Beer O'Clock IPA

[SteelT]

Hi Guys, from another home brew enthusiast :)

I'm fairly new in the home brewing and so far I have only brewed 2 batches with a fairly standard kit, nothing too fancy. First batch was OK, actually slightly disappointing, but I hope the second batch will be better.

Now, I want to start with some small experiments to improve the beer kits and Coopers have quite interesting recipes on their web site.
I picked one, which I will start brewing tomorrow called "Beer O'Clock IPA", and here is the recipe, with some small amendments :

Ingredients:
1.7kg Pale Ale Brew Can (Coopers)
2 x 500g Light Dry Malt (I have got 1x500g Light DME and 1x500g light DME hopped)
200g Crystal Wheat Grains
25g Nelson Sauvin Hops (Pellets)
25g Galaxy Hops (Pellets)
25g Bravo Hops (Columbus Hops (Pellets) , as I couldn't find bravo)
11.5g Safale US05 Yeast
250g pkt Carbonation Drops

Method:

Place the Crystal Wheat Grain in a plastic zip-lock sandwich bag and crack it using a rolling pin.
Stir into 2 litres of hot water (not boiling) and let steep for about 1hr.
Strain into a good size pot (around 8 litres) then add 500g of Light Dry Malt plus another 2 litres of water and bring to the boil.
Add Nelson Sauvin hops and boil for 10mins then Galaxy Hops for a further 10mins then Bravo Hops for the final 10mins (30mins boil in total).
Set the pot in a cold/ice water bath to cool then strain into a fermenting vessel (FV).
Add the Australian Pale Ale and the remaining 500g of Light Dry Malt, stir to dissolve then top up with cool water to the 20 litre mark and stir thoroughly.
Check the brew temperature and top up to the 23 litre mark with warm or cold water (refrigerated if necessary) to get as close as possible to 18°C.
Sprinkle the dry yeast, fit the lid and try to ferment at 18°C.

I think I bought my grains crushed, so I guess I don't have to crush them again. The suggest volume is 23 litres, but I actually I'm planning to drop it to 21 litres to increase the ABV % and potentially the hop flavour.


Apart from that I would like to ask you guys, if you have any other advise to help me improve this beer ?
Also, what do you think about this actually recipe and the method ?

I will attached some pics from the day :)

I look forward to you comments.

 

[dad_of_jon]

Hi Guys, from another home brew enthusiast :)

I'm fairly new in the home brewing and so far I have only brewed 2 batches with a fairly standard kit, nothing too fancy. First batch was OK, actually slightly disappointing, but I hope the second batch will be better.

Now, I want to start with some small experiments to improve the beer kits and Coopers have quite interesting recipes on their web site.
I picked one, which I will start brewing tomorrow called "Beer O'Clock IPA", and here is the recipe, with some small amendments :

Ingredients:
1.7kg Pale Ale Brew Can (Coopers)
2 x 500g Light Dry Malt (I have got 1x500g Light DME and 1x500g light DME hopped)
200g Crystal Wheat Grains
25g Nelson Sauvin Hops (Pellets)
25g Galaxy Hops (Pellets)
25g Bravo Hops (Columbus Hops (Pellets) , as I couldn't find bravo)
11.5g Safale US05 Yeast
250g pkt Carbonation Drops

Method:

Place the Crystal Wheat Grain in a plastic zip-lock sandwich bag and crack it using a rolling pin.
Stir into 2 litres of hot water (not boiling) and let steep for about 1hr.
Strain into a good size pot (around 8 litres) then add 500g of Light Dry Malt plus another 2 litres of water and bring to the boil.
Add Nelson Sauvin hops and boil for 10mins then Galaxy Hops for a further 10mins then Bravo Hops for the final 10mins (30mins boil in total).
Set the pot in a cold/ice water bath to cool then strain into a fermenting vessel (FV).
Add the Australian Pale Ale and the remaining 500g of Light Dry Malt, stir to dissolve then top up with cool water to the 20 litre mark and stir thoroughly.
Check the brew temperature and top up to the 23 litre mark with warm or cold water (refrigerated if necessary) to get as close as possible to 18°C.
Sprinkle the dry yeast, fit the lid and try to ferment at 18°C.

I think I bought my grains crushed, so I guess I don't have to crush them again. The suggest volume is 23 litres, but I actually I'm planning to drop it to 21 litres to increase the ABV % and potentially the hop flavour.


Apart from that I would like to ask you guys, if you have any other advise to help me improve this beer ?
Also, what do you think about this actually recipe and the method ?

