ARRRRGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! CANT STAND IT!!!!!!!! Beer has been in the bottle for 4 days. I want to drink one STAT! I know it wont be carbed yet, so I'll have to wait, but it is sooooooo hard being patient.
Santa is bringing me a second fermenter so next year I will have fewer waits in between beers.
You know, I think I'll ask St Nick for the same thing!Originally Posted by Atomic_Wedgie
Next week, I'll put up some photos of the recent brews in the glass. Most are looking really good, though waiting for the carbonation on the IPA right now is killing me.
Damn waiting.
A funny thing happened at the LHBS. I went in with a list of stuff, but I didn't leave with that exact list. Ended up getting 2kg of grain to mash and I'm now doing a mini mash instead of just some specialty grains.
3kg - Black Rock Light LME (NZ)
2kg - NZ Pilsner Malt
.5 kg - Light Munich
.23 kg - Victory Malt
.23kg - Pale Crystal
.12kg - CaraPils
60 min 15g Chinook
15 min 30g Cascade
15 min 30g Centennial
5 min 15g Cascade
5 min 15g Centennial
5 min 15g Chinook
Flameout- 15g Cascade
Flameout- 15g Centennial
Flameout- 15g Chinook
Dry Hop - 30g Cascade
Dry Hop - 30g Centennial
Dry Hop - 30g Chinook
Whoa.....
Man, that's going to be a piney/citrusy hop bomb! Classic NW IPA... gotta be excited for that. Just make sure you do a good sparge on that Beer In A Bag to make sure you don't end up light on gravity.
Mmm, that looks like a tasty number. All those late additions are going to leave you with an awesome amount of flavour and aroma. Is there enough in there early on to deliver the IBUs?
I hope so FHG. (ps... I typed HPG and had to change it... hahha) I've been reading up on the hop bursting technique and this is my first attempt at it. The copious amount of hops added late will up the bitterness, but also add flavor and aroma. As a result, the advice is to lower the early bittering hops to keep it balanced. I'll let you know how it ends up.
This is the one of the better articles I've read on the subject.
http://www.mrmalty.com/late_hopping.php
My rough calcs show you sitting somewhere in the 7-8% alcohol range (depending on your temperature control in the mash and the type of yeast you're using), and something around 30-40 IBUs. So it'll be a strong ale, not particularly bitter for the sweetness and alcohol, but just packed with hop flavours and aromas. Nice, sounds like a good brew.
Pretty close. I use Hopville to store my recipes. You can have a look here if you like. I recommend the website. Its easy to use and has a very large list of ingredients. http://hopville.com/recipe/1667328
Its a 23L batch. Hopville calculates it at just a shade under 6% with 67.8 IBUs.
Oh yeah, the guy at the LHBS also threw in a $25 bag as well for me to mash in. I stopped near the rack that had the bags and asked him which one I need. He said "I'll get you one from the back." He didn't tell me it was free. I fully expected to pay for it, but when I got home and looked at the receipt, the bag was not on the list. Smiles...
Do you have the gear to boil starting with 26-30 L in order to arrive at 23 at the end? Or will you be topping up after the boil? Don't want to lose those IBUs!!
I guesstimated the alpha acids in the hops and your malt extraction % when I did the calcs myself... perhaps hopville wasn't as optimistic as I?
I generally use BrewTarget for my recipes. Same stuff, different pile.
I'm borrowing a 30L stainless steel pot. Picking it up tomorrow, brew day Sunday. I am really, REALLY looking forward to this one.
The guy that said I could borrow his 30L stock pot actually thought I asked to borrow his 30L fermenter! I am now going to improvise tomorrow. I have cleaned a 44L square cooler which I will use for my mash tun. I'll still have to put it in a bag as I dont have any other equipment! hahahaha My plan is to mash the grains in the cooler, but b/c it doesn't have a spigot, I'll drain the bag in the cooler, then transfer the wort to my SS pot. I will also sparge into the boil pot. From there it should be a normal day, but its turned quite interesting.
Just a thought... should I mash in the bag or just strain it with the bag afterwards? What would you do?
Well, I mashed it in the bag, in the cooler. I ended up with 78% efficiency. I'm quite happy with that. I figured it would be way less. I had a bit of a mission as my smaller stock pot couldn't hold all the wort. I had to split it up into two vessels in order to get everything to a boil.
Last night I boiled water and then stuck it in the freezer. I used this to cool the wort today. Seems to work alright. I'll probably do that again. The cooler worked quite well as a mash tun. What I discovered is that I can quite easily move to all grain. This is what I may do for the next batch. I was basically doing it today anyway. What I need is a bigger pot and an outdoor propane cooker. The boil took ages to get going.
78% in a bag is really good! How much sparge water did you use? What temperature for the mash? Give me the lowdown on how the brew came out!!
I struggle with my stove dishing enough heat too. Generally, I use two burners under the same boil pot, which delivers more heat. I wish my pot was a bit bigger -- it's 30 litres -- so it wasn't so tight for an all grain batch. I usually end up diluting the wort about 4 litres at the end to get my target batch volume, but I'd obviously much rather the flavor concentration of not having to do that.
Outdoor isn't an option for me for at least 4 months of the year. Lets not kid ourselves: this is the justification I need to buy a gas stove!
I'm not exactly sure how much spare water. Only about 3-4 litres poured over the top of the bag. The temp is also a guesstimate. I know the water was 170 to start. The cooler was cold tho so the temp dropped a bit. I stirred it in and it was about 150, then I added another liter of hot water and closed it up.
It took so long to boil that my feet were aching. Still sore today even. I had to wAtch for fear of a boil over. Then I had to watch for fear if missing something. Haha. I'll wear shoes next time.
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