First Time Brewer, Too Ambitious?

[SJMC]

Finally cleared up and getting to bed, took an OG reading earlier which came to 1060 (1066 was estimated). Still not 100% sure what this means but figure it was because we added too much when sparging? Happy with that nonetheless!

Had a lovely deep orange/beige colour that got lighter towards the edges when left for a few minutes whilst it cooled, already looks close to what I wanted! Took a picture but it doesn't do it justice.

Excited to try it! Can anyone shed any light on my lower than expected gravity reading? I'm not bothered by it as I didn't expect everything to match the estimates but if there's a simple fix for next time I'd love to hear some advice! Thanks all

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Don't sweat the gravity, it just means your efficiency came in a bit lower than forecast (as we kinda suggested it might ) But you were within 10%, so that's fine, it's just a matter of tweaking - perhaps there was the odd doughball in the mash, the bag could have been squeezed a little more, a little bit too much sparge water, all these things can individuallly knock the odd percentage point off the efficiency.

But you're in the right ballpark, so that's all good - even if it looks like you had a late night!!!!

 

[RM-MN]

Finally cleared up and getting to bed, took an OG reading earlier which came to 1060 (1066 was estimated). Still not 100% sure what this means but figure it was because we added too much when sparging? Happy with that nonetheless!

Had a lovely deep orange/beige colour that got lighter towards the edges when left for a few minutes whilst it cooled, already looks close to what I wanted! Took a picture but it doesn't do it justice.

Excited to try it! Can anyone shed any light on my lower than expected gravity reading? I'm not bothered by it as I didn't expect everything to match the estimates but if there's a simple fix for next time I'd love to hear some advice! Thanks all

You'll have a hard time telling the difference in a 1.060 beer compared to a 1.066 so you are good there. Going forward, you need to take good measurements if you want a consistent result. Marking your boil pot so you know how much wort your collect from the mash, marking your container of sparge water so you know how much you put in there so that it matches the difference in what you collected and what you need for pre-boil. Measure what you have left after you boil too. With accurate measurement you can then determine the efficiency you got and can make adjustments in the software to accommodate that efficiency.:rockin:

 

[SJMC]

You'll have a hard time telling the difference in a 1.060 beer compared to a 1.066 so you are good there. Going forward, you need to take good measurements if you want a consistent result. Marking your boil pot so you know how much wort your collect from the mash, marking your container of sparge water so you know how much you put in there so that it matches the difference in what you collected and what you need for pre-boil. Measure what you have left after you boil too. With accurate measurement you can then determine the efficiency you got and can make adjustments in the software to accommodate that efficiency.:rockin:

Great! I definitely thing that's where we were lacking, gonna make sure we keep a better track next time. Just took a hydrometer reading, 1.022 so almost at the goal already. Fermentation is happening! Hopefully drop a couple more off then dry hop for a few days, excited to try it!

 

[Dcpcooks]

Just a touch less booze than estimated. No big deal. Based on what you pulled off your ahead of the curve. You'll get the rest of it when you want to.

Now about it's about fermentation. Cheers

 

[SJMC]

Just a touch less booze than estimated. No big deal. Based on what you pulled off your ahead of the curve. You'll get the rest of it when you want to.

Now about it's about fermentation. Cheers

Seems to be fermenting nicely! Took that reading of 1.022 last night and it's still getting a few bubbles this morning so hopefully will reach the target of 1.018. Thinking about dry hopping this evening (72 hours in) if fermentation seems to have slowed/finished.

 

[RM-MN]

Seems to be fermenting nicely! Took that reading of 1.022 last night and it's still getting a few bubbles this morning so hopefully will reach the target of 1.018. Thinking about dry hopping this evening (72 hours in) if fermentation seems to have slowed/finished.

I'd probably give the beer another few days before dry hopping. 72 hours seems pretty short to me.:rockin:

 

[wishingiwasfishing]

For a NE IPA I'd have them in earlier. I'm not looking for traditional dry hopping practices. I've had good results on day two when there's still plenty of active fermentation left. Pick your gravity.

That being said, there is no one way to dry hop a NEIPA, or any beer.

 

[mongoose33]

Seems to be fermenting nicely! Took that reading of 1.022 last night and it's still getting a few bubbles this morning so hopefully will reach the target of 1.018. Thinking about dry hopping this evening (72 hours in) if fermentation seems to have slowed/finished.

I'd probably give the beer another few days before dry hopping. 72 hours seems pretty short to me.:rockin:

Funny. These were almost exactly the words that popped into my head when I saw the first comment above.

 

[SJMC]

I'd probably give the beer another few days before dry hopping. 72 hours seems pretty short to me.:rockin:

What are the effects of having them in too early? I've not looked into it as much as I probably should have. I'm almost home now so going to check the gravity and see where I'm at!

 

[SJMC]

Just took the gravity, 1.016 when the aim was 1.018, krausen has disappeared pretty much. Tried a little bit of the sample (I'm aware it won't taste much like the finished thing), it was very bitter with a strange off taste. Is that normal? Fermentation has definitely finished by the looks of things!

 

[65C]

From reading back you only put it in to primary 4 days ago?

At 3 weeks in primary you might get a hint at what it will be like - but likely will taste undrinkable, at 4 will usually improve a bit - I normally bottle around then

One week in bottle - it can be drinkable, two weeks usually very drinkable, 3 weeks improved more - at that point, for me, they can go either way - lighter beers sometimes get less drinkable, darks just keep getting better - any beer that tasted nasty at 1 week is usually a lot better after 3 or more

 

[SJMC]

From reading back you only put it in to primary 4 days ago?

At 3 weeks in primary you might get a hint at what it will be like - but likely will taste undrinkable, at 4 will usually improve a bit - I normally bottle around then

One week in bottle - it can be drinkable, two weeks usually very drinkable, 3 weeks improved more - at that point, for me, they can go either way - lighter beers sometimes get less drinkable, darks just keep getting better - any beer that tasted nasty at 1 week is usually a lot better after 3 or more

Thanks for the help! I've read that this isn't necessarily the case with NEIPA style beers, that they don't stay in primary very long compared to normal beers? I could be wrong. Have you had experience with this style? I'm finding out a few things seem to be quite different to the norm with NEIPAs.

 

[SleepyCreekBrews]

Eh ....I say, it's not rocket science, and you gotta start somewhere.
If you've got a mate to keep an eye on you , and don't mind risking a little coin (DIPAs aren't cheap) then give it a try.

Some folks seem to know what to do based on cooking fundamentals (i guess), Others struggle with simple procedures.
It's hard to argue that a Pale ale extract kit is NOT the best place to get your feet wet. Whatever it is, I guarantee that as long as you hit your marks with your first brew, you'll enjoy it.

Concerning the fermentation, you should plan on leaving it alone for 2 weeks minimum. After that it may be ready to bottle.
Congrats on your first brew!

 

[mongoose33]

What, of all the things related to brewing, is the hardest for new brewers to learn?

Water? No. Mash temps? No. Fermentation temps? No. Getting the crush right? No. Getting the timing of hop additions correct? No. Figuring out how to read a hydrometer? No. Learning to bottle? No. Getting the right amount of sugar in the beer prior to bottling? No. Cleaning? No. Sanitation? No. Reducing oxygen exposure post-fermentation? No. Rehydrating yeast? No. Making a starter? No. Building a recipe? No. Understanding a strange language including terms like sparge, vorlauf, mash, isomerization? No.

The single hardest thing for new brewers to learn is....patience.

**********

When you get some beer in the pipeline, it'll become easier to exercise patience. In the meantime, the advice above is pretty good advice. No reason to rush. It'll get there. Give the yeast a little time to clean up after working up a sweat. They'll reward you if you do.

BTW, one of the hardest things for new brewers to believe is....that beer conditions while it sits. Really. At least, it was for me. I still am amazed at how different beer can taste after a couple weeks of conditioning. I've had beers go from "bleccchhh!" to "Wow!" in that time.

Part of what can help with that is not being in a hurry to get the beer from the fermenter to the bottle. Give it a few days. Pick a flower. Look at the clouds in the sky. Think about cartoons you watched as a kid. Just....trust the advice people are giving you.

 

[SleepyCreekBrews]

LOL, ....and that's where the saying came from "Relax, don't worry, have a home brew" (RDWHAHB)

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I'd tend to agree - you don't want a NEIPA conditioning for as long as you would a traditional bitter for instance - part of the conditioning of a bitter is about letting a bit of oxygen in, which is the enemy of a beer that is as hop-led as a NEIPA. This time round I'd give it 7-10 days total, and then package. Even after fg there's still work for the yeast to do - but day 3 is not a bad time for a temperature change, either up or down, it encourages a few more esters.

On dry-hopping - it depends if you want biotransformation. In general biotransformation is a good thing as it adds some complexity as one chemical is metabolised into a variety of other ones, geraniol (floral) is transformed into a variety of citrus flavours for instance. If geraniol-rich hops like Bravo and Citra are being used and you want it to be biotransformed, then even 72 hours is too late for the full effect, particularly if you've had a brisk fermentation as here. For many other varieties, the timing is less critical.

 

[SJMC]

I'd tend to agree - you don't want a NEIPA conditioning for as long as you would a traditional bitter for instance - part of the conditioning of a bitter is about letting a bit of oxygen in, which is the enemy of a beer that is as hop-led as a NEIPA. This time round I'd give it 7-10 days total, and then package. Even after fg there's still work for the yeast to do - but day 3 is not a bad time for a temperature change, either up or down, it encourages a few more esters.

On dry-hopping - it depends if you want biotransformation. In general biotransformation is a good thing as it adds some complexity as one chemical is metabolised into a variety of other ones, geraniol (floral) is transformed into a variety of citrus flavours for instance. If geraniol-rich hops like Bravo and Citra are being used and you want it to be biotransformed, then even 72 hours is too late for the full effect, particularly if you've had a brisk fermentation as here. For many other varieties, the timing is less critical.

This is what I'd read about briefly! I was put off by a lot of people saying otherwise but think they were going off of traditional beer rules. I dry hopped last night (just under 65 hours since pitching) but fermentation had effectively finished so I'm guessing I missed the optimum point, no biggie, just means my next brew will be even better! Going to leave for a week now then check it.

Also I realise a lot of people on here are from the US, heartbroken to hear about the events in Las Vegas. Hope you and your loved ones are all safe, terrible news to wake up to.

