First extract brew. Lot's of learning points. An update

[JohnRB]

Well that's the first brew safely in the fermenter and it's be a sharp learning experience. Thought I'd share it with it with others.

Recipe:
Brew length 11/12 litres
1500 gms liquid light malt extract
100 gms carapils
25 gms Cascade 60 mins
10 gms Cascade 25 mins
10 gms Cascade 10 mins
10 gms Cascade at flame-out
15 gms Cascade for dry hopping
US-05 yeast

Beer Engine was used to help formulate the recipe.

First learning point was that trying to keep an accurate temperature whilst steeping the carapils in 1 litre of water was difficult. I was either over under by 10 Deg.C. In future extract brews I'll steep in around 3 litres.

Second learning point was that 19 litre pans do take time to heat up. I was over eager and added the first batch of hops too early. It didn't matter as I got a good hot break and just extended the boil time.

Third point was that big pans can lose heat very quickly. I insulated the pan with tin foil and with the doors shut could keep a rolling boil going on setting 3 (from10) on a typical domestic electric hob. I don't know what would have happened with a longer brew length.

Fourth point was that hops don't weigh much for their volume. I'm glad I'd bought some cheap digital scales off Amazon otherwise this brew could have been insipid.

Fifth point was that I can't estimate temperatures. An eBay digital thermometer (£2.99) paid itself off on this first brew.

Finally, with a short brew length I managed to cool the wort to around 27Deg.C in the sink in less than an hour. I've taken a gamble and split a 11g sachet of US-05 yeast but did rehydrate before pitching. What was left will be used in a similar recipe using only Motueka hops.

I'll let you know how things go but, most importantly, this was great fun and I'm looking forward to the next brew day.

[jimp2003]

Congrats on your first brew!

By the sound of it you did not have any major problems and have taken note of improvements for next time so I would call that a great result.

Extract brewing is ideal for small batches to get to know ingredients without getting lumbered with too much beer (yes I believe you can have too much beer ). Although I mainly do all grain brews I have just ordered some DME to do exactly this.

Let us know how this one turns out

[far9410]

excellent much more methodical than my first attempts you ll soon be an all grain fanatic

[JohnRB]

I've just racked from FV1 to FV2 and thought I'd update the learning points.

In 8 days at around 18 Deg.C the gravity has gone from 1037 to 1011 so hopefully it will ferment a little more.

I didn't keep an eye on the syphon cane and lost about 0.75l. I wasn't keen to try and re-start the syphon with so little left. At a short brew length that loss is significant.

A taste reveals that the recipe was to my liking with, as hoped, lots of citrus hop. There will be more because I've now dry hopped another 10g Cascade. First impressions are that it is quite bitter and leaves me wondering if I should have reduced the hops at 60 minutes from 25 to 10 grams. It's early days as the brew still has some way to go.

I'm planning to keg this using an old beer box which I've cleaned out. (It did have Sadlers JPA in it. Another wonderful light hoppy beer.) As its a 20l bag and I will only have around 10l of beer to go in I was thinking of using extra priming sugar to generate more CO2. Is this a good or bad idea?

[Jocky]

The bitterness will mellow. Always does in my beers using big American hops like Cascade, although looking back at my Cascade recipe for a Cascade APA (viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9700&start=30#p529076) you have got quite a lot of hops on the long boil there.

My recipe had half what you have used (by weight, not sure what your Cascade AA % is), but didn't really have enough bitterness in it for me (but that may have been a weak boil), and I was planning to up my hops to 20 grams next time!

Personally I prefer to bottle American style ales like this, it just seems right for the extra fizziness you get. I certainly can't advise as to how well your beer bag will hold up to the pressure.

[JohnRB]

Jocky,

Thanks for the feedback. It will be interesting to see how the beer develops once kegged/bottled.

My Cascades are not quite so potent as yours at 7%AA but, according to Beer Engine, I should end up with an EBU of 53 which I can happily live with.

Could see the similarity in recipes though I was aiming more for a clone of Hophead albeit slightly darker.

This brewing lark is fun and I'm looking forward to trying another sample when I remove the dry hops next week.

[Jocky]

The most important thing is to go by taste when it's conditioned for a couple of weeks and adjust the recipe from there. If three people make the same recipe they will get quite different results, because everyone's equipment and process is different. For example, I know I have to up the bittering hops in my setup as I don't get a very strong boil.

Also the AA% on the packet of hops is a rough guide, and EBU/IBU is always going to be very rough, as there's several ways of calculating it that come out with quite different values.

For the recipe I referenced above I actually split the batch into two plastic carboys and only dry hopped one of them (I just dropped the hops onto the top of the beer). I couldn't pick a difference between the two, so I'm going to try this again with my next batch, but use a lot more, and weigh them down in a bag.