Brew day Numero Uno

[AZBeer]

Alright...my first brew day is in the books. I've got 1(ish) gal of N. Brewer's Off the Topper IIPA in primary, and we've got some beer bread rising (SWMBO is very happy about this and the honey butter I made).

Overall, everything went pretty smooth. I definitely will need to look for a slightly larger boil kettle, but other than that it went well. I think planning everything out...weighing out the hops for each addition beforehand helped.

Finished up just after lunch, looks like the yeast is already doing it's thing.

OG was 1.089, which I can't find info on this beer, but that seems to be about right based on what I am seeing.

I tasted a little bit of the wort...not sure, tasted kinda...funky, but we'll see how it comes out. Can't wait...


Next up will be a black IPA, and then from there...who knows.

 

[brewshki]

Congrats on the first brew! Don't base your expectations on what the wort tastes like, it'll end up way different after fermentation and being chilled and carbed.

 

[okbecker]

Congrats and welcome to the obsession!

 

[AZBeer]

Hey thanks guys.

Already thinking about future brews...

And I wasn't too worried about the way the wort tasted brewshki. Once fermentation is done, would you say that will start to give me an idea of the flavor of the beer? I figure I will let it sit for around a week after fermentation stops, then cold crash it, then bottle and condition for a couple of weeks.

 

[AZBeer]

Welp, if nothing else, the beer bread and the honey butter was great. Hopefully the beer is just as good...or better.

 

[brewshki]

Hey thanks guys.

Already thinking about future brews...

And I wasn't too worried about the way the wort tasted brewshki. Once fermentation is done, would you say that will start to give me an idea of the flavor of the beer? I figure I will let it sit for around a week after fermentation stops, then cold crash it, then bottle and condition for a couple of weeks.

You'll have a better but it really depends on the style. My hefe is almost the same warm and uncarbed, but I think an IPA needs that carbonic bite to know exactly what it will be like.

 

[RM-MN]

Hey thanks guys.

Already thinking about future brews...

And I wasn't too worried about the way the wort tasted brewshki. Once fermentation is done, would you say that will start to give me an idea of the flavor of the beer? I figure I will let it sit for around a week after fermentation stops, then cold crash it, then bottle and condition for a couple of weeks.

If you like the way it tastes after only 2 weeks in the bottle, stop drinking it and let it sit another 2 weeks or more. With that high OG I would expect it to have somewhat of a "hot alcohol" taste early on with that fading away with more time.

You might like your brewing schedule better if your next couple brews were lighter in color and lower in alcohol as they will be ready to drink sooner. High alcohol and darker color beers take longer to mature and they will taste much better if you give them that time. I'd suggest an APA or even a wheat beer for your next brew. Once you have some bottles to hold you over, brew the black (Cascadian) IPA.

 

[AZBeer]

Interesting RM-MN. I actually didn't realize this was an IIPA when I bought it, but I just rolled with it.

I may try something else before the black IPA.

 

[eadavis80]

Congrats on the debut batch! Yeah - wort samples are funny. Some taste good, others funky, some odd - I really have found zero correlation between an OG sample and the taste of the final product, but I always taste them just the same

 

[theseeker4]

Hey thanks guys.

Already thinking about future brews...

And I wasn't too worried about the way the wort tasted brewshki. Once fermentation is done, would you say that will start to give me an idea of the flavor of the beer? I figure I will let it sit for around a week after fermentation stops, then cold crash it, then bottle and condition for a couple of weeks.

Sounds good. Just resist the urge to keep opening the ferment or, whether to look at it, test the gravity, or taste the beer. It will turn out much better if you just leave it alone.

It should taste pretty close to the final product once fermentation completes, but carbing and chilling will do a lot to improve the flavor.

 

[AZBeer]

Cool thanks. I haven't been opening the carboy, but I keep opening the cooler to look at the temp. Probably a bit on the OCD side with the temp, but what can you do. Currently I am using a cooler and frozen bottles of water to keep the temp around 65-70 degrees.

How important is constant temp? Obviously a completely constant temp is ideal, but is a 3 or 4 degree swing throughout the day a big deal?

Yeast is going string now btw, nothing that is causing trouble, but glad I did a blow off tube.

 

[AZBeer]

So the yeast activity seems to have calmed down quite a bit. Once fermentation is done, I plan on letting it sit for another week in the primary, but I am wondering if I should take some gravity readings this weekend, or let it ride for another week?