 

[SJMC]

This is what I'd read about briefly! I was put off by a lot of people saying otherwise but think they were going off of traditional beer rules. I dry hopped last night (just under 65 hours since pitching) but fermentation had effectively finished so I'm guessing I missed the optimum point, no biggie, just means my next brew will be even better! Going to leave for a week now then check it.

Also I realise a lot of people on here are from the US, heartbroken to hear about the events in Las Vegas. Hope you and your loved ones are all safe, terrible news to wake up to.

I've just checked on the brew and I'm getting a lot of airlock activity, a couple of bubble pops every minute, I'm assuming it's the dry hopping causing it? My first thought was it was still fermenting but with a gravity reading of 1.016 last night after the krausen fell I'm assuming fermentation is done? The estimated FG was 1.018.

I'm not worried about any of this stuff (my co-brewer housemate keeps calling me paranoid about it!) I'd just like to learn more about each stage, and what is happening so I can be more informed about decisions in the future. I'm sure we're headed for great (or at least drinkable) beer!

 

[65C]

You can get bubbles for a *long* time after the official ferment is complete

I'm sat next to a couple of demis that have been going for 3+ weeks and even today one of them is popping a bubble every hour or so

I don't brew NEIPAs so maybe ignore some of my earlier comments about 4 weeks on primary, but brewing for me is a slow process - the longer I can leave it the better the beer

(I started brewing to make more hop forward brews that were hard to buy round here - but ended up making much more traditional brews now - I got bored with super-Citra really early on - it's all about Porters for me now)

 

[SJMC]

You can get bubbles for a *long* time after the official ferment is complete

I'm sat next to a couple of demis that have been going for 3+ weeks and even today one of them is popping a bubble every hour or so

I don't brew NEIPAs so maybe ignore some of my earlier comments about 4 weeks on primary, but brewing for me is a slow process - the longer I can leave it the better the beer

(I started brewing to make more hop forward brews that were hard to buy round here - but ended up making much more traditional brews now - I got bored with super-Citra really early on - it's all about Porters for me now)

Ahh right, I've been watching TV near it for a while and it's been popping on and off, little less regularly than yesterday. Took another gravity sample and it's still at 1.016, tried another quick taste of the sample and it's not much better. Hoping a few more days in primary then bottle conditioning sorts that out.

It smells divine, so no issues there, just quite a nasty, strange bitterness to the taste. It's quite watery too. Time will tell I guess!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I've just checked on the brew and I'm getting a lot of airlock activity, a couple of bubble pops every minute, I'm assuming it's the dry hopping causing it? My first thought was it was still fermenting but with a gravity reading of 1.016 last night after the krausen fell I'm assuming fermentation is done? The estimated FG was 1.018.

As with brewhouse efficiency, the software is only using a guesstimate for attenuation, and it will vary, partly in response to your hardware/temperatures/process (which should be a consistent effect) and then partly in response to grist, yeast age etc (which won't be). So don't take the software FG as gospel, fermentation is done when the gravity has stopped dropping.

Even once the yeast have finished, you'll still get odd bubbles from eg gas coming out of solution due to temperature changes, or nucleating off added hops, or whatever.

 

[SJMC]

As with brewhouse efficiency, the software is only using a guesstimate for attenuation, and it will vary, partly in response to your hardware/temperatures/process (which should be a consistent effect) and then partly in response to grist, yeast age etc (which won't be). So don't take the software FG as gospel, fermentation is done when the gravity has stopped dropping.

Even once the yeast have finished, you'll still get odd bubbles from eg gas coming out of solution due to temperature changes, or nucleating off added hops, or whatever.

That's what I thought! I figured now I've had two consecutive checks that have been 1.016 that it's done, I've left it alone with the hop sock full of hoppy goodness. Thinking that I might look at bottling either Saturday or Sunday (halfway through day 8 or 9).

Still can't get over how great it smells, hoping it carries over to the bottles and isn't solely the hop sock exaggerating the smell. Fingers crossed that off flavour mellows out too.

 

[Tarpon87]

Ahh right, I've been watching TV near it for a while and it's been popping on and off, little less regularly than yesterday. Took another gravity sample and it's still at 1.016, tried another quick taste of the sample and it's not much better. Hoping a few more days in primary then bottle conditioning sorts that out.

It smells divine, so no issues there, just quite a nasty, strange bitterness to the taste. It's quite watery too. Time will tell I guess!

Don't worry about the hydro sample taste, all my NEIPAs taste like bitter garbage in the sample. Cold, carb'd up in the keg, the flavor completely changes.

 

[SJMC]

Don't worry about the hydro sample taste, all my NEIPAs taste like bitter garbage in the sample. Cold, carb'd up in the keg, the flavor completely changes.

This has given me hope! Won't be kegging but assuming bottling and cooling in the fridge will yield similar results. Can't wait!

 

[SJMC]

Bottled the brew last night, relatively hassle free! More sediment/trub than expected so we lost a couple more litres than expected, haven't been diligent with measurements this time round so can't say exactly but ended up with around 16 litres.

Last bottle only filled halfway so had another sample, still not tasting great. Have a feeling we're going to have to improve the next batch quite a bit! I think we messed up with the amount and temp of the sparge water and it's causing some astringency. Let's see how it tastes when cold and carbed in a week or two!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Have a feeling we're going to have to improve the next batch quite a bit! I think we messed up with the amount and temp of the sparge water and it's causing some astringency. Let's see how it tastes when cold and carbed in a week or two!

