Questions about yeast and hops

[whovous]

I am about to try my fourth brew from a Brooklyn Brew Shop box. My first three tries were not very successful, and I'd really like to get this one drinkable. I am not sure if i will start today or tomorrow.

The "best" of my prior tries was an Everyday IPA that came out tasting a lot like Bud Lite. I think I either mishandled the yeast or it was just pretty near dead. Anyhoo, this time I am trying a Warrior Double IPA (ABV 7.0%) that has sat in my cupboard for quite a while. The yeast package says it is only a few months from its freshness date.

So, I bought a package of Fermentis Safale US-05. It says "Final gravity low to medium." Is this OK for my 7.0% IPA?

Assuming it is OK, how much should I use? I do not know how much yeast is in the original package, but the yeast and package together weigh four grams. The 05 package contains 11.5 grams and weighs 13g, counting the packaging, if that helps for a comparison. Should I simply open and weigh the original contents, and then use the same amount of the 05? Is there any harm in using more than that? How much is too much?

Please note that this is a 1.0 gallon kit.

Next, I would really like to change up the hops a bit, both because the box is on the old side, and because I have some Citra hops I really want to use.

The kit uses Warrior hops (hence the Warrior IPA name). The packaging feels extremely lightweight (I think shrinkwrap foil is the best way to describe it), and the package and its contents weigh 12 grams.

The instructions call for a 75 minute boil, with three equal sized hop additions; the first third is added after 15 minutes, the second after 30 minutes and the last after 65 minutes.

Don't ask why, but I have a full pound of Citra pellets from this autumn's harvest, so I can use as much as I want. My thought is to use 1/3 of the Warrior hops (maybe one-half?) 15 minutes into the boil as a bittering hop, and then to go all Citra from there. What about six grams after 65 minutes, and another, say, ten grams in a hop bomb added to the fermenter?

Is this too much? Can I use more? I want to go heavy on the Citra aroma, but I do not feel the need to choke on it.

Advice on how to think about all of this will be greatly appreciated.

 

[maffew222]

As for yeast - for 1 gallon batches, I typically pitch 1/3-1/2 (I don't weigh) a packet of US-05, (which is totally fine for this DIPA) and I don't rehydrate it. In a high gravity or larger batch I would, and would also oxygenate, but for 1 gallon, it's overpitched by so much I've never had a problem. And I don't re-pitch from the yeast cake.

As for the hop scenario, You'll be fine using Citra, but without seeing an actual breakdown of Alpha Acid, timings and amounts I can't speculate how that might work. To be honest, if it's not that fresh, your bigger problem might be with the hop quality not the yeast quality.

Why do they recommend a 75 boil for extract?

 

[whovous]

Thanks for the reply. I will take your advice on the yeast.

On the other two points, I fear I was not clear. The Citra is fresh as can be. I just got a pound from Label Peelers. It is the Warrior that came in the box that is just a few months from the freshness date on the foil package.

I want to use the Warrior for bittering only. I do not want to use the Citra for bittering, as I've read one too many cat pee analogies in describing same. I am just not sure how much to use and when to use it when it comes to bittering. As for the Citra and aroma, all I know is I want a lot of it, but I have no idea of what a lot means here, i.e., how much and when.

Finally, I guess I never mentioned that this is an all-grain brew. It is not an extract.

I think I will start sanitizing now, and see if I get any more responses before it is time to start tossing in hops.

 

[maffew222]

Sorry, I saw "kit" and "one gallon" and made an extract assumption.

My personal hop schedule for end of 1gallon boils depends on hops used an AA, but in general from 10 mins to flameout I'm adding about .75 ounces of hops. I don't do hop stands because I'm impatient and also don't have time. And I do dry hop, anywhere from .25oz to .5oz depending on what I have leftover from the boil

 

[whovous]

0.75 oz added to a one gallon boil ten minutes before flameout? Just making sure.

 

[maffew222]

within the last 10 minutes. So I typically would have something like

-10mins - .2oz
-5mins - .3oz
-0Mins - .3oz

give or take. Depends on the AA content, which hops I'm using, etc. But that's just me, and I typically brew really hoppy pales/IPA and not double IPA. In your case I would probably almost double those additions, but someone else might have more experience with using that much Citra and with that much gravity.

