Hello homebrew world!

[rclarke]

Hi folks.

I've dabbled in brewing of all sorts of the years, extract kits, cider, wine, etc. But due to my casual approach I was experiencing issues with oxidisation or off-flavours. Since I never truly managed to reproduce the beers styles I loved, it was never long before I gave up due to poor tasting beers. Since 2018, having started to appreciate better quality beer, I have been nearly exclusively drinking craft beer, and had lost all desire to drink the macro-brewed commercial beers. But that comes at a cost, so I committed myself to learning where I had been going wrong and produce better beers more cheaply than the craft beers I was spending a small fortune on.

So I'm now setup with a deeper understanding of the principles of brewing great beer, a brewfather account, a low-cost DIY temp control setup, a grainfather s40, kegging equipment, I dialled in closed transfers and now have the motivation to crack this brewing skill. I've brewed a couple of blinders that the family loved, but some terrible brews that had the same people begging for a can of macro... so I'm still early on in my learning journey. I have struggled with the desire to brew loads of different styles of beer, rather than producing predictable results every time, I'm going back to my popular brews now so I always have some on tap, and reserving one keg for my experiements.

My last mistake was buying an off the shelf 25L batch grain kit, and down-scaling it (quite poorly) for my 19L corny keg fermenter setup, the grains arrived pre-mixed and I didn't mix sufficiently to keep the percentages in check when mashing, I also forget to scale the hops relative to the grain and ended up with an undrinkable NEIPA. I did end up wasting a £35 kit, that stung, and disappointed me, but I'm learning what not to do quickly.

Here is to a lot less mistakes, and long may the blinders flow.

 

[An Ankoù]

Welcome indeed.

 

[An Ankoù]

I have been nearly exclusively drinking craft beer, and had lost all desire to drink the macro-brewed commercial beers.

I've been out of the country for some time and I'm fascinated and worried by this notion of craft beer. Is, for example, Tim Taylor's Landlord a craft or a commercial in your view, or something else?

My last mistake was buying an off the shelf 25L batch grain kit, and down-scaling it (quite poorly) for my 19L corny keg fermenter setup, the grains arrived pre-mixed and I didn't mix sufficiently to keep the percentages in check when mashing, I also forget to scale the hops relative to the grain and ended up with an undrinkable NEIPA.

Increasing the late hops by 25% ish shouldn't result in an undrinkable NEIPA. What happened? What was it like? You could have made it to full length and bottled up the last 6 litres and drunk them as soon as they were carbed. Not ideal, but not ghastly either.

I have struggled with the desire to brew loads of different styles of beer, rather than producing predictable results every time,

I shouldn't worry about that. I've been brewing different beers for over 50 years and I suppose I've got three that I repeat continuously. OK, these change over time, but there are always three that have been brewed before. That accounts for about 10% of my brewing. You don't want to become a mini-macro brewer do you?

I, for one, am looking forward to following your adventures.

 

[The Baron]

Welcome to the forum

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Welcome to the forum

 

[rclarke]

I've been out of the country for some time and I'm fascinated and worried by this notion of craft beer. Is, for example, Tim Taylor's Landlord a craft or a commercial in your view, or something else?

Increasing the late hops by 25% ish shouldn't result in an undrinkable NEIPA. What happened? What was it like? You could have made it to full length and bottled up the last 6 litres and drunk them as soon as they were carbed. Not ideal, but not ghastly either.

I shouldn't worry about that. I've been brewing different beers for over 50 years and I suppose I've got three that I repeat continuously. OK, these change over time, but there are always three that have been brewed before. That accounts for about 10% of my brewing. You don't want to become a mini-macro brewer do you?

I, for one, am looking forward to following your adventures.

Thanks all for the welcome.

I guess this is the trouble with clinging to labels, they are useful, until they're not! I would enjoy a pint of Landlords, and definitely do on occasion when there's nothing else that tickles my fancy.

I have a few go to breweries I order from online, and don't drink much in pubs/bars, but when I do it's usually one's run by local breweries. I have Kirkstall, Northern Monk, Vocation, North Bar all within a short cycle journey, and I get a kick out of supporting local brewers, but do occasionally sample stuff from further afield. Technically TT is local-ish to me too so there you go!

The NEIPA was a double NEIPA actually, so probably bordered on a silly amount of hops to start with. It was a mess from start to finish, hard to pin down one cause for it for being bad, likely a combination of cock-ups. It definitely had too much dankness, too sweet/malty and very little fruity aroma if you know what I mean?

The dry hops fell into my FV before fermentation really kicked off (too heavy for my souz vide magnets) but it was a Kveik yeast strain fermented at 38C so fermentation should have been complete in under 4 days, so I wouldn't say they were exposed too long, but I read that dry hopping should ideally start around high krausen? I wouldn't immediately call that a deal breaker, because the beer was sat on the hops long enough. I wonder if the yeast consumed the hop aroma?

I think my SG was much lower than it should have been (problem with my mash?) AND I think I ended up pasteurising my yeast (at the time I believed that happened after fermentation was complete) due to malfunction with my heat controller probe... however FG was higher than I expected too, so possibly had a stuck fermentation from excessive heat. I fermented under pressure, so it's possible the heat (55C) didn't quite kill off the yeast too early, but I put the yeast through hell regardless. Once I realised it tasted too sweet, I had already transferred to the serving keg, I tried to bring it back up to room temp. I wondered if the fermentation would restart, but the yeast were clearly not up to it, as fermentation didn't kick off again after bringing it up to room temp, it wasn't on the trub anymore either. In the end I called it quits and poured the keg down the sinks so it was ready for my next batch.

 

[The Baron]

I am a big believer in whirlpool and less dry hop to give more fruitiness and less bitterness in fruity IPA's also I dry hop with the smaller quantity after the high krausen has dropped usually day 3/4.
Fermenting with Kveik the higher the temp gives a orangey taste which will compliment any fruity IPA IMO

 

[rclarke]

Yes I would have thought so too, the recipe had a generous whirlpool too. I think if I were to repeat the recipe I would be sure to get my malts in the right proportion and be 100% sure the fermentation is finished before racking

 

[An Ankoù]

Thanks all for the welcome.

I guess this is the trouble with clinging to labels, they are useful, until they're not! I would enjoy a pint of Landlords, and definitely do on occasion when there's nothing else that tickles my fancy.

I have a few go to breweries I order from online, and don't drink much in pubs/bars, but when I do it's usually one's run by local breweries. I have Kirkstall, Northern Monk, Vocation, North Bar all within a short cycle journey, and I get a kick out of supporting local brewers, but do occasionally sample stuff from further afield. Technically TT is local-ish to me too so there you go!

The NEIPA was a double NEIPA actually, so probably bordered on a silly amount of hops to start with. It was a mess from start to finish, hard to pin down one cause for it for being bad, likely a combination of cock-ups. It definitely had too much dankness, too sweet/malty and very little fruity aroma if you know what I mean?

The dry hops fell into my FV before fermentation really kicked off (too heavy for my souz vide magnets) but it was a Kveik yeast strain fermented at 38C so fermentation should have been complete in under 4 days, so I wouldn't say they were exposed too long, but I read that dry hopping should ideally start around high krausen? I wouldn't immediately call that a deal breaker, because the beer was sat on the hops long enough. I wonder if the yeast consumed the hop aroma?

I think my SG was much lower than it should have been (problem with my mash?) AND I think I ended up pasteurising my yeast (at the time I believed that happened after fermentation was complete) due to malfunction with my heat controller probe... however FG was higher than I expected too, so possibly had a stuck fermentation from excessive heat. I fermented under pressure, so it's possible the heat (55C) didn't quite kill off the yeast too early, but I put the yeast through hell regardless. Once I realised it tasted too sweet, I had already transferred to the serving keg, I tried to bring it back up to room temp. I wondered if the fermentation would restart, but the yeast were clearly not up to it, as fermentation didn't kick off again after bringing it up to room temp, it wasn't on the trub anymore either. In the end I called it quits and poured the keg down the sinks so it was ready for my next batch.

I think the temperature malfunction might well account for al the ills in this brew. 55C will render the yeast dormant- it takes a little more to kill them dead. The high temp may also have denatured the hop aromas you were hoping for. Not an NEIPA specialist by any means, but I reckon that's where the boogyman got in.

 

[The Baron]

Sorry I did not read the 55c temp which is way too high the Kveik is best below 40c to be within its tolerance and that will have probably killed the yeast maybe or at the very least altered any tastes it would produce

 

[rclarke]

Yes, both suggestions seem perfectly plausible. Next time I will be more careful with my controller probe!

 

[Rwilts]

Welcome