So....??

 

[SJMC]

So....??

It turned out alright! Drinkable, not perfect but did the job. That astringency stuck around but it had been significantly mellowed after a couple of weeks.

Ordered the ingredients for the next brew, a citra and mosaic DIPA (forever ambitious) so will probably do another post about that one. I think I've underestimated how much water we're going to need (not ideal with a 30L kettle!)

 

[Northern_Brewer]

It turned out alright! Drinkable, not perfect but did the job. That astringency stuck around but it had been significantly mellowed after a couple of weeks.

Ordered the ingredients for the next brew, a citra and mosaic DIPA (forever ambitious) so will probably do another post about that one. I think I've underestimated how much water we're going to need (not ideal with a 30L kettle!)

You certainly don't make it easy for yourself! I'd repeat the suggestion of something a bit simpler (and friendlier for school-night drinking) for the purposes of honing your technique, can still use things like Citra and Mosaic, but in more of an APA-type package.

Also given the fragility of super-hoppy beers, it might be no bad thing to reduce your batch size. There's nothing magic about a 5 gallon batch size, and there's a lot to recommend 5x1 gallon batches of fresh beer with a variety of hops, than one 5gallon batches slowly oxidising in front of you. Or 2 gallon batches or whatever. It's fine if you've got a party to brew for, but there's a lot to be said for smaller batches - and you don't have to worry about overflowing your kettle.

 

[troglodytes]

I'm joining in on this thread late, but kudos to you for attempting a NEIPA as your first brew ever. As others have said, I would absolutely go for an APA or Smash with your favorite hops to hone your skills, though. I've been brewing for close to a decade now and literally just bottled my first NEIPA. I live down the street from Trillium and with that as a reference I know I'm going to be disappointed because I just can't match the quality, between oxygen ingress, potential process issues (yes they still occur after 50+ batches), etc.

If you really do want to continue do this style, go for it but here are some hints that I've learned over the years in producing many a mediocre beer, a few outstanding ones. The below ones are just a starting point into researching for NEIPAs and not all apply to other styles.

• For BIAB you can grind your grain a lot more to get better efficiency (it might have boosted that 1.060 up to the expected 1.066)
• Make sure you use a calculator (beersmith or the like) to figure out your heat loss by adding cool grains to hit you target mash temp
• Minimize oxygen in every step of the process (limit splashing mash when stirring, likewise when whirpooling hops post boil, do a slow steady stir, don't whip and froth it)
• First wort hop just to get a base bitterness, even if this is only .25 oz of Columbus or Chinook per 5 gallons. This is the difference a beer like Foundation Epiphany or Psuedo Sue has over the others, that slight layer of dank brings the whole thing together and if, like me, your hop flavor/aroma fades quickly, that bitterness will help extend the life of the beer instead of it falling flat very quickly
• Cool wort post whirlpool as fast as possible (look into chillers) and pitch that yeast immediately.
• I highly recommend a starter, and even more highly recommend a vitality starter which is what I do for all beers. Info can all be found within these forums.
• Add dry hops while fermentation is still active (I do it on day 2-3 for all my hoppy styles) because I like the flavor the bio-transformation gives, plus the active fermentation will help purge the O2 you introduced in the act of dry hopping
• In the same vein, don't constantly check gravity, every time you open the fermenter you release the CO2 blanket introduce oxygen
• Bottle as soon as fermentation is complete
• Perfect your bottling process. This is a killer for IPAs in my experience. I've had endless strings of bottling issues from siphon air leaks to clogs and everything else one could think of over the years. You'll figure out what problems one can possibly have the more you brew, because they will eventually happen to you. Just learn what works for you and your equipment best, but I'll recommend clamps, clamps, clamps. Don't let any of the air in, and if you can find a way to bottle straight out of your fermenter (research is needed if you want to go that route) even better.

At the end of the day, just brewing repeatedly will make you better and you'll produce better beers. Even better for your process, though would be going with a recipe where mistakes are hard to hide, but easy(ish) to diagnose. Brew a Maris Otter/Galaxy smash. If it doesn't turn out well, you're only out $25 instead of the $50 for NEIPA. And if something was off in your process you have limited places to tweak to diagnose where you need fix things. On the flip side, do not be discouraged if you attempt another NEIPA and it turns out worse than the first one you made. These things happen. I brewed a Hop Rod Rye clone which was about my 40th batch and had to dump it down the toilet. I don't know what or where it went wrong but it was straight up garbage. If that had been my 1st batch I might never have brewed again, and I worry that if you spend a decent chunk of change and time and effort to brew and don't like the results, you'll quickly become disenfranchised and quit the hobby.

One last recommendation, and this is coming from the perspective of a beer fan, use homebrewing to broaden your horizons of flavors you like or don't like. There are some people that like IPAs and will attempt to perfect a recipe. I do this with some recipes (I'm on a 6th iteration of my ginger saison that is damn near perfect in my mind), but the majority of the time I'll go from doing an APA to a wit to a dark strong to a porter. Variety is the spice of life my friend and experimenting on your own setup and figuring out what you can create is not only fun, but I think it will broaden you perspective on flavor combos and what works and doesn't. It's also kick ass to have a whole gamut of styles to pair with your mood, the season, or meal for the evening.

