Batch #3 - Second Try IPA

For my third batch, I'm going to try another India Pale Ale. I'm using the same recipe I did the first time with a few modifications.

Here is the recipe

6.6 lbs Unhopped Light Malt Syrup (Coopers brand)
1 lb Light Dry Malt Powder
1 lb 20L Crystal Malt
1/2 lb 40L Crystal Malt
1/2 lb Dextrin Malt
1/2 lb Victory Malt
4 oz Cascade Hops (6%)
2 oz Centennial Hops (9.5%)
1/2 tsp Irish Moss

Steeping the whole grain

After sanitizing everything I brought 2.5 gallons of tap water to 150 degrees, then I started steeping the cracked grains in a grain bag. After 30 minutes, I removed the bag, added 2.5 gallons of tap water and brought the water up to a rolling boil.

Boiling the wort

Once boiling, I turned off the heat, added one cup of extract syrup, and turned the heat back on. Next I added 2oz of cascade hops to the water. These hops will add bitterness to the beer.

After 15 minutes, I added 1/2 tsp of irish moss to the boil.

After boiling for 30 minutes, I added another 2oz of cascade hops to the boil.

After boiling for 50 minutes, I added 1oz of centennial hops to the boil and put the wort chiller in the kettle.

After 60 minutes, I turned off the heat. Then the last ounce of centennial hops get tossed in the kettle, along with the remaining extract syrup and powder. After waiting ten minutes for the late additions to pasteurize, I turned on the chiller.

The chiller took about 20 minutes to get the wort down to 80 degrees. I then poured the wort back and forth between the fermenter and the boiling pot in order to aerate. Finally, I pitched the yeast.

I almost forgot to take a hydrometer reading and when I did I don't think it was accurate - nevertheless, it came in at a whopping 1.080.

Into the closet for a week.

Batch #1 - IPA - Taste test and brewfest results

Its finally time to taste the IPA. Actually, I've tasted it a few times already - but this is the official test.

Before we get to the taste test - here are the results from the Heart of the Valley Oregon Homebrewer's Competition. Suffice it to say, I didn't win.

There were 3 judges - there comments are listed below:

Aroma - average score 5/12

"high bubblegum, no hop coming through, fruity, blueberry", "bubblegum, sweet, alcoholic", "some phenolics in the nose - like bubblegum"

Appearance - average score 2.33/3

"nice color, great head retention, clear", "great color/clarity" , "slightly cloudy, good head retention, copper color"

Flavor - average score 8/20

"decent bitterness, too much fruit, bubblegum estery, slight finishing hops" , "a synthetic/false flavor in front, artificially sweet central flavor, extremely sour finish" , "hop bitterness present, but very light, lightly sweet malt, some phenolics detected"

Mouthfeel - average score 4/5

"great body, very creamy, nice carb level" , "good body , sour unforgettable finish" , "medium light body, some alcohol warming, slightly astringent"

Overall Impression - average score 4.33/10

"not appropriate for style, lacking hop signature" , "this beer reminds me of a Belgian ale. It doesn't seem to fit in this category making the flavors confusing" , "an ok beer but lacking in the hop character needed for and American IPA. Try increasing your late kettle hop additions to improve"

Final score - 24/50

Well, that was a little humbling. Did I create an IPA or bubblegum ale? Time to put it to the only test that matters - me and Josie.

The beer has a really good color and a nice foamy head. It has a strong aroma - but I'm not sure it smells like hops - the smell is more like .... bubblegum. Its got decent bitterness - but not as much as I would like. Its got a thick and creamy mouthfeel...again, not what I was shooting for, but not too bad. If you can get over the fact that the flavors are abnormal for an IPA...the beer is actually pretty decent.

I'm pretty satisfied with this first batch. It wasn't exactly what I was trying to create, but not bad.



I took a bottle to the brewshop for some advice. They thought that I may have used too much sugar when bottling - leaving excess residual sugar in the bottles - which may have led to the bubblegum taste and thick mouth feel. I'm going to try again in a few weeks.

Batch #2 - American Wheat into the bottles

With the help of Mel, I managed to get the wheat beer bottled. I ended up with a case of 12oz bottles and 10 22oz bottles.

The final gravity measured 1.015. I also took a taste ... it was much better than before - but still a bit too sweet.

