull)
500g brewing sugar
30g Home Grown Hops (boil and leave in primary)
1 Sachet Yeast

20 pints is 2.5 gallons by my measure.

However, I see that in your brewing steps you mentioned topping off to 2 gallons (16 pints). In that case, there is anough extract for a light bodied beer. I would still think that the sugar would make it seem thinner and more dry, but I would also say that it will definately be drinkable.

Note that corn sugar is TOTALLY fermentable. It will leave nothing behind except alcohol. Malt extract is only partially fermentable, and what remains gives the beer flavor and body. 1kg of malt extract is only .6 or .7kg of FERMENATBLE sugar, with the rest nonfermenting.

Anyway... light bodied beers use about 1lb of extract for every gallon of beer. 1.5lbs for every gallon is a fuller body.

Wait... and I getting myself confused with the difference between US measures and UK measures?

-walker

 

[Orfy]

I just guessed it an chucked it in. It tastes really nice just after 7 days. Unless I have mucked up i'm hoping it'll be reasonable.

What do you think about the time to leave in the secondary?

 

[Rhoobarb]

Just my 2 cents, but I always leave my beers in the secondary for 14 days. It helps them to clear nicely, leaves any trub brought over from racking behind and, IMO, makes for a little better tasting brew!

 

[homebrewer_99]

20 pints is 2.5 gallons by my measure. Note that corn sugar is TOTALLY fermentable. It will leave nothing behind except alcohol.
Anyway... light bodied beers use about 1lb of extract for every gallon of beer. 1.5lbs for every gallon is a fuller body.

I would think the corn sugar would raise the alcohol level, but not add any body.

Just my take on it... , but then again, I like mine a bit more meaty...

 

[Orfy]

Sounds like I can expect something,

Dry, thinnish, hoppy and strong.

I'm looking forward to tasting.

 

[BlightyBrewer]

Hey Orfy, I like your style..chuck it in and see. I bet it turns out great! I'm a bit OCD when it comes to following recipes. Kinda takes some fun out of it, maybe I should chill, have a homebrew, and try the "chuck it in and see" methodology.

 

[Walker]

About once a year, I clean out the shop. There are usually several varieties of hops in 1/2 or smaller increments left over from previous batches, a multitude of grains in quantities of 1/2 lb or less, and some liquid or dry malt extract that needs to be used or tossed.

I just throw all off these odds and ends into a pot and cook it up. There is no style in mind, nor do I get too picky about how much of each ingredient I toss in. These beers are usually pretty good. One time, the batch of "Cleanout Ale" (as I call them) was really damn tastey, but I didn't even bother to write down what went into it. I know it had goldings and hallertaur hops, two kinds of crystal malt, some roasted barley, and at least 1 lb of other mixed grains, but that's as far as I could go with quoting the recipe.

I'm generally pretty anal about keeping notes and records, but just not when I clean house.

-walker