Ok, rambling over. Welcome to the hobby and good luck!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

At the end of the day, just brewing repeatedly will make you better and you'll produce better beers. Even better for your process, though would be going with a recipe where mistakes are hard to hide, but easy(ish) to diagnose.

+1 to this

One last recommendation, and this is coming from the perspective of a beer fan, use homebrewing to broaden your horizons of flavors you like or don't like. There are some people that like IPAs and will attempt to perfect a recipe. I do this with some recipes (I'm on a 6th iteration of my ginger saison that is damn near perfect in my mind), but the majority of the time I'll go from doing an APA to a wit to a dark strong to a porter. Variety is the spice of life my friend and experimenting on your own setup and figuring out what you can create is not only fun, but I think it will broaden you perspective on flavor combos and what works and doesn't. It's also kick ass to have a whole gamut of styles to pair with your mood, the season, or meal for the evening.

I'd disagree with this. Note that the OP is in the UK, where even small-town supermarkets can have Weihenstephan wheat beers, Thornbridge sours and gose, wits from Iceland and Japan, smoked or plum porters, To Øl saisons, Guinness FES, hoppy stuff from credible breweries like Beavertown and Northern Monk - and that's before you get onto all the classic British stuff. Is that enough of a gamut of styles for you? Not only that, he's in London, so has literally 1000's of beers for sale on his doorstep in specialist bottle shops and bars (even if the cask beer is generally better up north...) If you're trying to "broaden your horizons", why would I invest time and US$25 for ingredients to discover what wheat beer tastes like, when I can (and have) buy Weihenstephan for $2 from a local supermarket? (admitedly that was on sale, it's normally about $2.50) I have to emphasise that not all supermarkets are like this, some are better than others, but it's possible to get all of the above from one or other British supermarkets, and not just in London.

Sure, if you discover that you like wheat beer and want to get that halfway point between Weihenstephan and Benediktiner (without blending the two directly!) then you'll need to brew it, but homebrew is a pretty inefficient method for "flavour discovery" at the broad level. I know it's tempting to go off like a kid in a candy store but I'd say it's good to at least do your first 4-5 brews with essentially the same grist at least, so you can establish a bit of a routine and at least get a feel for where your numbers are at. That doesn't mean you can't play around with different hops, and yeast, and dryhopping schedules and what not - that's all I do with most of my brews, I do maybe 1-2 brews a year that don't involve a ~1.045 wort of 100% Otter,and I routinely split my batches into 3-4 tests of yeast or hopping schedules etc.

 

[troglodytes]

Is that enough of a gamut of styles for you?

This is a very fair point. I may have projected my personal experience onto OP. I live in Boston and have the same, if not more, amazing beers in all varieties available to me. However, every time I would go to the store, as much as I wanted to branch out and maybe get a Saison Dupont or unique Unibrou offering, I always ended up shying away for either and IPA or pale ale. Partially it was because of the price and partially it was because I knew I liked that 12 pack of Notch APA I was picking up so why risk spending $12 on something unknown.

But then I got into home brewing. I could all of a sudden produce a wit for $20 for 5 gallons. I could research process, reproduce, harvest some yeast from Ommegang and come out with something decent. If it wasn't to my liking, I have friends and family who will happily take it off my hands and at the end of the day I produced 48 bottles for the price of 2 bombers. There was absolutely a direct correlation with me experimenting in brewing styles I had always had available to me (but never bought), and finally actually picking them up when in store.

That's all I meant by that comment. I by all means don't think someone who really doesn't like the flavor profile of Belgian ales go ouot and start brewing Belgians just becuase they can.

 

[SJMC]

I'm joining in on this thread late, but kudos to you for attempting a NEIPA as your first brew ever. As others have said, I would absolutely go for an APA or Smash with your favorite hops to hone your skills, though. I've been brewing for close to a decade now and literally just bottled my first NEIPA. I live down the street from Trillium and with that as a reference I know I'm going to be disappointed because I just can't match the quality, between oxygen ingress, potential process issues (yes they still occur after 50+ batches), etc.

If you really do want to continue do this style, go for it but here are some hints that I've learned over the years in producing many a mediocre beer, a few outstanding ones. The below ones are just a starting point into researching for NEIPAs and not all apply to other styles.

• For BIAB you can grind your grain a lot more to get better efficiency (it might have boosted that 1.060 up to the expected 1.066)
• Make sure you use a calculator (beersmith or the like) to figure out your heat loss by adding cool grains to hit you target mash temp
• Minimize oxygen in every step of the process (limit splashing mash when stirring, likewise when whirpooling hops post boil, do a slow steady stir, don't whip and froth it)
• First wort hop just to get a base bitterness, even if this is only .25 oz of Columbus or Chinook per 5 gallons. This is the difference a beer like Foundation Epiphany or Psuedo Sue has over the others, that slight layer of dank brings the whole thing together and if, like me, your hop flavor/aroma fades quickly, that bitterness will help extend the life of the beer instead of it falling flat very quickly
• Cool wort post whirlpool as fast as possible (look into chillers) and pitch that yeast immediately.
• I highly recommend a starter, and even more highly recommend a vitality starter which is what I do for all beers. Info can all be found within these forums.
• Add dry hops while fermentation is still active (I do it on day 2-3 for all my hoppy styles) because I like the flavor the bio-transformation gives, plus the active fermentation will help purge the O2 you introduced in the act of dry hopping
• In the same vein, don't constantly check gravity, every time you open the fermenter you release the CO2 blanket introduce oxygen
• Bottle as soon as fermentation is complete
• Perfect your bottling process. This is a killer for IPAs in my experience. I've had endless strings of bottling issues from siphon air leaks to clogs and everything else one could think of over the years. You'll figure out what problems one can possibly have the more you brew, because they will eventually happen to you. Just learn what works for you and your equipment best, but I'll recommend clamps, clamps, clamps. Don't let any of the air in, and if you can find a way to bottle straight out of your fermenter (research is needed if you want to go that route) even better.

