First All Grain

[One Eye Ross]

So, yesterday was a fun day. First all grain brewing experience, from milling the grain to putting it in the fermenter.

This was a Fresh Squeezed IPA clone, so it had a target gravity of 1.066, my (temp corrected) OG was 63, so I think I did ok. Had a bit of a boil over, but all things considered it worked out ok, wound up with a bit over 4 gallons in the fermenter.

Question I have: following the instructions, I need to dry hop for five days when fermentation is done. Is it ok to use cheesecloth when I dry hop?

 

[IslandLizard]

Congrats with your first AG brew!

Many of us prefer to add dry hops loose, not bagged or contained, for maximum extraction potential. Just dump 'em in. If you can add them while not lifting the fermenter's lid even better. You could drop the pellets in through the airlock hole.
Headspace CO2 protects your beer.*

After the dry hop period, 3-7 days after adding, cold crashing for a few days will settle everything out on the bottom, leaving clear beer on top for you package.

* Prevent or at least limit, as much as possible, any air (oxygen) exposure after fermentation starts, it oxidizes your beer and kills hop sensation quickly.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

If you do use cheese cloth, do remember to sanitize it and what ever you are going to tie it up with. Also keep in mind that if you are using a carboy the hops will expand and be difficult to remove upon cleaning. Welcome to the joys of all-grain brews. Not that there is anything wrong with extract, mind you.

 

[Jag75]

Congrats on your 1st all grain
As said above you can add them loose if you can cold crash . If you cant cold crash I would suggest using a muslin bag or a paint strainer bag . I wouldn't use cheese cloth . It has too many fine strands that could fray off and get in your beer . I bag mine because I cant cold crash yet . I boil a little bit of water with a dash of pbw . Then rinse with hot water and soak in starsan. As hoppy said if using a carboy it may be difficult to get the bag out , a paint strainer may be easier since you can tear it and dump some of the hops out .

 

[IslandLizard]

In addition to what I said before, there is no need for a secondary. Dry hop in primary.

 

[DVCNick]

Just another point of view from a non-expert; to date I have not bagged them, nor cold crashed.

I just pour them in the stopper hole, the jiggle the carboy once a day or so to knock them down into the liquid, where they mostly fall to the bottom at room temp. Then about 24 hours before I want to keg, I move the carboy up onto the counter where I gravity feed into the keg, and let it settle out again in place for a day. Then gravity drain into the keg. As long as I don't get way too greedy at the end of the transfer, I get virtually no junk in the keg using this method, and anything that might get in there will cold crash out in the keg and get pushed out in the first oz or two of beer that is initially flushing the line and is dumped anyway.

ymmv. I might try cold crashing one day to see if I'm missing out on something great.

 

[IslandLizard]

Just another point of view from a non-expert; to date I have not bagged them, nor cold crashed.

I just pour them in the stopper hole, the jiggle the carboy once a day or so to knock them down into the liquid, where they mostly fall to the bottom at room temp. Then about 24 hours before I want to keg, I move the carboy up onto the counter where I gravity feed into the keg, and let it settle out again in place for a day. Then gravity drain into the keg. As long as I don't get way too greedy at the end of the transfer, I get virtually no junk in the keg using this method, and anything that might get in there will cold crash out in the keg and get pushed out in the first oz or two of beer that is initially flushing the line and is dumped anyway.

ymmv. I might try cold crashing one day to see if I'm missing out on something great.

Since you have CO2, you could stir the beer once or twice a day for better or quicker mixing/extraction. Use the back end of a long plastic brewing spoon. Stir gently. Afterwards flush the headspace with CO2.

If you haven't done so, look into 100% liquid pre-purging kegs. You then fill them through the liquid post through a QD, the lid remains on. Especially with hoppy beers limiting or better, preventing air (O2) exposure (and thus oxidation) is paramount.

Cold crashing speeds up the precipitation process. Adding a little gelatin can assist with that remarkably. Best is to have a balloon filled with CO2 connected to the airlock stem, again to prevent air sucking in due to the dropping temps. I've been using a plastic bag, but will switch to a mylar one some day.

 

[One Eye Ross]

bottled the beer today. FG was 16, gives me a ABV of about 6.17%.....tasty, tasty, tasty. Nice citrus/grapefruit flavor. Great taste.

Hopefully, I didn't muck up the bottling process too much (other than the leaking hose, etc.) Looking forward to 2 weeks from now...

 

[RM-MN]

bottled the beer today. FG was 16, gives me a ABV of about 6.17%.....tasty, tasty, tasty. Nice citrus/grapefruit flavor. Great taste.

Hopefully, I didn't muck up the bottling process too much (other than the leaking hose, etc.) Looking forward to 2 weeks from now...

You have great patience if you can wait 2 weeks to sample a bottle. I'd suggest sampling at one week, then wait and sample weekly so you know how the beer matures with time. The next batch you will then know how long you need to wait to get the beer you like.

 

[One Eye Ross]

You have great patience if you can wait 2 weeks to sample a bottle. I'd suggest sampling at one week, then wait and sample weekly so you know how the beer matures with time. The next batch you will then know how long you need to wait to get the beer you like.

well, I cracked on today, "just to see".... it is VERY citrus flavored, more so than the original , but that might be because I wound up with 3 1/2 gallons (because of boil over and other mistakes) and used the same amount of hops for a 5 gallon recipe....but all in all, VERY pleased with the end result. Also, a lot of haze, but again, that I recognize as my errors and not the recipe. I will for sure do the Fresh Squeezed IPA recipe again. One of my favorite IPAs, from one of my favorite breweries (DesChutes)....

 

[RM-MN]

The haze may clear with a bit more time.....but the flavor will be less then. I'm glad you tried one. Did you find the heading to be less than usual?

 

[One Eye Ross]

it had a head appropriate to the style, which means I measured the sugar right for bottling. It's always nice when a plan comes together...