Boom's second brew (first posted brew)

[BoomSchnitzel]

Second kit, this time just ingredients 9L NEIPA all grain ingredients beer brew kit.
Any feedback/advice welcome!


The mash: just got some stock pots on an induction hob. No issues getting to temperature but maintaining it is a challenge.


The sparge: I used a brew bag as my sieve isn't big enough (anti crock comments unwelcome )


The boil: hop addition after 10 mins and lots of paper towels on the extractor fan to stop the drips!


Hop stand: chilled the wort to just under 80C by stirring (is this okay?) then added the hops and put lid on to help maintain temp and stop loss of water from evaporation (is that right?).


Cooling/fertilisation- may have ruined it! : used an ice bath (wort chiller is my next purchase I think). Poored through a sterilised sieve into sterilised fermentation bucket to try and increase oxygen but it mainly overflowed the sieve. Forgot to test gravity so i may have caused a big problem in response to this... I put my fingers in the cooled wort when taking a sample. Then when adding the liquid yeast I cut both sachets and some yeast went on the unsanitised pack but I poored it all in as I didn't want to lose any! I'm now worried I've contaminated my wort


Fermentation: All tucked up with fingers crossed. Dry hop is four days before kegging. My understanding is that I add the hops after fermentation is complete and then wait four days before kegging?

Again, I would really appreciate any advice as I can see this being a long term hobby!

Lots of love,

Boom x

 

[foxy]

I wouldn't worry about yeast touching a packet, or dipping your finger in the wort, I have plucked a large blow fly with my finger and thumb out of my cooled wort.
Try and control your mash temp and control your fermentation temp.

 

[BoomSchnitzel]

Thanks foxy! Any tips for controlling temps with my set up? Especially mash temp in a stock pot.

 

[foxy]

Thanks foxy! Any tips for controlling temps with my set up? Especially mash temp in a stock pot.

I initially started with an esky and found that to be a really good mash tun.
If you can get your stock pot into an oven, get the oven to 70 C stick the stock pot in with the grain and liquor heated to around 63 C and leave for 90 mins. Switching off the oven as you put your stock pot in. Could need some trial and error to get it right. Esky would be the best.

 

[BoomSchnitzel]

So after dry hopping for 5 days with a ridiculous amount of tea strainers (they were smaller than i realised!) I measured the FG at 1.012 (OG 1.062), kegged it and force carbed for a few days.

First pour had a very strong metallic taste that made it undrinkable. I did some reasearch and left it for a couple of weeks which mellowed the metal taste so it was drinkable but it still tasted very metallic and not pleasant. I drank it all of course as it was still beer. My beer and my effort!

I decided for my next brew to keep it simple so I followed the instructions on
@clibit thread: Have a go at simple AG
Thanks for this dude! Its an old post now but great! I did the 10L version and have just kegged it yesterday but to my complete dismay, the small taste I had from the bottom of the FV had the metallic taste again!

Any help/advice/encouragement would be greatly appreciated! I've got to figgure out what's causing this so I can make a nice beer like the first one I did.