 

[brewcat]

If you like the way it tastes after only 2 weeks in the bottle, stop drinking it and let it sit another 2 weeks or more. With that high OG I would expect it to have somewhat of a "hot alcohol" taste early on with that fading away with more time.

You might like your brewing schedule better if your next couple brews were lighter in color and lower in alcohol as they will be ready to drink sooner. High alcohol and darker color beers take longer to mature and they will taste much better if you give them that time. I'd suggest an APA or even a wheat beer for your next brew. Once you have some bottles to hold you over, brew the black (Cascadian) IPA.

I don't necessarily agree that darker beers take longer to mature. I have a black IPA I just kegged that already tastes ready at 17 days since brewday. A basic stout can be ready in the same time as a pale. It just depends on the grain bill.

The thing this guy needs to do is brew bigger batches or a lot more frequently.

 

[brewcat]

So the yeast activity seems to have calmed down quite a bit. Once fermentation is done, I plan on letting it sit for another week in the primary, but I am wondering if I should take some gravity readings this weekend, or let it ride for another week?

I'd let it ride.

 

[RM-MN]

I don't necessarily agree that darker beers take longer to mature. I have a black IPA I just kegged that already tastes ready at 17 days since brewday. A basic stout can be ready in the same time as a pale. It just depends on the grain bill.

The thing this guy needs to do is brew bigger batches or a lot more frequently.

Perhaps you've never waited long enough for a dark beer to mature. I had a stout that was still improving 2 years after bottling but I never got to find out how much longer it would improve because I drank the last bottle.

 

[AZBeer]

I don't necessarily agree that darker beers take longer to mature. I have a black IPA I just kegged that already tastes ready at 17 days since brewday. A basic stout can be ready in the same time as a pale. It just depends on the grain bill.

The thing this guy needs to do is brew bigger batches or a lot more frequently.

Maybe more frequent, and definitely improve my process. Maybe bump it up to 2.5g after I get my feet under me...

 

[AZBeer]

Safe to say fermentation has stopped. Gravity is 1.018, with an ABV of 8.8%.

Thinking I will let it sit until next weekend, then cold crash and bottle it. Then let it sit for a couple of weeks. Thoughts?

It has a bitter taste up front. It's mellowed from when it went into primary, so hopefully it will mellow out after a few more weeks. Any thoughts on this. It was there from the start, so I don't think it is an infection.

 

[MaryB]

I just moved some Off the Topper to the drinking fridge. Think I will let it age at least another week in there. Yes it is a bitter beer but my batch also had the peach and pineapple coming through big time. I think the bitter will mellow with more time in the fridge.

 

[AZBeer]

Well...I am impressed. I bottled this batch today, and it tastes pretty good. And I am pretty stoked that it will probably be better in a week or two. The upfront bitterness has mellowed out, and overall it's a tasty beer. Go figure.

And since it was a small batch, I was able to bottle, then clean all me stuff, and move on to brew day numero dos. A single hop, citra bomb.

 

[molson1993]

Congrats and welcome to the obsession!

This statement is all too true, I just got into myself and found myself already dumping $600 into it, I keep saying "just one more thing". So far, I've said that about 10 times! Welcome though, the hobby is EXTREMELY rewarding!

 

[AZBeer]

Cracked open a bottle today. Overall, pretty underwhelming...no, that's not true. Overall, pretty nasty is more accurate.

Very under carbed. Not sure if there is anything I can do about that at this point.

Also has a really sweet, hot alcoholic taste to it. The bitterness has almost completely faded. It is just funky tasting. I guess I'll just let it ride and keep trying them to see if they improve. Should I try them weekly, or should I let it go for longer? 2 weeks? Month?

The good news is my second beer. I just pulled some to take some gravity readings, and it tastes much better. This first beer has had a bit of a weird flavor from the start, but the second beer taste good. I just started dry hopping it today, but before the dry hop, it's already better than batch number one.

 

[divrguy]

A few issues but sounds like you're learning already.
Under carbed and sweet might mean that you haven't let it fully carbonate yet. Could also have to do with mash temp but you didn't say if it was all grain or extract.