I will attached some pics from the day :)

I look forward to you comments.

I'd chuck in some galaxy hops pellets 25-50g 4-5 days before bottling/ kegging purely because:

a) i like my hoppy beers - very hoppy
b) hoppyness fades over time so if the first few beers are too hoppy for you wait a bit and they'll come back to you. :-)

 

[SteelT]

The brew day went quite well, a bit longer than expected but to be honest I could have prepared better.
The process of my brew days can be dramatically refined to save time. I definitely learnt a few keep points that i could improve next time.

During the first step of the process, I heated up 2l of water to 69C and steeped the 200g of grains for 1 hour. I used a pan with a lid and wrapped up.
After 1hr the water temperature was about 56-57 C, which I hope produced the right result.

I tried to sparge the grain with some water through the sieve, but I'm not too sure if I've done this right (see pic below).

Then I mixed 2l water, 500g of dry malt extract, with the wort from the grains, boiled up for 30 mins with adding the hops as per the recipe.

Then it was a massive pain to sieve all the liquid as I used a quite a small sieve and it just kept clogging with the hops sediment. (I've learnt that if I get one of those hop bags, it will be much quicker)

After all the messing about, I decided to boil the liquid that I have already sieved just in case for extra sanitation. (i would try to avoid this double boiling, next time)

In the second boil i've added the second pack of 500g hopped dry malt extract, and brought to boil for couple of minutes.

Then added all in the FV, plus the can of IPA and topped up with water. The temperature was about 23C, I waited until it dropped to 22C and pitched the yeast.

Overall I used bottled water, just to experiment. The OG was 1.040, which was slightly lower than expected, but the taste was very hoppy, so I hope it will taste good later

Do you have any further advise or comments on the method I used?

 

[SteelT]

I'd chuck in some galaxy hops pellets 25-50g 4-5 days before bottling/ kegging purely because:

a) i like my hoppy beers - very hoppy
b) hoppyness fades over time so if the first few beers are too hoppy for you wait a bit and they'll come back to you. :-)

I think I would consider the dry hopping, just ordered the hop bags :)

 

[SteelT]

After the first 24 hrs of fermentation

 

[Spapro]

Looks good, a few of us moved from kits through to all grain by doing a few partial mashes - off the back of Clibits posts.

There are a few partial mashes with Coopers kits on this thread to try: http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=55390

Worth keeping an eye out for the Tesco direct sales - they do Cooper kits with usually 20% off when they run a sale, you can click and collect to your local Tesco branch.

The beer from a partial mash is undoubtedly superior to just doing kits (even 2 can kits have a twang IMHO), partial mashes condition and become drinkable much quicker than kits as well. Good luck with this one, hope it turns out well for you. No going back !

 

[SteelT]

Some further update on this batch. It is now day 4 and the gravity is reducing to 1.009, and the aroma from the fermentation is fantastic. You can smell all the nice Galaxy and Nelson hops.
However, the taste has been a little different than expected, the dominant flavour seams to be the Columbus hops, and Galaxy and Nelson hops are very faint.
Still at this stage the beer taste great, quite bitter but I like it this way.

I have added the Columbus hops towards the end of the boil, last 10 minutes and I wasn't expecting them to overpower the flavour.

But I'm not sure if I pick the right combination and timing for the Columbus hops. What do you think ?

 

[Dutto]

...... It is now day 4 .....

..... Still at this stage the beer taste great, quite bitter but I like it this way. ....

I can't ever remember tasting beer at this stage of a brew; and I don't think I've been missing too much!

There's +/-5 to 10 days of fermenting to go, maybe a few days of dry hopping after that and then a secondary fermentation in a bottle or keg before waiting a week or so to let it clear and condition.

By the time all this has happened, whatever you tasted today will be nothing like the finished product; which, hopefully, will be a lot better!

 

[terrym]

Don't keep opening your FV lid! Patience is a friend of the homebrewer. Leave your FV alone for just under two weeks before you take your SG readings to confirm that it is safe to bottle or barrel.
My tip to you is don't bother with bottled water unless your tap water not pleasant to drink, or it smells of chemicals. If you drink your tap water without a second thought you can make beer with it.
Good luck with your brew it looks promising. :thumb:

 

[SteelT]

I can't ever remember tasting beer at this stage of a brew; and I don't think I've been missing too much!

There's +/-5 to 10 days of fermenting to go, maybe a few days of dry hopping after that and then a secondary fermentation in a bottle or keg before waiting a week or so to let it clear and condition.

By the time all this has happened, whatever you tasted today will be nothing like the finished product; which, hopefully, will be a lot better!