At the end of the day, just brewing repeatedly will make you better and you'll produce better beers. Even better for your process, though would be going with a recipe where mistakes are hard to hide, but easy(ish) to diagnose. Brew a Maris Otter/Galaxy smash. If it doesn't turn out well, you're only out $25 instead of the $50 for NEIPA. And if something was off in your process you have limited places to tweak to diagnose where you need fix things. On the flip side, do not be discouraged if you attempt another NEIPA and it turns out worse than the first one you made. These things happen. I brewed a Hop Rod Rye clone which was about my 40th batch and had to dump it down the toilet. I don't know what or where it went wrong but it was straight up garbage. If that had been my 1st batch I might never have brewed again, and I worry that if you spend a decent chunk of change and time and effort to brew and don't like the results, you'll quickly become disenfranchised and quit the hobby.

One last recommendation, and this is coming from the perspective of a beer fan, use homebrewing to broaden your horizons of flavors you like or don't like. There are some people that like IPAs and will attempt to perfect a recipe. I do this with some recipes (I'm on a 6th iteration of my ginger saison that is damn near perfect in my mind), but the majority of the time I'll go from doing an APA to a wit to a dark strong to a porter. Variety is the spice of life my friend and experimenting on your own setup and figuring out what you can create is not only fun, but I think it will broaden you perspective on flavor combos and what works and doesn't. It's also kick ass to have a whole gamut of styles to pair with your mood, the season, or meal for the evening.

Ok, rambling over. Welcome to the hobby and good luck!

Thanks so much for the post! Lots of useful advice in there, I actually felt quite confident after reading as a lot of those bullet points I'd either already considered pre-first brew or have since thought about before the second one.

The one thing I'm still quite confused about is how I'm going to know when fermentation is done? I know that getting consistent gravity readings over a few days is a good indication (especially if it's at/near the target FG) but one of the flaws of the last brew that I wanted to tighten up on was taking too many gravity readings and potentially letting oxygen in. Are there any other signs that would help me know when to check the gravity?

Another flaw with the last setup was our sparging, which ended up being a little bit panicked and involved frantically heating up the kettle and topping up. I want to make sure it's more under control this time, as I think the heat of the sparge water had something to do with the off flavour we encountered (the only suspect other than London water - we've got bottled water for this brew to eliminate that suspect). I'm thinking it would be best to heat the sparge water in a large pan and adding it to the kettle that way. Are there any opinions on types of sparging for BIAB? We dumped the grain bag into the other bucket and poured water, that was admittedly probably a bit too hot, in. Is it better to simply top up the kettle with water of the same temperature?

We've got a bottling wand that seems to be pretty efficient, going to do a thorough clean of everything before brew two to try and avoid clogs and the like.

+1 to this



I'd disagree with this. Note that the OP is in the UK, where even small-town supermarkets can have Weihenstephan wheat beers, Thornbridge sours and gose, wits from Iceland and Japan, smoked or plum porters, To Øl saisons, Guinness FES, hoppy stuff from credible breweries like Beavertown and Northern Monk - and that's before you get onto all the classic British stuff. Is that enough of a gamut of styles for you? Not only that, he's in London, so has literally 1000's of beers for sale on his doorstep in specialist bottle shops and bars (even if the cask beer is generally better up north...) If you're trying to "broaden your horizons", why would I invest time and US$25 for ingredients to discover what wheat beer tastes like, when I can (and have) buy Weihenstephan for $2 from a local supermarket? (admitedly that was on sale, it's normally about $2.50) I have to emphasise that not all supermarkets are like this, some are better than others, but it's possible to get all of the above from one or other British supermarkets, and not just in London.

Sure, if you discover that you like wheat beer and want to get that halfway point between Weihenstephan and Benediktiner (without blending the two directly!) then you'll need to brew it, but homebrew is a pretty inefficient method for "flavour discovery" at the broad level. I know it's tempting to go off like a kid in a candy store but I'd say it's good to at least do your first 4-5 brews with essentially the same grist at least, so you can establish a bit of a routine and at least get a feel for where your numbers are at. That doesn't mean you can't play around with different hops, and yeast, and dryhopping schedules and what not - that's all I do with most of my brews, I do maybe 1-2 brews a year that don't involve a ~1.045 wort of 100% Otter,and I routinely split my batches into 3-4 tests of yeast or hopping schedules etc.

