My first brew, IPA

[Petros]

Hey all,

Thought I'd wallop up the intended recipe for my first brew, adapted from the "Way to Amarillo IPA" recipe from the BrewUK shop website. I'm basically sticking to it, except instead of Amarillo hops I'm bunging in East Kent Goldings, and as I'll have half a packet left over, I'm tempted to dry hop the other 50g, just for the aroma/hell of it!

Ingredients
3 Kg Light Dried Malt extract
50 grams East Kent Goldings, 30 g for 55 min, 10 g for 15 min, the rest to steep as it cools.
WYeast London Ale III
50 grams East kent Goldings, dry hopped.

Aiming for about 21 litres, OG 1.050, FG 1.011
Will probably have some eaten by additional dry hopping/me being a **** with a syphon!

I've got myself a small 5gallon pressurised Keg thing to send it to as well once it has finished, for conditioning/dispensation (Spot who is fortunate enough to have the empty fridge in the garage to dispense beer from! :) )

Anyways, hopefully I'll brew tomorrow/Tuesday/Wednesday- basically, whenever the kit shows up and the weather isn't too hot!
Any words of warning on the changes I've made to the recipe? Only did it because I know nothing about the taste of American style ales, so I thought I'd make it more English. :P

Pete

 

[rickthebrew]

It`ll be great with the goldings - a classic english hop, i`d be tempted to put a bit extra hops in the brew, say:

40grams for your 55min boil
30grams for the last ten minutes
then either steep some for 30mins or dry hop later

I did the summer ale extract recipe last year and it was great compared to the kits i`d been doing - made me go over to AG brewing and i`ve never looked back :thumb:

 

[rickthebrew]

also good luck with the brewday - have fun and post some pics if you can :

 

[31bb3]

Looking forward to the picks good luck hope it all goes well were all behind you :thumb:

 

[Petros]

Just finished said brew, what a learning experience! The smells involved, the waiting, the nightmare that is realising you only have a 6 litre pot and that you can just barely fit your boil into it... :s Overspill was had!
Still, sanitation has been maintained, all has cooled, and I've pitched. So, hopefully I'll get a bit of action out of the yeast soon and all should be promising!
Owing to a jug error by my mate, as well as some overspill, making more like 19 litres, when hop thirst is added as well, estimated ABV 5.6%. A tad stronger than planned, but more IPAish than I thought!
Went with dry hopping the rest of my Goldings as well. I mean, you can't have an IPA that's too hoppy, right?

Brewporn/Unfolding horror of wort boiling over pictures to follow! :)

 

[grapefruitmoon]

Sounds good man! Looking forward to the pics. You really should try it with the Amarillo hops, the aroma is stunning!

 

[rickthebrew]

well done petros :thumb:

 

[Petros]

Can't find the sodding lead to connect my camera to my laptop, nightmare!
Still, I have fermentation, it's all bubbling away nicely. The overwhelming smell I'm getting at the moment is a mixture of toffee and banana, however, so I'm a bit worried the warm temperatures are going to give me some bloody weird- but from what I've gathered, it's not unusual at this stage to get some funky esters being made, that the yeast will sort out partly in conditioning?
Hopefully given this brew's strength, a fortnight in FV, then at least a month in keg should sort things out!
Regardless though, I've been bitten by the bug. Now, to decide what to brew next- no idea what I'll do, except that I shall
a) Buy a bigger saucepan ( )
b) do an extract with some steeped speciality malt in it, that way I have a nice step up before I hit the AG!

 

[Petros]

Oh dear, here comes the overflow...

My mate handling the clean up, while I do important things like... errr... photograph the clean up
Woops! Little bit of brewporn for you :)
Things are still bubbling away nicely- I have a quick, and incredibly stupid, question however...
I have the lid sealed on my FV, with an airlock in it as that's what my kit was supplied with, airlock was filled with sterilised water. Now, airlock definitely containing some form of wort, or liquid- this won't affect the rest of the brew, in allowing contaminates to grow in the U-bend of the airlock and then to drift on down into the rest of the brew, will it? Should I sterilise a fresh one and sling that in there instead?
Dumb, dumb question I know (and I also know it isn't necessary to use an airlock, and unsnapping the lid a bit will do the job, but I have a hole with a gromit on the FV, I have airlocks, I'll use them :p )
Smelling less of bananas today, and more of apples... which is interesting...

 

[rickthebrew]

I`d probably give the airlock a rinse and refill, the co2 being produced will keep any nasties away anyway :thumb: I just crack the lid but it doesn`t really matter if use the airlock or not - good luck with the brew

 

[Jack Hackett]

All the best with the brew...
looks like you need a bigger brewpot tho

 

[Petros]

Cheers guys, airlock dealt with and new brewpot being looked for!
Almost finished sorting out my recipe for brew#2, going to go for some high ABV Belgian fun cos, damn it, they taste good and the hot weather won't mess them up too much! Just need to finalise a recipe, get the next batch of ingredients and wait for this brew to finish to free up the FV!

(I'll bottle the next one too, to send out a few samples )

 

[Petros]

transferred to keg today, SG 1015. Had my first taste as well... Damn, I'm impressed!

Despite my happiness with early initial success, however, the process was a nightmare. I had the wrong sized silicone tubing for my tap, so I ended up having to run it directly into the keg. Naturally, this has already given me nightmares of a secondary infection. However, if that wasn't bad enough, not being able to balance my keg on anything to get a decent angle at which to pour the beer lead to me to have waste an additional 2 litres from sheer strain.

Not happy to have to lose so much beer!

The problem as well that I have, because of all of this, is that I was aiming to prime with 85g of light malt extract for about 20 litres of liquid, to let it carbonate naturally. I'm worried now as I have only 15 litres, and am somewhat fearing the pressure in my keg may get a bit mental!

Do you think a fairly standard plastic keg can withstand a bit of extra gas? I don't mind if my IPA is a bit on the bubbly side, but I certainly don't want a disaster with the vessel!

Any experience with this would be much appreciated, if there is any risk of a blow out, I'll have to loosen that top to let a bit of gas out fairly shortly!

Lastly, thanks all. My own taste of homebrew, even if half ready, is truly amazing. So happy to have actually created something, so thanks guys! Couldn't have had anything without you all! :drunk: