Just did brew #2 - Black IPA

[airbrett]

6 weeks after our first brew, a Pale Ale (see the other thread about how we are still waiting for carbonation), yesterday we did brew #2 - a Black IPA. I'm trying some new things this time around -

1) Single fermentation only
2) Dry hopping
3) Different partial mash technique
4) Added gypsum based on water chemistry calculators

I got the recipe from an HBS that happens to be tasting their first release tomorrow for SF Beer Week at a local craft beer bar - this Black IPA! I can't wait to try it and compare it to mine 6-8 weeks from now.

For the partial mash, I put the 3.5 lbs of grains directly into the mash water (in a covered pot), used the oven to keep it at the right temp (which worked perfect), then had a large grain bag to catch the grains as we pored into the sparge water, followed by stirring. Results:

Conversion efficiency: 71.58%
OG: 1.062

What didn't work, was trying to catch the hop trub with a grain bag while funneling into the glass carboy. It just clogged up right away so we poured the wort right in without filtering. This was after shaking for oxygenating it too. Hope it will settle and not affect flavor negatively.

The fermentation has started, and this morning it sounds less like bubbling and more like a jacuzzi jet. I'm also using a blowoff tube in starsan this time, based both on what I have read here and my luck. You will see in the attached image I have wrapped a damp towel around the carboy to reduce the temp a bit through evaporative cooling.

Modified recipe for partial mash:
Black Sands "Son of Man" Black IPA
LME: 6 lbs
Maris Otter: 1 lb (was 10 lbs for all grain)
Munich Malt .5 lbs
Flaked Barley .5 lbs
Black Malt .75 lbs
Special Roast .5 lbs
Chocolate Malt .25 lbs

Mash: 60 mins @ 152 deg F

Hop Schedule:
Galena, 60 min, 1oz
Galena, 30 min, 1oz
Cascade, 15 min, 2 oz
Cascade, 5 min, 1 oz

Yeast: GigaYeast Vermont IPA

Dry Hop: Motueka 1oz, Rakau 1oz

 

[Ski12568]

Looks great, man!

 

[rodwha]

Interested in how it turns out. I love a BIPA!

 

[airbrett]

Last night at the 15 day mark, I dry hopped for the first time ever. Used Motueka and Rakau hop pellets and just dumped them in to the primary.

The gravity is about 1.021 - 1.022, a bit higher than I would have wanted but that just gives me motivation to switch to All Grain eventually. The OG was 1.062.

Planning to bottle on Sunday, at the 3 week mark, and will check the gravity right before to see if there is a change.

Most importantly, the sample tasted good.

 

[hanuswalrus]

Sounds like it's coming along nicely, man.

The first time I dry hopped, I just dumped the pellets in as well. I have since started using a hop bag, only to reduce hop gunk from getting into the finished product. You will be alright though. When you bottle, just let it sit in the bottling bucket after racking for about 30 minutes and all that gunk will drop to the bottom.

 

[airbrett]

Sounds like it's coming along nicely, man.

The first time I dry hopped, I just dumped the pellets in as well. I have since started using a hop bag, only to reduce hop gunk from getting into the finished product. You will be alright though. When you bottle, just let it sit in the bottling bucket after racking for about 30 minutes and all that gunk will drop to the bottom.

Got it. Is it ok to add the priming sugar solution in first if I'm letting the bottling bucket sit for so long. Is there a maximum time let it sit before working about oxygenation or the yeast starting the process (ex. can I wait 1-2 hours)?

 

[bragona71]

As long as you put the racking tube all the way to bottom of bottling bucket you will not get oxygenation. then wait 1-2 hours after its mixed with priming solution your fine

BTW when dry hopping with a bag in a carboy just know its not easy getting bag out! it can and has been done but its a pain in the a#s

 

[hanuswalrus]

I can only speak from my experience, but for that batch I dry hopped without a hop bag (my first batch ever, about 8 months ago, so I'm trying to remember exactly what I did), I believe I added the priming solution to the bottling bucket, racked on top of it, stirred very gently, then let it sit for about an hour. It turned out nicely carbonated, and no hop gunk in the finished bottles.

I don't think you need to worry about oxidation for that short of a period of time. I just placed the lid on my bottling bucket while it sat to keep any dust, hair, crap etc. from getting in. And I don't think you need to worry about the yeast starting up that quickly either.

One thing I want to suggest is that after you bottle, put the bottles somewhere with an ambient temp of 70-72 degrees (even a little warmer is fine too) to carbonate. Any colder and it will take much longer than 2-3 weeks for your bottles to carb up. I'm telling you this because I just tried a bottle of my latest batch after about 2 weeks in the bottle and it is nowhere near carbed up enough. I figured out that it was because I had the bottles sitting in a room that was between 66-68 degrees.

 

[hanuswalrus]

BTW when dry hopping with a bag in a carboy just know its not easy getting bag out! it can and has been done but its a pain in the a#s

True, it is a pain. But I've done it several times and have gotten a little quicker at cleaning it out every time I do it. Use a scissors to cut the bag, then your finger to scoop the crap out until you eventually get the bag, then just rinse the rest of the hop crap out with water.

 

[rodwha]

I found large tea baskets at World Market for $7. I've been using them for whirlpooling and dry hopping/peppering. It works great!

They look as though they'd hold about 8 oz of pellet hops. I used 4.5 oz in a whirlpool and found they expanded to fill the entire basket. I doubt they did a good job as it seems the wort wouldn't freely flow through it all.

I recently dry hopped with one at 7 days and another at 3 days and found that I lost almost half of the pellets in the 7 day basket. I'll be using a muslin bag too I suppose. I like that they have a chain and are weighted to ensure they drop down into the beer/wort.

