HAHAHA... oops....

[Grimsawyer]

HAAHHAHAHAHAH!!! ROFLMAO!!!! wow, did I screw up!!! For some reason I got it in my head that the 3 Lbs bag of amber DME was 5 LBS... HAHAHAH!!! oh wow... ok, so instead of a starting gravity of 1.050 it was WAY down at 1.032. I swooshed that 6.5 gallon carboy around again(as if the first 4 min of shaking it violently wasn't enough) took another hydrometer reading and got 1.032 AGAIN!! That's when I looked at the empty bag of DME in the trash..... as it was zoomed in on, HOLLYWOOD style, I could see the cartoon NEON lights around it, Circled in red ink with a friggin arrow pointing right at the number that doomed my batch of brew. IT WAS A 3 NOT A 5!!! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! I yelled as lightning struck, the thunder splintering through the air, the smell from the charred grass just outside my kitchen window.... Then I thought, hey, I have some extra honey... yeah, that'll raise my OG!!! Suddenly the day was saved (actually, at this time it was 11 pm, WAYYY after closing hours at my LHBS, too bad too, I wanted a more profound malt charicteristic). Acording to tasty brew (http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/recipe.html) if I was to add another pound of honey it'd bump my OG up to 1.037 and put my finished beer at 3.6% instead of 3 or 2.9. I can live with 3.6, it's close to 3.8 and 3.8% is kinda close to 4... right? anyhow, here's the recepie I thought I had made. Sounded good to me. LOL!
5 LBS amber DME
1 LBS clover honey(boiled and skimmed before adding malt and hops, just want a little kick to up the ABV
2oz Chinook hops @ 12.1%aa 60 min
.33 oz columbus hops @ 17%aa at 15 min 9 min and 1 min (.33 oz at each time)
Wyeast 1098 brit ale yeast.
ABV should be close to 4.8 with this recepie acording to tastybrew.com
instead of 5 I got 3 lbs amber DME and instead of 1 I have 2 LBS of clover honey. Is this just a total failure or will it be drinkable? Maybe a nice & light, yet hoppy, summer brew? With the 2 lbs honey is it going to take like 3 months to age till it tastes any good? Anyone else pulled a BONEHEAD move like this? heheh, would like to think I'm not the only one. I'll post again after bottling when I crack one open. Was going to call this one Old Redbeard..... but now he has a cane and is called Old Cripple.

 

[chillHayze]

Hopefully you are getting some much needed rest right now.
Someone correct me if I'm out of line, but I don't think the added honey will be utilized entirely due to not being boiled, thus making the beer very sweet. This could be good and balance out the strong chinook hops.
Did you boil the honey with some water and then add it, or just add straight room temperature honey to the primary?

 

[Grimsawyer]

hehe, oh, I did boil the honey, skimmed the protiens and all. Honey is after all almost 100% fermentable. When tasting this beer(can it be called a beer with that honey/malt ratio?) there might be no honey taste at all and the body will be very light and almost watery if what i've read is correct. hehe, perfect for chuggin in the hot sun! (man I hope it dosn't totally suck, I mean I don't expect it to be good, my hopes is that it is at least drinkable)

 

[RichBrewer]

Hopefully you are getting some much needed rest right now.
Someone correct me if I'm out of line, but I don't think the added honey will be utilized entirely due to not being boiled, thus making the beer very sweet. This could be good and balance out the strong chinook hops.
Did you boil the honey with some water and then add it, or just add straight room temperature honey to the primary?

Oh no. The honey will ferment out quite well. It will NOT be sweet at all. You will end up with a light beer that might be just the ticket for summer.
EDIT: The honey does not need to be boiled in order to ferment out completely.

 

[Mykel Obvious]

That is pretty close to a light braggot (beer style with a "large" amount of honey... call it a 50% mead 50% beer... see: http://www.bjcp.org/styles04/Category26.html#style26B )... I've made this style before, and due to the malt content, it doesn't take much longer than regular beer to age out to a nice flavor... and it really DOES make a great lawnmower beer for the hot summer months!!! You'll be fine... though with that low ABV ya might have to chug a few if you want a buzzzzzz :cross:


mikey

 

[clayof2day]

With 2 oz. Chinook at 60 min. and with a lower OG that baby is going to have a lot of hop bitterness and maybe some bite. I think that you're around 100 IBUs there man.

Does anyone else think this might be an issue?

 

[david_42]

That is an excess of chinook for the ABV. You may consider using some fuggles or EKG for dry hopping to balance it a bit.