 

[whovous]

Ok, I will do that absent advice to the contrary in the next hour or so. I will also add half of the Warrior for bittering about 15 minutes into the boil.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[joshesmusica]

Just to help you understand recipes and such thrown around in the home brewing world, and to help people best understand you, hop additions are usually stated by how long they're in the boil, not by how long into the boil they're added.
It's hard to give much specific advice without specifics about alpha acid content in your hops, original gravity and such. Broad suggestions can be made, but if you're wanting very specific advice, you gotta give more specific details about your recipe in the future.
Warrior is great for bittering though and citra great for flavor and aroma.
Plus one on the 15, 10, and 5 additions. I also like to do a hopstand in my IPAs. And dry hopping is a must for them in my opinion.

 

[whovous]

Well then, Warrior for 60 and Citra for 15, 10 and 5.

What is a hopstand?

Any advice on dryhopping? Do I simply put some hops in a muslin bag and toss them in the fermenter (in this case, a glass gallon jug)?

Or would that be too easy?

 

[whovous]

Hmm, 15, 10 & 5, or 10, 5 & 0? I have about ten minutes to decide. I think I will do the former, followed by a 1 oz 30 minute hopstand. Dry hopping? Dunno yet.

 

[joshesmusica]

Sorry went to bed. If you went with 15, 10, and 5, then a hopstand then you had a 0 in there as well. And because if your use if hopstand in the second post I'm guessing you looked it up?
Some people put it in a weighted bag, just enough weights to have it floating it in middle. Or some people just throw the pellets right in. I've never used whole hops but I'm thinking you could just throw those in as well. The reason for the bag would be if you're harvesting your yeast. If not I say just throw them in.
They say the best is to do it for 5-7 days. I don't do beers that require secondary, so I just throw them in primary after at least 90% of your expected attenuation (fermentation) I reached.

 

[whovous]

It went a little weird, but fortunately I was able to laugh at myself. Perhaps you could comment on the following? After my first brewing attempt was seemingly all trub, I've been trying to do what I can to keep the junk level down.

This time I bagged the grain (which I suspect is not really how "beer in a bag" is done, but i did not have that epiphany until after I started brewing), and I made little cheesecloth hopbombs by cutting a square of cloth and then tieing it with thread around the requisite quantity of pellets.

I was wondering if maybe I tied them too tightly, and if maybe that meant I was not getting the full effect of the hops if the pellets were not dissolving. Anyway, I got to flameout and tossed in the much larger 1 oz hopstand. It was not much more than a few seconds before my handiwork started coming undone, and I got to watch just how quickly the wort could be made to turn green!

I put a cover on the pot and stirred every five minutes or so, my version of a whirlpool. I'd been cooking in an enameled cast-iron pot because it was the only one big enough to hold all the wort for this recipe. I figured cast iron was not going to cool down very fast in an ice bath, so I poured the now-reduced amount of wort back and forth a few times (aeration?) into a tri-ply (stainless, copper, stainless) pot.

Those pots are supposed to conduct heat and cold extremely efficiently, but it still cooled a whole lot faster than I expected. It went from 150 to 80 in no time flat, then seemed to stall for a little while. When I next checked, it was just under 60. Is that too cold for this beer? Anyhow, I pitched my yeast without rehydrating, shook it up for about a minute (much easier with one gallon than with five), and then ran a blow-off tube into a small growler filled with sanitizer and put the whole thing into a cool, dark closet. It is now roughly 12 hours later, and I can hear a bubble about once every eight seconds or so.

Anyhoo, yes, I read up on hopstands and realized it made little sense to do 10, 5, 0 AND a hopstand, so decided on 15, 10, 5 as you suggested. I will wait for the bubbling to pick up and to die down before trying any dry hopping.

Comments? What should I do differently next time?

 

[joshesmusica]

be forewarned that i'm no expert by any means. i've only got about 12 batches under my belt. though i admit to being that crazy type of person that dives head first into whatever i want to take on. so i've done a ton of reading, and feel i have a pretty good grasp on some methods.

It went a little weird, but fortunately I was able to laugh at myself. Perhaps you could comment on the following? After my first brewing attempt was seemingly all trub, I've been trying to do what I can to keep the junk level down.

no big deal here, a little weird is great for learning experiences. i used to just siphon of making sure to leave all the trub behind. no i bag the hops and pour everything else into the fermenter after i read a blog by Brulosophy about effects of all the breaks.

