Todays Errors

[doornumber3]

So 2nd brew day was a blast but definitely ran into some errors. I'm going to list a couple of them and then what we did to resolve. The one i'm really curious on is adding the water at the end....which is #1

1) the recipe was to start with 5.8 gallons and we only started with 5. Huge error to start. Also Unfortunately we didn't have the right pot today either so did basically 2 batches of 2.5 until one overflowed too much and we did a 2 2 1 split and broke up the ingredients accordingly --- Was this right to do or would you have just made 1/2 batch

2) at the end of the boil, we wound up with just over 4 gallons. There was a discussion on this as the final recipe called for 5 gallons and my friend who has brewed alot awhile ago said he's always added it back in in the car boy before you pitch the yeast. I was kinda thinking of leaving at 4.2 gallons but his argument saying it needed to be dilluted to a total of 5 gallons made sense

3) Made a citrus IPA which was alot of work with hopping schedules etc which we loved but at the end we did have orange zest we were supposed to boil for last 5 minutes......we forgot and decided to add it in while it was still very warm but not boiling. Should we have just left it off?

Thanks so much

 

[AndrewF]

Sounds like this is an extract recipe. I also would have topped off to reach 5 gallons. Was your OG where you expected it to be? Also, I've not used orange zest before, but if by "very warm" you mean close to boiling, then I think you should be fine. Anything living on the orange zest should have been killed, and the flavor should come out. If there isn't enough flavor, who cares...you still made beer.

 

[doornumber3]

Sounds like this is an extract recipe. I also would have topped off to reach 5 gallons. Was your OG where you expected it to be? Also, I've not used orange zest before, but if by "very warm" you mean close to boiling, then I think you should be fine. Anything living on the orange zest should have been killed, and the flavor should come out. If there isn't enough flavor, who cares...you still made beer.

it was an extracts recipe. OG was supposed to be between 1.061 and 1.071 and we hit 1.073 so i'll take that. The orange zest was actually the pellets they sell so i think we were right doing that while it was hot.. Thanks for the input on the water.

 

[doornumber3]

i did get to taste my beer that's been fermenting for just over a week and so far i love what i'm tasting.....can't wait til the final product

 

[ScottG58]

It probably felt more chaotic than it was. I started reading Daniels. I liked the part where he compared brewing to being a carpenter. You make a lot of small corrections along the way. I am jealous of those who got to brew today.