 

[Mykel Obvious]

With 2 oz. Chinook at 60 min. and with a lower OG that baby is going to have a lot of hop bitterness and maybe some bite. I think that you're around 100 IBUs there man.

Does anyone else think this might be an issue?

HOLY CRAP!!!! I was thinking 1 oz chinook when I glanced through it the first time... with that hop load he'll have like 135+ IBUs... that's an @$$load of bitter for ANY beer style, let alone something that low gravity... that would be high IBUs even if you did hit 1.050!!!

Grimsaywer, where did you find that recipe??? And what did they call it: Death By Chinook??? :cross:

How did it taste going into primary??? I'd say brew a 1.080 batch with very low hopping rate and blend the two for 10 gallons of something in the 1.059 range that won't take the hide off your tongue LOL (but some people like hops I guess )

Anyway, let us know how it comes out for sure!!!

later,
mikey

 

[Lounge Lizard]

I say toss a pound or two of DME in a pot with some water and bring it to a boil. Cool it and put it into the primary.

I got pissed at one of my batches (due to low abv.) after it had fermented, and dumped a pound or so of corn sugar right into the primary one time. No sanitizing it, no nothing. It's in the bottles now looking and tasting quite promising... LOL

 

[Grimsawyer]

HAIL ALL!!! At 6pm I tossed another pound of DME into my bubbling fury of happy screw-ups. So now I'm 4 pounds of DME and 2 of honey. As for how did it taste? Diddn't taste too bitter. Had a real good hoppy flavor. 2 months ago My buddy and I were joking around and I had bought 2 oz of fuggles and 2 oz of MT Hood hops, we also had 1 oz of hallertau and another 1 oz of Mt hood laying around. We joked about tossing the 2 oz of Fuggles and 2 oz of Mt Hood in for the bitter and using the 1oz each of Hallertau and Mt Hood for finishing. (used 3 pounds of liquid amber malt extract and 2 pounds of light unhopped DME) Then we had a few beers and decided that was what we were going to do. I have 3 bottles of that batch left, hehehe. It was pretty tasty. One of my friends wanted some more of that same beer, told him I'll goof with some more bitter hops instead of 4oz of bittering hops. (in 3 gallons of wort with the other 2 oz of finishing hops it was almost unmanagable) I heard that Chinook and Colombus kinda had a citrus kinda flavor to them so I figured what the heck. I chose the Wyeast 1098 BRIT ALE cause I wanted to try another yeast and heard that this particluar strain let them good hop flavors and aromas shine. Then the 1 pound of honey was just to get the ABV up a bit and I hadn't played with honey yet. So I guess I'm not really going off of any recepie just trying some ingredients out with a fairly educated guess to the outcome. (Also a few of my favorite beers are Arrogant Bastard, Dead Guy Ale, Mac Ale, and just tried one tonight at a party that I will buy, Widmere Broken Halo(is that how you spell widmere?):rockin: Anyhow, my LHBS guy(is it just me or is the LHBS guy just a kick @$$ person in any shop?) seems to think that this beer won't be bad and would like to try some of the finished product. I think, since he is a great deal a source of my information, I shall open my first bottle of Old Cripple down there... hehehe, and if it's bad I won't be the only one with a WIERD look on my face, HAHAHAH!!!!

 

[Grimsawyer]

Well, bottled it yesterday. Yield was 57 bottles. Man, maybe I shall call it Death by Chinook, hehehe. It tastes great after the bitter kills your tastebuds. HAHA! I actually like the mouthfeel. Not a heavy beer, goes down easy. Wish i would have used more colombus hops in finishing and maybe a little dry hopping. Don't like the over dry hop flavor tho. Had Hazed and Infused, can't remember the brewery, and it tastes(to me) like sucking on freshly cut grass. Say, does anyone have a Mac Ale clone recepie? Anyhow, can't wait for this beer to get carbonated. Catch ya later!

 

[Grimsawyer]

Well, This beer is very dry and very bitter. Wouldn't recommend it. Kinda wondering if I bought some other beer and mixed it 50/50 if I could make it taste better. Maybe a Michelobe beer. That's the only domestic wimpy light yellow beer that even sort of tastes good to me. Anyone else have any suggestions? Just hate to dump out a full case of beer. Eventhough it isn't great it'll still be good for a heavy drinking night if I were to mix it. The kind of night that after the first 5 it dosn't matter what you are drinking, just whatever helps create the alcohol induced black out Just can't seem to make it through 2... throat gets kinda dry and i need to shave the hair that grows on my tongue off, heheheh