This time I bagged the grain (which I suspect is not really how "beer in a bag" is done, but i did not have that epiphany until after I started brewing), and I made little cheesecloth hopbombs by cutting a square of cloth and then tieing it with thread around the requisite quantity of pellets.

http://beersmith.com/blog/2009/04/14/brew-in-a-bag-biab-all-grain-beer-brewing/

if you mean a bag like this, then it's exactly what brew in a bag means. i would suggest getting some other kind of small mesh bag in order to be able to toss all your hops in at each certain point.

some people use this type:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/...9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/7/3/7316.jpg

i use this type in a small version because it came with one of the first kits i bought from my LHBS:
http://thekitchenbitch.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/1-grain-bag.jpg

some of the hops material will obviously seep through when using pellets, but this will contain most of it.

I was wondering if maybe I tied them too tightly, and if maybe that meant I was not getting the full effect of the hops if the pellets were not dissolving. Anyway, I got to flameout and tossed in the much larger 1 oz hopstand. It was not much more than a few seconds before my handiwork started coming undone, and I got to watch just how quickly the wort could be made to turn green!

meh, no big problem here. you can just siphon off of this stuff, which if you do a strong whirlpool and then end of cooling, then let sit for about 15 minutes, most of it will be forced to the bottom.

I put a cover on the pot and stirred every five minutes or so, my version of a whirlpool. I'd been cooking in an enameled cast-iron pot because it was the only one big enough to hold all the wort for this recipe. I figured cast iron was not going to cool down very fast in an ice bath, so I poured the now-reduced amount of wort back and forth a few times (aeration?) into a tri-ply (stainless, copper, stainless) pot.

you can do this, for sure, but some people just decide to call it a hopstand because they just throw the hops in and let it stand for 20-minutes.

Those pots are supposed to conduct heat and cold extremely efficiently, but it still cooled a whole lot faster than I expected. It went from 150 to 80 in no time flat, then seemed to stall for a little while. When I next checked, it was just under 60. Is that too cold for this beer? Anyhow, I pitched my yeast without rehydrating, shook it up for about a minute (much easier with one gallon than with five), and then ran a blow-off tube into a small growler filled with sanitizer and put the whole thing into a cool, dark closet. It is now roughly 12 hours later, and I can hear a bubble about once every eight seconds or so.

is that your only method for cooling? not that it seems like it took too long, it seems like a lot of effort though? that's not too terribly cold considering a small batch will warm up to ambient pretty quickly. Brulosophy also conducted a temp pitching experiment that you should look up. could make your brew day much easier for yourself.

activity at 12 hours later is great!

Anyhoo, yes, I read up on hopstands and realized it made little sense to do 10, 5, 0 AND a hopstand, so decided on 15, 10, 5 as you suggested. I will wait for the bubbling to pick up and to die down before trying any dry hopping.

Comments? What should I do differently next time?

do you have any brewing software? i love beersmith. most people will call that hopstand addition either at "flameout" or a "whirlpool/hopstand" addition. if you add it at 0, that's flameout. if you let it sit after that for 20-30 minutes before you start the cooling process, then it's considered hopstand. in other words adding at 0 is what i meant by hopstand addition. though some people will cool it to 180-190 before adding in the hopstand hops.

i can only recommend to keep reading up as much as you can possibly handle, and keep brewing! each time you'll learn more. you'll be able to experience what you learned, which will then allow you to commit it to memory, and free you up to learn more.

since you're doing small batches, it could be fun to experiment with brewing the exact same ingredients with different hop additions. you can really get an idea of what time frame affects which aspect of the beer.
also a really good method to get better understanding of malts and/or hops is the SMaSH method, which again could be something fun considering your small batch sizes.

 

[whovous]

I bought these bags in a five pack:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BWS2VA6/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

They look a little like the ones you show from Northern Brewer.

They are described as hop bags, but they seemed way too big for the quantity of hop pellets I'd use in a one gallon brew. Some users complained that they were way too small for grain, and that they had to use 2-4 of them to hold all their grain. Given that they are sold as hop bags and not grain bags, I guess that was a dumb complaint. Anyway, I figured if they took 2-4 bags for a five gallon brew, they should be just fine for one gallon.

