three weeks, three brews, two photos, three questions

[TheWeeb]

Three weeks since joining, three weeks and three days since my first brew, this photo captures the effort to date:

In the tub is the Sierra Pale Ale clone bubbling away that was made on Saturday, I am trying to keep the temp close to 60 thinking low and slow will result in a better pale ale when it comes to clairity. In the carboy, Apfelwien that is now in its 8th day and still going crazy, and on the Throne, one liter bottles of the "Assbock" that was my first brew. The name comes from how it tasted when I bottled it, three days ago, as I had issues with the process because I stupidly did not follow instructions.

I just opened an Assbock tonight, three days in the bottle, three weeks in the primary, and you know, it did not taste bad at all. Some interesting funk aftertaste but the first flavor was pretty Bock-ish, and after only three days in the bottle, had some nice fermentation. I think it will mellow nicely in the comming weeks:

Now the questions:

1. In my latest batch, I did the 60 minute boil with the lid on. I read that this can cause some nasties. Should I be worried, and if so, what can I do to minimize the sulpher and other agents that I should have let escape?

2. I really do not want to rack off the Sierra clone that is in the bucket to a carboy; can I dry hop in the primary? If so, I assume use a grain bag and quickly drop it in to avoid contamination?

3. When and how can I add honey to this batch (in the bucket) if I want to add a bit of honey flavor to offset the nearly double hops I used during the boil?

Many many thanks!

 

[marsbike]

First of all, congrats! Looks like you are off to a good start!

so....

1. It does not allow the DMS to boil off. Leave it on the yeast longer.

2. Yes, soak a nylon mesh bag and a few SS nuts in StarSan for the perscribed time, taste and test accordingly. You'd be amazed how much hop flavor comes through in a week's time.

3. No clue, never done it. That said, the honey will really dry out the beer. It will not make it sweeter. If you do choose to add honey, I would imagine that you could do it while the yeast are still actively fermenting.

 

[Edcculus]

1- boiling with the lid on it not very good. Worst case scenario, you didn't boil off the DMS and other volatiles. At this point, there is nothing you can do. Continue to ferment and bottle as normal. It will hopefully be drinkable, but might exhibit slight cooked corn aromas.

2- yes, you can dry hop in the primary. A small muslin bag will help keep the particulate matter contained. Sanitize the bag before putting in the hops unless you use bleach as a sanitizer. Then, just give the bag a good rinse.

3- unfortunately, honey is damn near 100% fermentable. Adding it to beer will really only dry it out rather than lend any sweeteness. If you add it now, you might end up with some good honey aroma and a little flavor. The yeast will ferment out all of the sugar though. Just think of this one as a really hoppy beer!. There really is no such thing as too much hops.

 

[frazier]

Three weeks since joining, three weeks and three days since my first brew, this photo captures the effort to date:

Awesome start, man.

1. In my latest batch, I did the 60 minute boil with the lid on. I read that this can cause some nasties. Should I be worried, and if so, what can I do to minimize the sulpher and other agents that I should have let escape?

I don't know what will happen, but it's too late to do anything about it now. Just relax and enjoy.

2. I really do not want to rack off the Sierra clone that is in the bucket to a carboy; can I dry hop in the primary? If so, I assume use a grain bag and quickly drop it in to avoid contamination?

I believe the answer is yes - at least, that's what my Magic 8-Ball says. You can boil the bag first, then add the hops and drop it in.

3. When and how can I add honey to this batch (in the bucket) if I want to add a bit of honey flavor to offset the nearly double hops I used during the boil?

You probably can't. Honey will add negligible flavor, since it all gets fermented away. If it's still actively fermenting, you could still add some. But I am leery of making recipe decisions on the fly - better to plan it all out before you order the grains. But hey - it's your beer!

 

[jmick]

Are you doing extract, partial mash, or all grain?

as far as question #1 goes, I think if you are doing extract, all (or at least most) DMS precursors should have been taken care of by the extract process. so, leaving the lid on wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. If you were doing all grain, then I think you might be in for some unpleasant DMS off flavors.

 

[rhoadsrage]

#1 DMS is a cooked corn vegetable flavor which would be more noticeable in a light lager, but in a hoppy ale, even if it was present it probably would be hidden.