Batch #2 - American Wheat - Secondary Fermenter

We transferred the American Wheat from the primary to the secondary fermenter today. There was still a decent head of Krauesen on the top - but it looked like it had fallen down a bit and the bubbling has slowed to once every 10 secs or so.

The transfer went smoothly. I took two specific gravity readings. The first one clearly had too much sediment in it and came in at 1.040. The second one was better and came in at 1.020 - which is probably about right. We also tasted the beer and it was actually pretty good. It definetly resmebled a wheat beer and wasn't undrinkably sweet as it was initially.

I'm thinking another week or two in the secondary and then into the bottles.

Batch #2 - 8 Bells American Wheat

Goodbye Shotgun IPA is in the bottles and its time for batch#2 to get started. We've tasted the IPA a couple of times already and it is amazing. Next taste I will take a picture - its got a great head, color and flavor. My only change next time will be to increase the 60 minute hops in order to increase the bitterness. I actually entered the IPA into the Heart of the Valley Oregon Homebrew Competition last week; I'm really interested to see how it stacks up against other IPAs

On to batch #2 - an american wheat. Yesterday was the Kentucky Derby and sadly the second place filly, Eight Belles, suffered a fatal injury. Presumably, her name was derived from the nautical phrase "Eight Bells" - ironically meaning the end of a sailor's watch - pretty good time for a brew, eh. In honor of Eight Belles and Eight Bells, here is our try at an American Wheat. Its based on a partial mash recipe for a hefeweizen from Bader Brewing, but I'm calling it an American Wheat because I'm going to add some hops at the end, not traditional for a hefeweizen.

8 Bells American Wheat

3.75 lbs Unhopped Coopers Wheat Beer Malt Extract
1 lb Light Dry Malt Powder
1 lb Briess Wheat Dry malt powder
1 lb Briess Faked Wheat
1 oz tettnanger hops (60 min)
.25 oz tettnanger hops (15 min)
White Labs American Hefeweizen Yeast

Making the wort

This time I started heating 5 gallons to start with rather than 3. Also, I used Portland's finest tap water instead of bottled water. Once I hit 150 degrees, I started steeping the flaked wheat in a grain bag. After steeping the wheat for about 30 minutes, I removed the bag and brought the water up to a rolling boil. Once at a boil, I added 2 cups of extract and 1 oz of hops and boiled for 60 minutes.



45 minutes into the boil I added another 1/4 oz of hops and I put the wort chiller into the pot to sanitize. The hop addition at this point is not traditional, but I like hops and it seemed like a late hop addition might make this summer beer more refreshing.



After 60 minutes, I added the rest of the extract and the powders. Once mixed, I started to cool it down. It took almost 20 minutes to get the wort down to 78 degrees. After cooling, I poured it into a 6 gallon carboy, took a specific gravity reading, pitched the yeast and put on the airlock.

Thats it. The specific gravity reading was higher than expected at 1.058. The high gravity probably explains why the beer tasted undrinkably sweet when we tasted it. Not sure how this one is going to turn out. I'm also not sure why the gravity was so high (it was supposed to come in at 1.048).

After a week in the primary, I am going to rack this to a secondary fermenter.

Batch #1 - IPA into the bottles

Our first batch has been dry hopping in the secondary fermenter for a week now and bubbling is down to once every five minutes or slower. It could probably stay in the secondary fermenter for another week - but I'm ready to get this batch into bottles and start a new batch.

First step, clean out the bottles.

Since brewing day, I've been working on cleaning out old bottles. Some of them had been sitting around for months and have never been cleaned, so the bottoms of some of the bottles look like used petri dishes. In other words, they were in need of a thorough cleaning. Here was my cleaning process, which was probably overkill:

1. Rinse the bottles with a carboy jet cleaner attached to a hose.

2. Soak the bottles in a bleach solution. I used two capfuls of Clorox per 5 gallons of water. Then let the soak for a week.

3. Rinse the bottles with a carboy jet cleaner. Scrub with a bottle brush. Then rinse again.

4. On bottling day, I soaked all of the bottles in an iodophor solution for 30 minutes to sanitize.

5. I don't know if this is necessary, but after sanitizing, I placed a sheet of plastic wrap over the tops of all the bottles to insure that nothing got in before bottling.

On to the bottling...