I was unable to get all the grain into one bag, so I put it into two, and tied the open end of each bag shut, and cooked the malt with the bag tied shut as well. Beersmith seems to call for a bag big enough to stretch over the lip of the pot, and stirring the grain inside the bag as you cook. Obviously, I could not do that with the bag tied shut. Whether I did no damage, a little damage, or a lot of damage remains to be learned.

I still have plenty of trub, but I can deal with that one way or another. "Cold crashing" seems to have a place on my reading list in the near future.

I thought the cooling went very quickly. The temp dropped on its own to 150 between the hop stand and pouring back and forth between pots as my "aeration" strategy. I dumped a 20 pound bag of ice in the kitchen sink, put in a stopper, ran cold water, and dropped in the tri-ply pot. Like I said, it dropped from 150 to 80 before I even got a chance to stick the thermometer in. It seemed not to be moving from there (granted, I waited for probably less than 30 seconds!), so I concentrated on cleanup or something for 5-10 minutes, and when I looked again, it was a touch under 60, so I pulled the pot out and poured almost all of the contents into my glass gallon jug, leaving a little more crud behind in the pot.

I was happy to find activity when i woke up about four hours ago. In that time my bubble rate has gone from every 8 seconds to every 2.5 seconds. I seem to be in good shape on that front.

Up to now, I have been limiting myself by using prefab kits, so there did not seem to be a lot of point to getting or using any software, but assuming I get something remotely drinkable out of this, it is probably time to get to know my local homebrew shop and to start working from recipes, rather than saying "oh, this kit is too old, let's substitute some ingredients at random."

But my luck so far has not been the best. I made several mistakes on my first kit, and got something that tasted more like Bud Light than an Everyday IPA. My second and third tries were the same IPA and an Oatmeal Stout, which I cooked a few days apart. Both had the same distinctly sour taste, and neither tasted much like anything I recognize as beer, even after a few months of waiting. I'd thought I'd learned from my mistakes on the first kit, but the results were far worse.

After that, I waited a year before making this fourth attempt.

I devoted a lot more time to cleaning and sanitizing on this go-round. I've santized each time, but figured anything that looked clean was clean, so did not use any special cleaner until now. I will try to be equally careful when it comes time to bottle, but there seem to be an awful lot of possible ways to screw up on this score, even if I am the only one to find them, based upon the results reported here by other newbies.

Thanks for all of the advice. If this one tastes anything like beer at all, I will doubtless start studying recipes and decide where to go from here. I just need to get the first one right!

 

[JJ900]

I do think dry hopping this recipe is a good idea; I made the Warrior DIPA per instructions and thought it was a little boring on its own, like a Bass Ale. Also as other threads suggest, maybe dial back the amount of priming sugar, honey, because these BBS kits can get overcarbed.

 

[joshesmusica]

were they all all-grain kits so far? or was this the first one?
i am honestly not as anal retentive about cleaning and sanitizing as some people on here are, and have yet to have an infection. fingers crossed.
i do clean and sanitize well, but i don't obsess about it. i use iodine as my sanitizer.
i'm wondering if your beers have been infected, or if something went wrong with the mash process or boil. look up off flavors and see if you can pinpoint exactly which one it was and what the causes are. here's a link i've found helpful:

http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html

or a more extensive one:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/connect/2011/08/common-off-flavors/#Sourness

 

[whovous]

I do think dry hopping this recipe is a good idea; I made the Warrior DIPA per instructions and thought it was a little boring on its own, like a Bass Ale. Also as other threads suggest, maybe dial back the amount of priming sugar, honey, because these BBS kits can get overcarbed.

Yeah, I've made four kits from the Brooklyn people, and they all just say to stir in some honey, with nothing more than that. They don't talk about how hard it is to measure something so sticky, or what to do about that. And they don't suggest dissolving the honey in boiling water to get the sugars more evenly distributed.

The result in my first kit was some bottles that turned into veritable geysers when I opened them, while others had hardly any fizz at all. I went to dextrose priming sugar for kits 2 and 3, and while they had some other problems, they at least had the carbonation under control. I am going to Coopers carbonation drops for this batch, and expect that will make things even easier still, since you just pop a drop in each bottle and put on the cap.

I've already got a ton of hops in this brew, but I probably will go ahead and dry hop as well.