Thanks for the advice, I like to taste the beer at various stages to try understand better if everything is going ok and how it will develop.

I will keep this batch 2 weeks in the FV, and perhaps a couple of days in the cold before bottling for conditioning.

 

[SteelT]

I have added a temperature control for the FV with the help if Inkbird and heating belt. Just need to insulate better the probe.

My FV is the Coopers type which comes with Krausen Koller which spoused to be removed after day 4, so this is the only time I would open the FV. Is this a bad thing ?

But I can smell the beer from the FV as the lid is not air-tight.

 

[dad_of_jon]

Nothing wrong with using bottled water in preference to tap water as tap water is chorlinated and you'd need to to treat it to remove the chlorine or chloramine. Also it depends on the mineral profile of your tap water.

I used tesco value water 17p for 2 litres it's from chase spring and find it gives me great results.

Galaxy hops do smell a bit different to their taste but there's not a huge difference so maybe the other hops are muscling in.

 

[SteelT]

Hi Guys,

I think I have a problem with the hop taste of this beer.

The beer is now in the fermenter for about 10 days at 18C. My fermenter doesn't have an airlock and the lid is not air-tight.
I have tasted the beer today and to my surprise all the hop aromas and most of the flavour have disappeared ???
I can taste the nice bitterness of the beer but the previous taste of the hops is almost gone.
I think I can still slightly taste the Columbus hops but not as much as on Day 6 when I took my other sample.

I took the fermenter into the garage to cool off, and I'm planning to dry hop tomorrow, and keep the FV in the garage for another week.

I would like to ask you a few questions:

1.) Have I done something wrong with the process ?
2.) Should I have bottled this batch earlier to preserve the flavours?
3.) Is it best to dry hop in cold temperature or shall bring back the FV to 18C?
4.) Is it good to keep the FV in the garage now?
5.) How to avoid losing the aroma and flavour for my next batches?

I would really appreciate if you could help me with some answers ?

Thank you in advice.

 

[Spapro]

Don't worry about it. Dry hop for approx 4 days then bottle. The taste will develop and change considerably while carbing up then cool conditioning after bottling. After bottling give it 2 weeks in the warm, then 1-2 weeks in the cool before trying it. Then report back here on how it tastes.

Oh, and I have read its worth dry hopping at 18-20°C rather than in the cold as helps extract a bit more of the hop oils, not sure how much difference it makes in practice.

Oh, and get another brew on so you can stop worrying about this one !

 

[dad_of_jon]

The fact you can smell the lovely hops during fermentation means the aromas are escaping to the open air and leaving the beer. fermentation drives off a lot of aroma, hence dry-hopping AFTER the main fermentation is over.

I do a 15 min boil and chuck some hops in at flameout and then dry hps 5 days before bottling. That does the trick.

 

[SteelT]

Thank you for the advise.

I have added 50g of hops to dry hop (25g galaxy and 25g Nelson). I hope the results will be good.

But is there any way to prevent the lost of aromas during the fermentation?

 

[Dutto]

Hi Guys,

..........

I would like to ask you a few questions:

1.) Have I done something wrong with the process ?
2.) Should I have bottled this batch earlier to preserve the flavours?
3.) Is it best to dry hop in cold temperature or shall bring back the FV to 18C?
4.) Is it good to keep the FV in the garage now?
5.) How to avoid losing the aroma and flavour for my next batches?

I would really appreciate if you could help me with some answers ?

Thank you in advice.

1) Not really. Apart from impatience. Hopefully the brew will be all forgiving because it's your first.

2. Definitely not. Check out 1) above.

3. I dry hop at whatever "ambient" is in my garage. This morning it is at 5.4 degrees!

4. Yes in so far as it's what I would do.

5. You haven't "lost" them in this batch yet because the dry hopping will predominate with regard to aroma and the bittering was fixed in the boil.

"Patience is a virtue." is never a more true saying than when you are brewing.

Bob Telfer, a bosun I worked with when I was a young lad, once said to me

"You are so impatient I'll bet you start flushing the toilet before you have even finished having a pee."​

The comment stuck in my mind, and wanna guess why I think of him almost every other day? :whistle: :whistle:

 

[SteelT]

Just a quick update, the beer is now bottled after dry hopping for a week with galaxy and nelson. Think I've slightly over done the dry hopping as the beer taste a bit grassy.

I hope the conditioning will improve it further and I will report back in a few weeks.:thumb:

Meanwhile tomorrow is another brew day, I'm planing two batches for extract brew.