Hey,
I've brewed about a dozen times with friends, only doing all-grain batches. Today I tried to brew by myself for the first time, and tried to do an extract brew with steeped specialty grains (BIAB). Today was a frustrating experience, but I'll try to keep this short.
I first had to build a wort chiller today, which went fine except the faucet attachment didn't fit. I went back to Lowes for a different attachment, had to figure out which coupler to get because they didn't have exactly the right one, and made sure it fit the faucets they had. Came back home and the threads wouldn't fit. Just decided to do an ice bath.
I was trying to do an Oberon clone I had found online. I went to my LHBS and they had these little cards with their recommended clone recipes. I kind of felt pressured to just go with that, but it called for a 30 minute steep with 1 lb of Munich malt and 0.5 lb of Crystal 10L. The Munich kind of surprised me, and I feel like it made the color off.
Also used 6.6 lbs of What LME. I kind of messed up and had my burner up too high, and it ended up scorching the bottom of the kettle, and I havent been able to get the burned extract off.
Recipe
1 lb Munich
0.5 lb Crystal 10L
Steeped for 30 minutes in two bags (157 - 149 degrees Fahrenheit)
2.5 gallons of water
6.6 lbs of Wheat LME
0.5 oz of Northern Brewer (60 min)
0.5 oz Saaz (30 min)
0.5 oz Saaz (15 min)
0.5 oz Saaz (0 min)
After boil, I racked to the fermentor and topped off with water. Then sat the fermentor in an ice bath.
Wyeast American II (1272)
The most troubling thing that happened was that before the hot break it was really foaming up high, but I only had 2.5 gallons of wort in the 5 gallon kettle so it didn't boil over. However, the side of the kettle and the bottom of the lid became covered in what looked like hop pellet sediment. This seems bad because the hops didn't actually go into the beer. I've never seen or heard of this before. Any insights?
I tasted the sample I took for the OG reading, and it tasted very "flat" and "watery". Having sampled many beers in this fashion, this one was probably the worst. It didn't really taste bad, but there just wasn't really anything there. I added the water post boil, because that's what How to Brew says to do, but I've never done anything like that before. I can't help but feel like I just watered down my beer too much.
The OG ended up being 1.046. The goal was 1.050 - 1.053. Not terribly far off the low end, but it certainly tasted it.
I think I am going to try to salvage this beer by drying hopping in the secondary fairly heavily, maybe using 1 oz of Cascade and 1 oz of Saaz. Any thoughts or opinions on this?
Sorry for the long bitchfest, but I needed to vent. Thanks for any input.
I've brewed about a dozen times with friends, only doing all-grain batches. Today I tried to brew by myself for the first time, and tried to do an extract brew with steeped specialty grains (BIAB). Today was a frustrating experience, but I'll try to keep this short.
I first had to build a wort chiller today, which went fine except the faucet attachment didn't fit. I went back to Lowes for a different attachment, had to figure out which coupler to get because they didn't have exactly the right one, and made sure it fit the faucets they had. Came back home and the threads wouldn't fit. Just decided to do an ice bath.
I was trying to do an Oberon clone I had found online. I went to my LHBS and they had these little cards with their recommended clone recipes. I kind of felt pressured to just go with that, but it called for a 30 minute steep with 1 lb of Munich malt and 0.5 lb of Crystal 10L. The Munich kind of surprised me, and I feel like it made the color off.
Also used 6.6 lbs of What LME. I kind of messed up and had my burner up too high, and it ended up scorching the bottom of the kettle, and I havent been able to get the burned extract off.
Recipe
1 lb Munich
0.5 lb Crystal 10L
Steeped for 30 minutes in two bags (157 - 149 degrees Fahrenheit)
2.5 gallons of water
6.6 lbs of Wheat LME
0.5 oz of Northern Brewer (60 min)
0.5 oz Saaz (30 min)
0.5 oz Saaz (15 min)
0.5 oz Saaz (0 min)
After boil, I racked to the fermentor and topped off with water. Then sat the fermentor in an ice bath.
Wyeast American II (1272)
The most troubling thing that happened was that before the hot break it was really foaming up high, but I only had 2.5 gallons of wort in the 5 gallon kettle so it didn't boil over. However, the side of the kettle and the bottom of the lid became covered in what looked like hop pellet sediment. This seems bad because the hops didn't actually go into the beer. I've never seen or heard of this before. Any insights?
I tasted the sample I took for the OG reading, and it tasted very "flat" and "watery". Having sampled many beers in this fashion, this one was probably the worst. It didn't really taste bad, but there just wasn't really anything there. I added the water post boil, because that's what How to Brew says to do, but I've never done anything like that before. I can't help but feel like I just watered down my beer too much.
The OG ended up being 1.046. The goal was 1.050 - 1.053. Not terribly far off the low end, but it certainly tasted it.
I think I am going to try to salvage this beer by drying hopping in the secondary fairly heavily, maybe using 1 oz of Cascade and 1 oz of Saaz. Any thoughts or opinions on this?
Sorry for the long bitchfest, but I needed to vent. Thanks for any input.