I since bought another and may get one more eventually.

I also transfer my beer with the priming solution and let it sit for about 30 mins to allow any trub I may have pulled to settle. Just place a lid and it's good.

 

[airbrett]

Before I brew my next batch, can you all help me debug what may have gone wrong with the FG being so high (1.021)?

I got a good efficiency in the partial mash, and as I said earlier in this post I did my best to keep the fermentation temperature under control.

Water and mash: I used about 3.5 pounds of grain and the rest LME. I know extract brewers can sometimes have issues with getting the FG low with heavier gravity beers. I mashed and boiled with San Francisco tap, which tends to give good results but is low in calcium and high alkaline. PH is around 9. I added a teaspoon of gypsum to the mash. Because I do the boil in my kitchen I have to top off with about 1.5 gallons of water after the boil. I did this with Arrowhead Spring Water which others here have had good results with.

Yeast/Temps: This is the GigaYeast Vermont IPA that is a "double pitch" 200 billion cell pack. I oxygenated by shaking the wort vigorously in a sanitized bucket before adding to the fermenter. Fermentation started very quickly and very actively. When I saw the initial temps (as measured with my infrared thermometer pointed at the glass carboy) climb to 74.5 deg in those first hours I wrapped with a wet towel. This kept things closer to 70, then 68 for the next day or so. Then the following couple days of fermentation with the towel method it was in the 65 degree range. After that week I removed the fan and wet towel the ambient temp for the next two weeks or so was 68 deg.

I measured the gravity a week before bottling (when I dry hopped) and on bottling day with little change between the two readings. My first beer, a pale ale, did just fine with a low FG but was not nearly as high OG-wise and used a different yeast. I want to make sure I'm not messing up somewhere that is affecting attenuation negatively as I want to do a partial mash IPA next with a decent ABV.

 

[HB_in_Subic]

When you dry hopped, you could try raising the temperature a couple of degrees to see if it can finish out a little lower. Or, let it sit longer than 3 weeks. Some of my best beers have sat for 6 weeks in primary.

 

[aprichman]

Before I brew my next batch, can you all help me debug what may have gone wrong with the FG being so high (1.021)?

I got a good efficiency in the partial mash, and as I said earlier in this post I did my best to keep the fermentation temperature under control.

Water and mash: I used about 3.5 pounds of grain and the rest LME. I know extract brewers can sometimes have issues with getting the FG low with heavier gravity beers. I mashed and boiled with San Francisco tap, which tends to give good results but is low in calcium and high alkaline. PH is around 9. I added a teaspoon of gypsum to the mash. Because I do the boil in my kitchen I have to top off with about 1.5 gallons of water after the boil. I did this with Arrowhead Spring Water which others here have had good results with.

Yeast/Temps: This is the GigaYeast Vermont IPA that is a "double pitch" 200 billion cell pack. I oxygenated by shaking the wort vigorously in a sanitized bucket before adding to the fermenter. Fermentation started very quickly and very actively. When I saw the initial temps (as measured with my infrared thermometer pointed at the glass carboy) climb to 74.5 deg in those first hours I wrapped with a wet towel. This kept things closer to 70, then 68 for the next day or so. Then the following couple days of fermentation with the towel method it was in the 65 degree range. After that week I removed the fan and wet towel the ambient temp for the next two weeks or so was 68 degrees.

I measured the gravity a week before bottling (when I dry hopped) and on bottling day with little change between the two readings. My first beer, a pale ale, did just fine with a low FG but was not nearly as high OG-wise and used a different yeast. I want to make sure I'm not messing up somewhere that is affecting attenuation negatively as I want to do a partial mash IPA next with a decent ABV.

Possibly not enough aeration - how long did you shake the bucket for? It needs ~3-5 minutes of shaking and even that is under the optimum levels for O2 on high gravity beers. For these optimum levels can only be achieved with pure O2 or an oxygenation stone.

I would advise adding a yeast nutrient, such as fermaid k or one of several other brands. Fermaid k advises to add a small amount (1/2 - 1 tsp I believe) to stalled fermentations, which you would hydrate in a small amount of sanitized water and add directly to the carboy.

 

[airbrett]

On my next high gravity beer I'll try a combo of heat and yeast nutrient if it stalls. I did shake for about 1 minute so maybe that wasn't enough. Having an O2 bottle in my apartment is just not something I want to do at this point.

I did ask the LHBS advice, and it turns out their own version of this beer also finished relatively high. They said they have heard several reports of this Gigayeast Vermont IPA batch doing the same, so perhaps it wasn't necessarily something I did wrong.

Thanks for your help.

 

[aprichman]

On my next high gravity beer I'll try a combo of heat and yeast nutrient if it stalls. I did shake for about 1 minute so maybe that wasn't enough. Having an O2 bottle in my apartment is just not something I want to do at this point.

I did ask the LHBS advice, and it turns out their own version of this beer also finished relatively high. They said they have heard several reports of this Gigayeast Vermont IPA batch doing the same, so perhaps it wasn't necessarily something I did wrong.

Thanks for your help.

I use a cheap agitator like this one. You just attach it to a drill and agitate the heck out of the wort. It's not going to deliver has much O2 as an oxygen setup or aeration stone but it's a lot better (and easier on the back) than trying to shake the carboy. I'll usually agitate my wort for ~3-4 minutes before pitching my yeast. I also add yeast nutrient into my boil.

In my opinion your LHBS is probably trying to downplay the issue, but it is a problem that your yeast is not attenuating properly. The yeast should give you ~80% attenuation and you're only getting ~60%. Your beer should be finishing around 1.012 not 1.022.