 

[whovous]

were they all all-grain kits so far? or was this the first one?
i am honestly not as anal retentive about cleaning and sanitizing as some people on here are, and have yet to have an infection. fingers crossed.
i do clean and sanitize well, but i don't obsess about it. i use iodine as my sanitizer.
i'm wondering if your beers have been infected, or if something went wrong with the mash process or boil. look up off flavors and see if you can pinpoint exactly which one it was and what the causes are. here's a link i've found helpful:

http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html

or a more extensive one:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/connect/2011/08/common-off-flavors/#Sourness

All were all-grain kits.

I've done a fair amount of reading over the past year or so trying to guess what went wrong. The problem is that most of it comes down to:
CAUSE - Bad sanitation
SOLUTION - Good sanitation
I'm sorry, but that just doesn't tell me where I went wrong in the sanitation process. I think I am paying very close attention to these things, but it seems I must be missing something, and this sort of "solution" just isn't getting through my thick skull. I have a brand new bottle of Iodophor that is going to get some mileage when bottling time comes around.

The one new thing I learned from your second source is that poor yeast strains can cause some sourness problems. I would really like it if that was my problem, because I ditched the aging yeast from this kit and replaced it with what I think is some very fresh yeast, and in larger quantity, too.

 

[joshesmusica]

tell me more about your equipment, and your process with everything post-boil. until drinking.

 

[whovous]

I described part of my process in #14. I poured the wort back and forth between two previously cleaned (w/PBW) and sanitized (w/ a Brooklyn Brew labeled product) pots. I put the tri-ply pot in an ice bath and partially covered the pot, until the temp got just under 60.

I previously cleaned and sanitized my "carboy", a one gallon glass jug which is part of the Brooklyn Brew kit. I poured the wort through a sanitized funnel (no filter, lost) into the jug. I poured some sanitizer into a 32 oz growler. I sanitized the screw on top for the jug and screwed it on.

I put both the jug and the growler into a dark closet. I put one end of a plastic tube into the sanitizer in the growler, and one end about an inch into the top on the jug, leaving it about two inches or so from the wort. I did NOT sanitize this tube, partly because I am stupid, and partly because I figured it would never touch the wort.

This setup has been in the closet for about 36 hours now, and I am getting a little more than one bubble per second.

That brings me up to now, and I need to get to work sometime today. Future plans will be described in a future reply.

 

[joshesmusica]

did you clean the tube? this is the only thing worrisome about the process. honestly the iodine doesn't need to be in contact with these things for very long, so sanitizing the tube shouldn't be too difficult. it could be there were some bad strains in there that got a shot at your wort before a CO2 layer could have a chance to form.
you don't have much wort/beer to use here, but are you doing any gravity readings along the way? and then any subsequent tastings along the way? this could help narrow down where the sour taste is coming from in your process. even if you did a gravity reading in a sanitized test tube with a sanitized hydrometer, you could pour that back into the wort/beer and just save a small bit to taste. if it's clearly not there before pitching, but is there after fermentation, you will know it came in that time frame. if it's not there after fermentation, but is there after bottling, then your culprit is in that time frame.

 

[whovous]

I now own a hydrometer, but have never used it, nor learned how to. Let me see what I can figure out on that score.

In the past, I ran a little generic sanitizer solution through the tubes, and I am not sure I did much of anything with my auto-siphon. I am pretty suspicious about both, and plan to both clean and Iodophor both items the next time around. I want to fully submerge and thoroughly soak everything in both cleaner and sanitizer. My sink is just barely big enough for the inner portion of the siphon, and just barely too small for the outside portion, so I guess I have a little more thinking to do on that front. I don't really like the idea of doing this in a bathtub if I can help it.

 

[joshesmusica]

if you have a test tube that's simplest. if you're gonna start building your own recipes, i would also invest in beersmith. then you can take your gravity readings and check them against estimates, and figure out how efficient you are.
there's also this nice site to help you figure out exactly what your gravity reading is according to your temp:
http://www.brewersfriend.com/hydrometer-temp/

 

[whovous]

I have both a hydrometer and a 10" hydrometer tube. Since I did not take an original reading, I am not sure what it can tell me at this point, other than whether the fermentation is complete or not. It definitely make sense to try some small tastings along the way.

I am having a hard time wrapping my head around just what went wrong. The two brews were cooked a few days apart and each had a separate fermenter. One was new, and one was used only once before. Both wound up with the same sour taste. One was an IPA and the other an Oatmeal Stout. This may be an odd idea, but I almost wondered if those who love sour beers might have found this taste appealing. It was not an awful taste, it just did not taste anything like beer.