Bottling was pretty simple. First, we boiled 3/4 cup of corn sugar in two cups of water for ten minutes. Next, we siphoned the beer from the secondary fermenter into a sanitized 6.5 gallon plastic bottling bucket. After siphoning in a gallon, we poured in the sugar water and then finished siphoning. The sugar will carbonate the beer in the bottles.

We also took a specific gravity reading and a taste at this point. The specific gravity was 1.017. Oddly, it had gone up since the last reading, but that is probably due to an inaccurate reading last time. We also took a taste at this point. It was amazingly good despite being flat and warm. Good bitterness and a heavy hop aroma. I thought it tasted a bit too alcoholic (almost like a barleywine), but Josie didn't think so.

After siphoning into the bottling bucket, I attached the bottling stick and started filling up bottles. One important note here, if you close the top of the bottling bucket, the beer will flow extremely slow. It took me about a six pack to figure this out.

After the bottles were filled, Josie put the caps on.

Thats it. Now we just wait two weeks and the beer should be carbonated and ready to drink.

Batch #1 - IPA - Secondary Fermenter

Its been one week since fermentation began and its time to transfer the beer into a secondary fermenter. I did a good bit of research on the debatable subject of secondary fermentation and decided to give it a try. Racking the beer from the primary fermenter to a secondary fermenter gets the beer off of the sediment and aids in clearing the beer. The problem is that everytime you expose the beer to oxygen, you risk contamination. Further, some people think that leaving the beer on the sediment (trub) has no negative effect on taste so racking is just a waste of time unless you plan on fermenting for a long period of time (lagers and high gravity beers). One thing people do tend to agree on is that it is best to rask to a secondary fermenter if you plan to dry hop the beer. Since I was planning on dry hopping (and because I was getting bored and impatient just watching the jug of beer sit in the corner) I decided to rack the beer to a secondary.

First things first, I needed a secondary fermenter. I purchased a 6 gallon glass carboy this time instead of another 5 gallon. The reason I bought a 6 gallon is because next time I plan on using the 6 gallon as the primary fermenter and racking to the 5 gallon. With a 6 gallon primary, I won't need a blowoff tube. Apparently using a blowoff tube results in the loss of some hop aroma.

After getting the new carboy out of the box, I immediately proceeded to drop on the driveway. Nice move. It has a small (1/4") crack on the inside near the neck. I will probably replace it before the next batch, but for now I think it will be ok because the crack is airtight and is higher than the beer will sit.

The racking was pretty simple. We sanitized the new carboy, stopper, airlock, hydrometer and siphon. Then we removed the blowoff tube and stopper and took a reading with the hydrometer. The specific gravity was now 1.015. According to the charts I think I am around 7% abv. That sounds about right for an IPA.

Next I sat the fermenter on the table, inserted the auto-siphon, pumped once and the beer started flowing into fermenter #2. We took a quick sample at this point. It was actually really good. Good bitterness and flavor. It was a little yeasty (as expected) and lacked some of the hop aroma I was shooting for, but overall pretty good. The dry hops should add a good bit of aroma.

Once the beer was completely transferred to the second fermenter, I shoved about an ounce of cascade hops into the new fermenter. That's it, racking and dryhopping done. I put the new stopper and airlock in place and put the fermenter back to bed. Its bubbling about once a minute (or slower) now. I'm planning to leave it like this for two weeks before bottling.

One thing I am not certain of is whether I racked at the right time. You are supposed to rack after primary fermentation ends. How do you know when that happens? The general rule (which is what I used) is one week. Another theory is to wait until bubbling gets down to about 5 per minute. That is about what mine was at, but I never timed it. Still another method, and probably the most accurate, is to take daily hydrometer readings. When the readings level off, primary fermentation has ended. This method, however, runs the risk of contaminating the beer every time you take a reading.

I guess that is it for now. I have no pictures of the actual racking procedure because I was cheap and bought batteries for my camera at IKEA. I ran through 10 AA batteries in 10 days and only took about 30 pictures. Bottom line, the camera had no juice on racking day.

Here are some pictures after one day in the secondary fermenter. The hops are covering the top and the beer is noticeably darker than it was in the primary.



Now, wait two weeks .......... In the meantime I'll be cleaning out old beer bottles and getting ready to bottle.