I'll have to second this, luckily I live just down the road from a place called Beer and Burger which has a fantastic selection, 5 metres of fridges full of different stuff. I've had Beavertown, Cloudwater, Trillium, To Øl, Lervig, Omnipollo, Magic Rock, Mikkeller, Boneyard and many more from their store alone. Absolutely spoilt for choice! Also managed to get along to the Beavertown Extravanga last year. London is a great place to try new beers!

 

[SJMC]

I'm joining in on this thread late, but kudos to you for attempting a NEIPA as your first brew ever. As others have said, I would absolutely go for an APA or Smash with your favorite hops to hone your skills, though. I've been brewing for close to a decade now and literally just bottled my first NEIPA. I live down the street from Trillium and with that as a reference I know I'm going to be disappointed because I just can't match the quality, between oxygen ingress, potential process issues (yes they still occur after 50+ batches), etc.

If you really do want to continue do this style, go for it but here are some hints that I've learned over the years in producing many a mediocre beer, a few outstanding ones. The below ones are just a starting point into researching for NEIPAs and not all apply to other styles.

• For BIAB you can grind your grain a lot more to get better efficiency (it might have boosted that 1.060 up to the expected 1.066)
• Make sure you use a calculator (beersmith or the like) to figure out your heat loss by adding cool grains to hit you target mash temp
• Minimize oxygen in every step of the process (limit splashing mash when stirring, likewise when whirpooling hops post boil, do a slow steady stir, don't whip and froth it)
• First wort hop just to get a base bitterness, even if this is only .25 oz of Columbus or Chinook per 5 gallons. This is the difference a beer like Foundation Epiphany or Psuedo Sue has over the others, that slight layer of dank brings the whole thing together and if, like me, your hop flavor/aroma fades quickly, that bitterness will help extend the life of the beer instead of it falling flat very quickly
• Cool wort post whirlpool as fast as possible (look into chillers) and pitch that yeast immediately.
• I highly recommend a starter, and even more highly recommend a vitality starter which is what I do for all beers. Info can all be found within these forums.
• Add dry hops while fermentation is still active (I do it on day 2-3 for all my hoppy styles) because I like the flavor the bio-transformation gives, plus the active fermentation will help purge the O2 you introduced in the act of dry hopping
• In the same vein, don't constantly check gravity, every time you open the fermenter you release the CO2 blanket introduce oxygen
• Bottle as soon as fermentation is complete
• Perfect your bottling process. This is a killer for IPAs in my experience. I've had endless strings of bottling issues from siphon air leaks to clogs and everything else one could think of over the years. You'll figure out what problems one can possibly have the more you brew, because they will eventually happen to you. Just learn what works for you and your equipment best, but I'll recommend clamps, clamps, clamps. Don't let any of the air in, and if you can find a way to bottle straight out of your fermenter (research is needed if you want to go that route) even better.

At the end of the day, just brewing repeatedly will make you better and you'll produce better beers. Even better for your process, though would be going with a recipe where mistakes are hard to hide, but easy(ish) to diagnose. Brew a Maris Otter/Galaxy smash. If it doesn't turn out well, you're only out $25 instead of the $50 for NEIPA. And if something was off in your process you have limited places to tweak to diagnose where you need fix things. On the flip side, do not be discouraged if you attempt another NEIPA and it turns out worse than the first one you made. These things happen. I brewed a Hop Rod Rye clone which was about my 40th batch and had to dump it down the toilet. I don't know what or where it went wrong but it was straight up garbage. If that had been my 1st batch I might never have brewed again, and I worry that if you spend a decent chunk of change and time and effort to brew and don't like the results, you'll quickly become disenfranchised and quit the hobby.

One last recommendation, and this is coming from the perspective of a beer fan, use homebrewing to broaden your horizons of flavors you like or don't like. There are some people that like IPAs and will attempt to perfect a recipe. I do this with some recipes (I'm on a 6th iteration of my ginger saison that is damn near perfect in my mind), but the majority of the time I'll go from doing an APA to a wit to a dark strong to a porter. Variety is the spice of life my friend and experimenting on your own setup and figuring out what you can create is not only fun, but I think it will broaden you perspective on flavor combos and what works and doesn't. It's also kick ass to have a whole gamut of styles to pair with your mood, the season, or meal for the evening.

Ok, rambling over. Welcome to the hobby and good luck!

+1 to this



I'd disagree with this. Note that the OP is in the UK, where even small-town supermarkets can have Weihenstephan wheat beers, Thornbridge sours and gose, wits from Iceland and Japan, smoked or plum porters, To Øl saisons, Guinness FES, hoppy stuff from credible breweries like Beavertown and Northern Monk - and that's before you get onto all the classic British stuff. Is that enough of a gamut of styles for you? Not only that, he's in London, so has literally 1000's of beers for sale on his doorstep in specialist bottle shops and bars (even if the cask beer is generally better up north...) If you're trying to "broaden your horizons", why would I invest time and US$25 for ingredients to discover what wheat beer tastes like, when I can (and have) buy Weihenstephan for $2 from a local supermarket? (admitedly that was on sale, it's normally about $2.50) I have to emphasise that not all supermarkets are like this, some are better than others, but it's possible to get all of the above from one or other British supermarkets, and not just in London.

