Everyone Should Make This

[Bomber1975]

When you say "water" (he asks, not sure he wants to hear the answer) do you mean water or wort? What I mean is did you boil the hops in straight water or 1040-ish wort?

If straight water your bitterness will be significantly higher than the original recipe. Call it an IPA if it is and it won't be ruined - just not what you expected (or what is considered ideal).

Sorry yeah I added the LME into the boil as per the recipe ( although yet again I think I was a bit heavy handed ) OG ended out being 1044

Sorry Neil I really shouldn't be posting this in your topic as I seem to have totally gone off the rails in my attempt to follow your recipe

 

[Hatchy]

I've boiled hops in water before I learnt that they should be boiled in wort & I made beer. I now boil my hops in wort but I'd still say that boiling some hops in water is better than using a can with no hop additions.

 

[bum]

Bomber, 1044 sounds fine to me. Certainly won't ruin your beer. I think some people report usually aiming for 1045 so I very much doubt you'll have any negative effects. Utilisation may be slightly lower but you've got larger additions so you'll still be in front.

As for sticking to Neill's recipe - you're a lot closer than many in this thread and he didn't seem too upset about them.

Let us know how it turns out.

 

[toojays]

I made a version of this on Good Friday as:

200g Caraamber + 100g Caraaroma steeped
3 kg LDME (400g in 5L boil)
20g Centential (9.7% AA) @ 30 min
40g Amarillo (8.6% AA) @ 20 min
40g Amarillo (8.6% AA) @ 10 min
15g Amarillo (8.6% AA) @ 0 min (figured I might as well chuck in the leftover hops)
Danstar Nottingham yeast.

OG 1052
Estimated FG from QBrew is 1013.

Just had a sample from the fermenter today, SG is 1022. It smells gorgeous, but tastes a bit more bitter than I would like. It tastes like an IPA right now.

Hopefully that mellows over time, without losing too much hop flavour. Although isn't the reality that it will taste more bitter once some of the remaining sweetness from the malt is converted into alcohol? And given time in the bottle, it'll lose some aroma, but keep the bitterness? If only it was the other way around :S

 

[Neill]

you might get too much bitterness if you do a larger hop boil than i have. because i only do a 4 or 5L boil, the hop utilisation is lower than if you did a 10 or 15L boil. basically if your boil volume is higher then you will get much more bitterness out of it - hence i recommend adjusting the hop schedule as needed with your boil size and aiming for 30-35IBU, otherwise as mentioned it can get too bitter. I did a second brew of this a few months back and it used a bigger boil of just 5L (original boil volume was 3L) and it was a bit too bitter for my liking. so keep that in mind!

edit: also your AA% may vary compared to my original one - your best bet is to plug the numbers into beersmith or whatever and aim for 30-15 IBU and adjust the hop schedule accordingly (within reason)

 

[Hatchy]

This turned out ok for me. It's still pretty young (10 days in bottles). I'll put a few away for a couple of months & I'm sure they'll be way better. If I did this brew again I'd dry hop some amarillo for some more aroma. Personal preferance obviously.

 

[bullfrog]

This turned out ok for me. It's still pretty young (10 days in bottles). I'll put a few away for a couple of months & I'm sure they'll be way better. If I did this brew again I'd dry hop some amarillo for some more aroma. Personal preferance obviously.

Call me crazy, but I'm of the mind that a hoppy APA-style beer, much the same as a wheat, should be drunk pretty green. Most of my APAs are cracked at two weeks and completely gone by week 5 or 6.

EDIT: Clarity.

 

[Hatchy]

Call me crazy (or just wrong) but I thought that was more for dry hopped beers. I certainly went with that policy for my DSGA. "Quick, drink all the beer before it loses it's aroma!"

If this is meant to be drunk young then I'm happy to do that. I'll go put a couple of stubbies in the fridge now, just to be safe.