#2 if you are are dry hoping after fermentation is finished I usually just throw the hops in the bucket. The alcohol in the beer will help stop most critters from growing and the hops have a slight antiseptic quality themselves. If you are using pellets they will dissolve and mix in with the trub. If you using plugs or whole hops they will float which might be an issue.

#3 I would vote no on the honey aswell, it will only boost alcohol and not sweetness. When did you use double hops? If you used them at 60 min. that is much different than using double hops at 5 min?

 

[wyzazz]

1. If you are brewing with Extract you will get little if any DMS from boiling with the lid on, but it is a better practice to leave that lid off.

2. You can certainly dry hop in the primary, I use sanitized nylon paint strainer bags for this and just drop them in. I have a spray bottle of Star-San that I spray the the lid of the fermenter with when I dry hop.

3. Honey actually adds almost no honey flavor to your beer in the amounts that we tend use it in, if you want honey flavor I'd suggest adding Honey Malt to your Mash/Steeping Grains. If you want to add some it won't hurt anything, I would pasteurize it by bringing it to 160F for 15 or so minutes then add it to the fermenter, you could also prime with it instead of dextrose/sucrose/dme, the choice is yours.

 

[TheWeeb]

Thanks all for the great info. This is an extract kit from Midwest. It looks like with the LME, hops, and keeping in the bucket longer will pretty much eliminate any off-flavors from me covering the pot.

I added one pound of DME to the six pounds of gold LME that came with the kit. The grains were a mix of 8oz Caramel and 8oz Carapils; steeped for 30 minutes at 155 degrees. The smell was amazing, enough to make me consider moving more quickly to all grain

I am fermenting at 60 - 65 degrees using 11 gm. Nottingham that was re-hydrated 25 min prior to pitching; I even added a bit of wort towards the end to bring the yeast to the same temp. Fermentation started in 12 hours and has been bubbling very steadily since (three days now).

As for the hops, I exaggerated a bit. The kit called for 2 oz of Perle at 60 min; I added one oz of Magnum with these. The Magnum has an alpha acid of 14.8% compared to the 8.2% for the Perle; so it should be a really nice hop boost. The kit then called for 2 oz of Cascade at 10 min; I doubled this to 4 oz and added at flameout, allowing the hops to steep while cooling the wort.

The idea is to dry hop with another 2 oz of Cascade one week before bottling.

Kit stated an OG of 1.042; mine was at 1.050 @ 70 degrees just before pitching. FG is expected to be 1.010 - 1.012 according to the box. I did the double bucket dance very quickly, 10 times to aerate. The frothy wort made it to the top of the bucket (6 gal) on an exact 5 gal batch; so there should be plenty of oxygen.

So, what kind of flavor profile can I expect? Is there anything I should do different next time, aside from leaving the lid off?

Oh, and I am not going with the Honey idea. Hop Hop Hop !

 

[TheWeeb]

"I have a spray bottle of Star-San that I spray the the lid of the fermenter with when I dry hop. "

Great idea, thanks!

 

[Mischief_Brewing]

I don't get all of the people saying honey doesn't add any flavor! Have you ever tried mead?

I use honey in over half of my beers. I add various types of raw honey (wildflower, blueberry, etc) during chilling (~110 degrees) and gently stir it in and get great/complex flavors on top of my beers.

 

[wyzazz]

I don't get all of the people saying honey doesn't add any flavor! Have you ever tried mead?

I use honey in over half of my beers. I add various types of raw honey (wildflower, blueberry, etc) during chilling (~110 degrees) and gently stir it in and get great/complex flavors on top of my beers.

Unless I missed it (and I may have) but I believe we are all saying that honey doesn't add a lot of honey flavor, not none at all. Yes I've tried mead and make mead, but unless you're making a braggot then you're not going to get a ton of honey flavor from the amount of honey that you'd add to beer.

My recommendation to add honey flavor without drying the beer out too much is to use Honey Malt. To each their own, but the overwhelming consensus is that honey dries beer out too much to add a lot of what people perceive as honey flavor.

 

[rhoadsrage]

I'm sorry I didn't mean to infer honey doesn't add flavor. It does add flavor, but with a hop bill like that I don't then much of the subtle complexity of honey will come through.