Hot alcoholic means you may have let the fermentation ride up too high and get out of control. Did you have it cooled? Or did you control the temp? If it's Fusel alcohol, it will pretty much never fade away. Or like you mentioned, a high ABV beer needs time.

Funky as in ......

Need to know about what you did, your recipe and etc..

Good news is batch #2 [emoji482]

 

[AZBeer]

Extract 1gal batch.

Off the Topper from NB.

-Steeped grains @ 170 F for 20 minutes
-Boiled and added all DME & LME (one thing that I probably won't do again based on what I have read) and 45 mins hops
-Added various hops based on the directions (there were a lot of hops additions, I can dig up the directions if it's relevant)
-Cooled in an ice bath in sink, and added the las of the hops
-Aerated and pitch yeast (dry US-05) @ 68 F
-Primary for 21 days @ ~64F
-Cold crashed @ ~45F for 2 days
-Bottled with NB priming sugar tabs, conditioned for 14 days

I know "funky" isn't really descriptive. Initially it had a unpleasantly bitter, maybe astringent taste (not 100% certain what astringent flavor is, but I tasted it, and that's the word that came to mind). That faded, and now it is fruity sweet, with a hot alcohol taste. My wife tasted some and immediately proclaimed it tasted like hooch, which my response was...when the .... have you ever had hooch?

I did add all of the DME and LME as soon as the water came to a boil. I have read that many people feel that can contribute to some of the off flavors with extract brews. Also, I under estimated the impact of adding the extract, and had a bit of a boil over, which may have contributed to off flavors. On batch 2, I added maybe 20% of the DME at first boil and the rest @ flame out, and made sure the heat was off and the I had no boil over.

Honestly, I'm not too discouraged because of batch number 2. If I didn't have that, maybe, but I didn't think the first spectacular. I didn't assume that I would master the craft the first time ever brewing in my life.

 

[RM-MN]

Safe to say fermentation has stopped. Gravity is 1.018, with an ABV of 8.8%.

Thinking I will let it sit until next weekend, then cold crash and bottle it. Then let it sit for a couple of weeks. Thoughts?

It has a bitter taste up front. It's mellowed from when it went into primary, so hopefully it will mellow out after a few more weeks. Any thoughts on this. It was there from the start, so I don't think it is an infection.

With an ABV that high it may take longer for carbonation. The yeast are struggling to survive in that much alcohol. That will also give you a bit of "hot alcohol" flavor until the beer has time to get fully carbonated and matured a bit.
The high gravity stout I made last year really mellowed out nicely but it took nearly a full year to do so. Park some of these bottles somewhere and let them have time. Maybe sample one in a couple weeks but if the taste isn't something you like, let the next one have 3 more months. Meanwhile, brew a lighter colored, lower ABV batch (or 2 or 3 or 10) to have beer that matures faster and be ready to drink.

 

[AZBeer]

With an ABV that high it may take longer for carbonation. The yeast are struggling to survive in that much alcohol. That will also give you a bit of "hot alcohol" flavor until the beer has time to get fully carbonated and matured a bit.
The high gravity stout I made last year really mellowed out nicely but it took nearly a full year to do so. Park some of these bottles somewhere and let them have time. Maybe sample one in a couple weeks but if the taste isn't something you like, let the next one have 3 more months. Meanwhile, brew a lighter colored, lower ABV batch (or 2 or 3 or 10) to have beer that matures faster and be ready to drink.

That makes sense. I will let them be for awhile, and see how they are down the road.

 

[MaryB]

Steep at 154 instead, you might be pulling tannins out of the husks. I hold around there(+-2 degrees is fine) before raising to 170 and then full boil.

Extract 1gal batch.


-Steeped grains @ 170 F for 20 minutes

 

[AZBeer]

Interesting. I *believe* the instructions said 170 so I went with it. I guess that's something else from the kit instructions I will ignore going forward.

 

[RM-MN]

Interesting. I *believe* the instructions said 170 so I went with it. I guess that's something else from the kit instructions I will ignore going forward.

To extract the tannins requires a high pH. If your water is very high in pH the grain addition cannot pull it down enough. That is where the 170 degrees comes in. If you keep the temp down, the pH doesn't matter much. If you keep the pH down, the temperature doesn't matter at all. With the pH under 6.0, you could bring the grains to a boil without extracting tannins.

The sentence in green isn't totally true as the pH can be high but with little buffering and the grains will still pull the pH down.