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Request for Tips on my first brew
Hello,
So I finally got to try my hand.
I got an IPA kit from my LHBS, and asked the guy for some extra hops, cool.
I'm cheap/in college so I got for a brew pot a stainless steel 12 quart pot off craigslist. It's a great pot for 10 bucks, but really only 8 quarts. So then I bought a cheap-o 20 quart to try to does it right. It said stainless steal, but I think my 3 bags of hops weighed more than it. Sure enough, filled with hot water to loosen the ME, I lifted up one handle and it cracked along the side.
So I used the 8 quart, with about 1 1/3 gallons of water. I brought that up to 160 and held it with the grains provided in the muslin bag provided, discarded, and added: 4? pounds malt extract, 3 pounds DME, 2 oz northern brewer pellets, and 12 oz clover honey (my addition to the recipe, hope I didn't shoot myself in the foot.) I couldn't decide whether a boil meant 160, or a real boil though. So, I left it at 165/170 for the prescribed 30 minutes, but at the end remembered images of the bubbles doing something good. Then I brought it to a rolling boil for 25 minutes, and was instructed to add "Irish moss". But ####, no Irish moss, anywhere- is this a problem? So at that point I added "cascade plugs" which were two dried plug/bricks of hops. Boiled for 10 minutes, 3 minutes of cascade aroma pellets, and took it off.
Into my six gallon carboy went 3 2/3's gallons of cold water, then the wort, which was poorly strained as I was acting alone.
This all felt a bit cool so I gave it a measly 10 minutes to approach room temperature, at which point I added the yeast, fashioning a mini-funnel out of tin foil. I tried "pitching the yeast" in a cup, but most of it just clumped up. Any way, my roommate says it is bubbling pretty well right now.
I'm wondering a couple things in particular.
1) Siphoning: How do you do it sterilely? Papazian suggests filling the tube with water, is this common practice?
2) I wasn't really planning on doing a secondary fermentation. I have the carboys, but is the only drawback cloudy beer? What's wrong with that, sounds badass to me.
So, any egregious mistakes? Comments concerns or tips?
Thanks,
Hey lukas,
The improvement I think would do the most good (not that you need to worry, but if you are looking to improve) is a larger boil. 1 1/3 gal. With 7 pounds (or so) of fermentable is pretty thick. It will limit the amount of bittering and flavor you get out of your hops because the hop oils won't dissolve as much in a thick wort.
Unfortunately, this is also potentially the most costly thing to change. So keep checking Craig's list and ask friends if they have a large pot you can borrow. Also, you can add half of the malt extract in the last 15 minutes of the boil so most of the hops have a thinner wort.
Your next challenge is waiting for the beer to be ready. After you bottle, waiting 3 weeks will seem like eternity.
Good luck!
To get the most flavor and aroma from the honey many people will tell you to add the honey right at the end of your boil or at flame out. Some will even go as far as to say that honey shouldn’t be heated up past 160*f. Myself being a bit of a germaphobe I’d want to boil it for at least a couple minutes even though I know better(trading some flavor/aroma for piece of mind).
Enjoy!!
As far as sterile siphoning goes, invest in an auto-siphon. They are around $12-$25 including tubing, I think, and nothing else will save you so much headache in your life. Check the brew store or order from an online store.
As far as brew pots go, I use a five gallon stainless-steel stockpot (I think I bought it from Mill's Fleet Farm), & it has served me well through my first ten batches or so. I just don't see the benefit of paying close to $200 for a "real" brewpot (Someone please explain the advantages to me, if you can)
My friend uses an eight gallon canning kettle (I think it is called), which he also purchased at Mill's. This allows him to do a full boil, which is nice as well.
Hope this helps a little!
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