I thought he was looking for a sweetness to balance the big hops in which case fermented honey does not equal the taste of fresh raw honey.

 

[cosmokramer]

drink the vodka in the shower? hahahah.

 

[TheWeeb]

vodka is for the airlocks. ...

Ok, so after a day of settling down with no visible signs of fermentation, I took a SG reading on the pale ale in the bucket. This is exactly one week since brewing, OG was 1.050, now it is down to 1.006!!! It smells fantastic too! I am so stoked that the extra pound of DME and Nottingham have done their job (I was shooting for 5-6% abv), and have to credit the lower, steady fermentation temps as well. The color is a very nice, rich yellow to orange; reminds me of tang. Sweet poo....nawwww

Going to get a grapefruit today and dry hop 2 more oz of Cascade with 1 oz of grapefruit zest for two more weeks, then bottle. I may use honey to prime for bottling to give it a bit more complexity. This is shaping up to be a great summer brew!

 

[TheWeeb]

Wow, just tasted the sample, super hoppy bitter!

 

[Justibone]

Wow, just tasted the sample, super hoppy bitter!

Aroma hops fade with age. Bittering hops are forever!!

 

[TheWeeb]

Aroma hops fade with age. Bittering hops are forever!!

Yikes! I thought that during the secondary and bottle aging some of the edge is taken off the bitter. True?

 

[Potter1]

Not unless you age for a really long time, like a year or so, and pale ales dont like to age that long. When I brew a barley wine I add more bittering hops than are needed, because in a year or three some of the bitterness will go away. Let it sit in the bottles for three weeks at least, then see what you think. Drink a bunch of IPA's while you wait, to get your palate ready for the hop charge

 

[Justibone]

If you really can't stand how bitter the beer is, don't pitch it. I know, I know, it's sacrilege, but this is a good use of BMC (Bud-Miller-Coors)... pour half a glass of your homebrew, then the other half BMC and drink it that way. It won't be super-awesome-good, but it will be pretty good -- a bit better than merely drinkable IMO.

You could also try making it into a shandy (mix it with lemonade) or a beer cocktail (bocktail? cockteer??).

If all else fails, use it to marinate for grilling, or make some beer bread.

 

[TheWeeb]

my friends.... I love the hops! Would have loved to sip a Ruination or a DFH 120 during the brewing last night, but had to settle for first Stone's regular IPA and then a Ranger from NB; as that is the extent of hoppy beers carried locally. This pale ale was made with the idea that I would possibly have it in time for the building closing party for the future brewpub, and thus wanted a bit less hops .. why then, did I deviate from the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale kit and add more hops? Well, I lika da hops!

After I got the forth brew into the primary - a Bourbon Black Ale - I went ahead with dropping a bag containing two more oz. of Cascade and one oz. grapefruit zest. I actually spiked the Stone IPA I was drinking with a shot of the vodka that the grapefruit had been soaking in. Freakin' awesome!

What is interesting is that when I dropped the hops and zest, the thing started fermenting again with a bubble every 15-20 seconds. This morning it seems to have calmed down. I am just going to leave it alone for two more weeks and then cold crash and bottle.

Can't wait ...

 

[Justibone]

What is interesting is that when I dropped the hops and zest, the thing started fermenting again with a bubble every 15-20 seconds. This morning it seems to have calmed down. I am just going to leave it alone for two more weeks and then cold crash and bottle.

That was possibly nucleation, pulling CO2 out of the liquid that was already there... unless you degassed? You didn't mention degassing, but basically it is a nice thing you can do for your yeasties, since all the CO2 in solution can cramp their fungal style, y'kno'whud'i'meen?

 

[TheWeeb]

That was possibly nucleation, pulling CO2 out of the liquid that was already there... unless you degassed? You didn't mention degassing, but basically it is a nice thing you can do for your yeasties, since all the CO2 in solution can cramp their fungal style, y'kno'whud'i'meen?

another thing to learn.. degass! have to do a search... thanks!

 

[Justibone]

another thing to learn.. degass! have to do a search... thanks!

Not usually done for beers, but for wines and ciders it could be considered essential.