Sure, if you discover that you like wheat beer and want to get that halfway point between Weihenstephan and Benediktiner (without blending the two directly!) then you'll need to brew it, but homebrew is a pretty inefficient method for "flavour discovery" at the broad level. I know it's tempting to go off like a kid in a candy store but I'd say it's good to at least do your first 4-5 brews with essentially the same grist at least, so you can establish a bit of a routine and at least get a feel for where your numbers are at. That doesn't mean you can't play around with different hops, and yeast, and dryhopping schedules and what not - that's all I do with most of my brews, I do maybe 1-2 brews a year that don't involve a ~1.045 wort of 100% Otter,and I routinely split my batches into 3-4 tests of yeast or hopping schedules etc.

One more question you both might be able to help with. Cloudwater very publicly state that their DIPAs are dry hopped with 25g of hops per litre, which I realise is an absolutely insane amount. Would this still be appropriate with a much smaller batch size? I have enough hops to do it and I'm after a complete hop bomb similar to their style, but I imagine I'm going to lose quite a lot of beer as a result? Is this something only big breweries can get away with or should I just go for it?

 

[troglodytes]

That is a lot, but not completely crazy I guess, even for our smaller batches. My Dialed In clone was 2oz Nelson on day 3 and 3oz of Galaxy of day 6. If I did Cloudwater's dry hopping volumes I would have done 4oz Nelson and 5oz Galaxy. That is a lot, but not necessarily too much. I think as smaller batch brewers, it might behoove us to move some of those dry hops to whirlpool, because the aroma I get from a 5oz dry hop is really fantastic, and I think you might get diminishing returns at higher amounts.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

every time I would go to the store, as much as I wanted to branch out and maybe get a Saison Dupont or unique Unibrou offering, I always ended up shying away for either and IPA or pale ale. Partially it was because of the price and partially it was because I knew I liked that 12 pack of Notch APA I was picking up so why risk spending $12 on something unknown.

But then I got into home brewing. I could all of a sudden produce a wit for $20 for 5 gallons. I could research process, reproduce, harvest some yeast from Ommegang and come out with something decent. If it wasn't to my liking, I have friends and family who will happily take it off my hands and at the end of the day I produced 48 bottles for the price of 2 bombers.

I think that may be partly cultural accident - here the supermarkets have traditionally sold cans and bottles of macro lager in multipacks, but with a rather greater diversity of traditional brewers, the "premium" brown beers were always sold as single 500ml bottles (albeit mostly in £x for y kind of deals). So when "craft" came along, they slotted into that kind of structure, but being more expensive and higher ABV they came as 330ml bottles in the same deals - typically it's about US$8.50 for four bottles. It's only quite recently that you've started seeing some of the "cooler" new breweries putting their beers into supermarkets and using multipacks to get the numbers to work for the supermarkets - Northern Monk were a prominent example - and bombers are almost unknown here.

So you're not risking $12, you're risking $2.13 - in fact you may well add a unknown bottle to three familiar faces in order to get the deal.

Obviously that doesn't work when a style isn't readily available on the mass market - which is where NEIPA is at the moment, although bottle shops and bars are full of them. I imagine the supermarkets would prefer something with a more forgiving shelflife.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Are there any other signs that would help me know when to check the gravity?

Another flaw with the last setup was our sparging, which ended up being a little bit panicked and involved frantically heating up the kettle and topping up. I want to make sure it's more under control this time, as I think the heat of the sparge water had something to do with the off flavour we encountered (the only suspect other than London water - we've got bottled water for this brew to eliminate that suspect). I'm thinking it would be best to heat the sparge water in a large pan and adding it to the kettle that way. Are there any opinions on types of sparging for BIAB?

On the gravity - this is a classic example of where the best thing is experience from doing a similar grist repeatedly. As you get to know your grain/yeast and your process, you get to know when it's done. You take notes, you do things repeatably, and the process happens the same way.

One option for sparging is just not to. Personally I don't go for the full low-oxygen thing, but I do preboil my full volume of water (and go off an mow the lawn or something in the meantime), then add half a Camden tablet and let it cool (during which time I weigh out grains and work out my recipe - sorry, I mean double check the recipe I prepared days beforehand so that I could order in any ingredients I was missing. Ahem). Then I start the mash and have supper, then during the boil I usually get a pressure cooker on with yeast bits and priming sugar solution. So preboiling does add to the total brewday, but it's minimal contact time so you can get on with doing other things.

The problem is not so much with your bottling wand, it's just the fact that traditional hand bottling has some many opportunities for oxygen to get in.

The usual range for NEIPAs seems to lie between 10-25g/l, so Cloudwater are at the upper end (with prices to match!). You'll commonly see homebrewers being recommended somewhere in the 10-12oz per 5 gallon range, which works out at about 12-14g/l, you seem to run into diminishing returns above that. Yes, the losses can be crazy - historically it's been a real problem for Cloudwater, ISTR them talking about 44% recovery on one batch. They have heavy financial incentives to increase that number, it was one reason for them buying a centrifuge. And professional brewers use all sorts of concentrated hop products that homebrewers have far less access to, like cryohops, CO2 extracts and the like. I'm aware of some manufacturers discouraging retailers from breaking up wholesale packs of some of those kinds of things, because the shelflife is so short once you get it into small packets. So I wouldn't discourage you, just be aware that you're not on a level playing field...

 

[johnstod]

There seem to be a lot of people bashing the stock pot size, you can easily do a 5gal batch in a 5gal pot it's just going to need some diluting at the end.