Jumped in with both feet!

[Longrange2]

My wife got my college aged son and I gift certificates for a LHBS for Christmas and we took a class last Wednesday on how to brew. Nice setup, 3 keggle stations, they clean up all the mess for you and teach you the process using extract and specialty grains. We picked an IPA for our first beer. They kind of rush you through the process though, one week in primary, rack to secondary and then bottle a week after that. I think I am going to have to let that one bottle condition for a while before drinking.

I had already picked up some used home brewing equipment on Craigslist for a good price and a new 15 gallon kettle with 1/2 ball valve. I also picked up some voile and my wife sewed a bag. Saturday we did an all grain BIAB batch that is a clone of Deschutes Green Lakes ale, outdoors on the turkey burner. Temp was 14 degrees, so it was a cold brewing session. I got started around 9 am and was cleaned up around 1:30.

Brought the water to strike temperature and overshot, I ended up mashing at about 156 to 158 degrees instead of 152. After a 75 minute mash I did a 15 minute mashout at 168 degrees. I stirred the wort several times during mashing and quite a bit during the mashout. The target gravity was 1.054 and it ended up at 1.056. The grain was run through the mill twice.

I started with 8.5 gallons of mashing water and added a quart after mashing, my final wort volume pre-boil was around 8 gallons. My kettle is wider than it is deep so it seems to boil off a good bit of water. I ended up with about 5.5 gallons in the 7.5 gallon carboy after a 75 minute boil.

Cooled the wort with a wort chiller, unfortunately one of the hoses came off and I might have gotten some well water in the wort before I yanked it away. The wort was still around 160 to 170, I hope I don't get an infection. Chilled the wort to 65 degrees and pitched a Wyeast 1056 large smack pack directly. (it was on the counter for about 3 hours and looked ready to explode). I put the carboy in a below grade closet area that is usually 58 to 60 degrees. After about 5 hours I had bubbles starting, by the next morning there was a 3/4 inch slimy green krausen. This had me worried, but I think it was from the large hop addition at 15 minutes and all the trub that ended up in the carboy. By 24 hours the airlock was bubbling faster than once per second, and at about 36 hours that had slowed to over 5 seconds or so. It is now bubbling once every few minutes.

During the vigorous fermentation it was amazing to see all the trub and yeast and whatnot roiling around inside the carboy, it almost looked like cottage cheese curds. The krausen has now fallen and there is a thin layer of bubbles across the top of the beer. The beer is starting to clear now. The smell from the airlock has a nice yeasty, malty, hop smell.

I am going to leave this in primary for two weeks and then check the FG. I plan to transfer to secondary with some gelatin to clear it up and cold crash it for a couple days before I bottle. The waiting is the hard part! Can't wait to taste this when it is done. I think that gift certificate has launched us on a new and fun hobby (like I needed another though)!

So now I am already looking for my next recipe, I am considering clones of Firestone Walker DBA with some oak cubes in secondary, a Tank 7 or maybe a good oatmeal stout. Glad I found this site, the information I was able to read really helped through the first all grain batch.

 

[Pappers_]

Congrats on your first two batches!

 

[BigRedHopHead]

and so the obsession begins.......I used to be an avid golfer, scratch handicap. Then I had two kids. Needed a hobby which didn't take me away from my family 4-5 hours at a time a couple times per week. Now I can brew in my house and still be obsessive about a hobby without leaving for prolong periods of time. Best part is I can share my labors with the neighbors and family while hanging out. Some are hits, some misses. But we all have a good time regardless. Cheers!

 

[RM-MN]

Congratulations on your first and second brew sessions.

When you took the class and got the IPA, if there was sufficient yeast pitched and temperature controlled well the IPA could well be ready to drink sooner than you think. I'd probably try one with a week in the bottle and if that was good, wait another week to try the next. Don't leave it too long as my experience says that the hop aroma begins to fade within a couple months.

If you BIAB and your grain is crushed fine for that, you won't need a 75 minute mash but could get by with 60 or perhaps even less. I've heard from one brewer who says that he has gone to a 30 minute mash and has complete conversion. You probably don't need the mashout either. Pull the bag and as soon as it is out of the mash tun/boil kettle, crank the heat. Your mash should be over and the wort will be at mashout temperature very quickly. During the time it takes to get the wort to mashout you can squeeze the last of the sweet wort out of the bag. You also can forgo the stirring of the mash. Once you have the grains stirred in they will all be in contact with the water and won't need stirring. If you used a conventional mash tun you would need to stir while sparging as that helps dissolve the sugars.

Unless you are adding something like fruit or oak I would recommend that you leave this beer in the primary for the total 3 weeks you plan. The yeast will settle in the primary just as well as secondary and the large cake of yeast on the bottom seems to help the beer mature faster. By not racking to secondary you avoid the chance of oxidizing the beer and the risk of infection is lower too. Just use some care when racking to the bottling bucket so you don't stir up the yeast.

 

[Longrange2]

Thanks for all the tips. I'm sure we'll give the IPA a taste once it carbs in the bottles.

I was considering just leaving the amber in the primary until bottling time, maybe I'll wait and see how it clears over the next week and a half and then decide.