Posted: 4/10/2012 6:39:54 PM EDT
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My first "real" tastes like store bought all grain beer.
After several attempts with a couple of overly "daicetyl ridden" yucks and a couple of OK ales. I hit a good one. It is a pale ale beer, looks, smells, tastes and acts like beer should. Recipe: Brew in a bag 3.5 gal final in Primary. Grain Bill: 4.5 lb rahr Pale ale 1.5 lb 2 row rahr .5 lb pilsner rahr .5 lb 10L CRYSTAL 2 oz carapils mash in at 152 F for 90 minutes 4.5 gal 03-09-2012 mash out to 170 F Pull bag and let drain into wort about 4.5 gallon at beginning of boil Bring to a boil for an hour add 1.125 oz pellet cascade hops @4.9 AA for 60 min .3 oz cascade 4.9 AA for 15 min pull from heat and cooled to 70 F with my home made copper wort chiller (first time use) Dumped into a sterile bucket and pitched White Labs American Ale Blend yeast (WLP060) installed lid and airlock full of vodka. og was 1.053 primaried until 04-03-2012 with no secondary started in the basement at about 65 F and then upstairs for the last week to approx 72 F to combat the tendancy towards daicetyl twang from my cool basement. Bottled 04-03-2012 Final yeild in the bottling bucket was around 3 gallon, added 2.7 oz of boiled corn sugar, yeild was 30-12 oz bottles and a taste....  .
opened my first tonight 04-10-2012 It was a good hoppy (about 33 IBU) pale ale that was not too fruity and finished dry the way I like a beer to finish, had a good fine white head to boot. (ETA) and no off flavors or aromas. I never FG'd the batch but judging by the end product it is done. and probably about a 1.012 What I have learned: Fermentation temperatures so far have been the MOST important thing. (I detest buttery beer  )
Also sanitation and preperation for brew day are important. A wort chiller will save you big time head aches. My new auto syphon are inbound (the standard ones are a hassle). Brew in a bag works on my stovetop for up to 3.5 gal batchs. I probably won't secondary any more light ales, I see no need as clear as this beer is. The biggie though is I will raise my ferment temps at the end of primary EVERY BATCH to be sure I have no buttery beer (daicetyl flavors/aromas). |
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A while back I had an especially bad one with English Ale yeast. My ferment temps were probably too low and I bottled it too soon. It was undrinkable as well as a grade school experiment volcano . Learning curve and all that.
My kolsch beer at 2 weeks also had a hint of buttery yuck, but it cleared up with more aging. |