 

[kelbygreen]

I found it got alot better at around 4 weeks in the bottle. it was to bitter for me but I also found that I done no chill and both beers I done no chill was more bitter then ones I have done after with cooling it quickly, also there was less flavours on the no chill. might just be me or the change in brewing gear but thats what I found lol

 

[Aus_Rider_22]

I still fail to realise why people who don't do secondary (me) think a beer should be drank before 3 weeks? In my experience, which is still fairly limited, beers are hitting their prime 3-8 weeks in. I have read that wheat beers are best drunk green, but IMO if you are drinking them inside 3-4 weeks just for aroma then you should just increase your dry hopping amounts 3 or 4 fold. I wish I could drink my beer within a few weeks out of the fermenter but it just doesn't taste as good as a month or more aged beer! I am still a real amateur that has only been kegging for just over 2 months but after kegging and drinking a LCBA clone for weeks and then drinking a bottled beer that was 2 months old I could tell a fair difference. I know many disagree and will debate this but the longer the better!

 

[Hatchy]

I won't disagree that leaving it longer will make it better. The problem I have is I keep running out of beer. I'd love to have everything bottled for a minimum of a month before opening one. Unfortunately I really like beer & the ones I've brewed that I've really enjoyed I've struggled to have any last 3 weeks. I'm trying a "reduced consumption, increased production" policy. So far over 2 days I've bottled over 2 cartons & only drunk/given away 3 longnecks. I really would like to get to a point where over half of my bottles are full.

 

[bum]

More fermenters.

 

[Hatchy]

More fermenters.

60L in fermenting fridge. 2 x 30L in bath. I could use the bottling bucket as a fermenter but I like bulk priming. Another $15 bunnings fermenter could work. It's tough to keep them cold enough in summer in the bath & I reckon I'm a month or 2 away from struggling to keep them warm. The beer out of the fermenting fridge really is a lot nicer than the beer from the bath (amazingly).

 

[bum]

So with 120lt on the go at any one time you're saying you can't keep up with a 3 week cycle? Or am I reading this wrong? That's 5.7lt a day - surely there's enough wriggle room to get ahead and keep some aside for conditioning from each batch? What if you kept brewing but bought a few boxes in the middle?

 

[jiesu]

Wholly **** Hatchy, Slow down buddy or in two months time you wont be able wipe your own ass let alone brew drinking 5.7 litres a d ay.

On a more on topic note my centenillo is on its third day of fermentation and It smells sensational Looking forward to having a taste in a few weeks time

 

[Hatchy]

I reckon I should be able to start getting the supplies up now. The double batch in the fridge is the 1st double batch I've done. I also had an infected batch & brewed a cider for SWMBO. That put me a bit behind schedule. I don't know that I could drink 5.7L of beer a day every day.

 

[Florian]

I finally put this one down last night. Steeped 300g of chrystal, had a 3ish l boil. The house smelled absolutely great, but still good that SWMBO was away, as I'm not sure if she would've liked it too. As I'm still on crutches I got my mum, who was over for a visit, to carry the fermenter downstairs into the garage for me. Found the best way to sanitise the fermenter, just dumped it up side down onto the baby bottle steam steriliser, fits perfectly.

Did not find a suitable strainer, so all the hops went into the fermentor and are now swimming on top of the wort.

Once downstairs i filled it up with spring water. Unfortunately, the Bunnings fermentor hasn't got the little litre mark lines, so I am not sure if I have hit 23 l or am over or under. Added an estimated 17-19 litres of water, so should be fairly close, hopefully. I then realised that I have to get a new hydrometer too, as the one I have ends at 1040. My guessed OG is about 1048ish.

Pitched Nottingham somewhere betwen 24 and 26 degrees, and then put the fermenter into the fridge and set my freshly wired ebay temp control to 18 degrees. This was at around 10 pm. This morning I discovered that I had wired it up incorrectly, and the wort was therefore still sitting at 24 degrees.

Have now wired the temp control up properly, so the wort will slowly go down to 18. Hope the high temp at the beginning will not do any harm. The fridge smells great, can't wait to have a little first taste in about a week when I do a grav reading.

Florian

 

[riverside]

This is a top brew, im on my 3rd 60ltr batch and still lovin it !

Thanks for sharing this one Neil

 

[Neill]

good to see you guys are enjoying it. i made another one just last week and it's sitting in the garage pumping away - man that notto chews through it fast! brew it at 16-17 degrees if you can, but anywhere under 20 is fine. notto seems to scrub a little more hop out at the higher temperatures.

 

[Dementedchook]

Had a bottle the other day that is just over 5 months old. Fantastic stuff!