I also wonder if, for all the bubbling each one did, if maybe neither one had much in the way of alcohol in it, and if maybe the sour taste was the sort of taste you find in a very young wort; i.e., it just never changed much over the months.

Whatever the issue might have been, I intend to be much more obsessive about both cleaning and sanitation throughout this brewing process.

 

[joshesmusica]

like i said, the only thing that sounded concerning was the tube.

if the yeast was in there, there was likely alcohol in there. i don't see how it could've been young beer after months in the bottle.

if the instructions tell you the OG and FG that it should be, then you could take the gravity reading to know when it's finished. i usually wait until day 9 to do the dry hopping, at which point i will taste it. just did one yesterday in fact. was quite nervous about it because it was a washed yeast, us-05 in fact. it's my go to strain and honestly, it almost had a sour smell to it when i opened it up yesterday (a smell that i've never had with us-05). but then i tasted it, and it turns out it was fine. gonna end up just the way i wanted it!

let us know how this one turns out.

if it turns out bad, maybe you could try some extract kits, like just a simple pale ale or ipa or something that just requires a couple of the 1.5kg extracts, and some hops. just to make it easier on yourself, and keep getting your system and process down.

 

[whovous]

Do you think the unsanitized blowoff tube is concerning? It has never touched the beer, it has always been a few inches from it, as there is only about a half-inch of foam on the top of the brew. I've seen others get foam up in the blowoff tube and into the sanitizer at the other end, but I've never come close to that.

 

[joshesmusica]

only because it was not sanitized. bacteria and wild yeasts and molds are present on almost every surface. it's just that lag time before a layer of CO2 was formed that would be concerning. IF the sourness is coming from infection, then that's the only place in your process that i could see it coming from. the point where you're pouring it back and forth is still very warm for bacteria to do any harm. (although on a separate point, that could be oxidizing your hot wort, which is also a bad thing. they recommend not starting to aerate until it's under 80f)
one thing you haven't mentioned yet is your bottling technique.
the sour taste is definitely coming after bottle conditioning? how long did you say you're leaving them in the bottle before tasting?

 

[whovous]

I got a brief scare when I googled "aerating hot wort" as one of the first hits suggested doing so would make beer non-drinkable. I did some more reading and concluded the most likely effect in my case is that the beer will turn stale if I try to store it more than a few months. No risk of that with a nine bottle brew. I now know the difference between aeration and oxidation, and won't do it again.

And, as I said before, I plan to be extra paranoid careful about sanitation from here on out.

Bottling: I put my empties in a sink with dish liquid, and fill the sink with very hot water, allowing them to soak until the water cools enough that I can put my hands in it. I then drain, rinse, and dry them upside down on a dishwasher rack. Before bottling, I put a few ounces of sanitizer in each bottle and shake it up thoroughly, then empty each one and place them upright in the sink.

Last time, I racked the wort to a different container and added sugar, but I do not plan to do this next time, so I won't go into more detail.

I run a little sanitizer through my auto-siphon and tube. Next time, I think I will run a full gallon through, as well as work out a way to better sanitize the larger part of the auto-siphon, even if it does not actually come in contact with the wort. I put my gallon jug on the counter next to the sink, and give the auto-siphon a pump. With my wife's help, I fill one bottle in the sink at a time until I run out of wort. I will then add a carbonation drop to each bottle and cap them, then put them back in a cool dark place for a few weeks.

How does that sound?

 

[joshesmusica]

Yeah sounds pretty good. Just do an eye check after you've washed them to make sure there's no built up gunk. Iodine, and well everything, is super expensive here. So after washing my bottles, I just put a little foil around the top and put them in the oven at about 200c for 25-30 mins. Then just take the foil off before the beer goes in it. Then I save the foil until next time.

 

[whovous]

I racked to secondary today and decided to do a hyrdrometer reading, partially because I wanted to learn how to use one, but mostly because I wanted to taste it! The hops aroma was enormous, as expected, but it tasted pretty darn good; very much like it plans to taste like beer someday! I also got a reading of 1.12 or 1.13 @ 62F that probably does not mean anything at all, but makes me wonder if maybe this really is going to be a double after all.