Hi folks, this is my first 4 gallon batch of beer with my new starter pack that arrived today. I just got finished pitching the yeast and thought I should make a writeup to document the brew's progress, as well as any mistakes i've made. PLUS I can gather advice from all you good people on what I can do to improve in future. p.s I should mention that since I love a really hoppy beer I'm boiling with cascade hops + dry hopping at the end with simcoe and amarillo.
Here's some notes I jotted down during the brewing
-Washed and santised all equipment to be used; includes fermenter, plastic spoon, wooden spoon, tin opener, yeast sachet, airlock, spigot etc.
-Added 3 litres of water to boiling pan, once boiled added the 500g packet of Light malt extract. Then added a teabag of cascade hops to boil for 15mins. Mistake #1: Didn't read the packaging properly and threw right into boil pan instead of boiling in hot water for 10minutes first as advised so there was no smell of hops that I could notice.
-Next I brought off the boil and added the can of Coopers IPA Hopped malt extract, plus 300g of Dextrose as the instructions call for. I was going to go for more dextrose like I've seen craigtube do on youtube, but heard it thins a beer out so vetoed that idea.
-Into the fermenter with the mixture, and I stirred vigorously while adding boiling water to the 20litre mark (I decided to do this 3 litres short since I enjoy stronger beer and am also afraid of it being thin)
-With the addition of the cold water the temperature came down to 24 degrees celcius so I pitched the yeast, snapped the lid back on the fermenter and popped the airlock in.
So now we wait, it's sitting beside my Mr Beer which has had a steady temp of 20-22 degrees the past 3 days so I think we should be good to go to dry hop in about 7-10 days?
Plan is to add equal parts simcoe/amarillo at 30-50g each for the last 3 days before bottling. This is where I hope you good people can advise me, and please if I've missed anything or could have done anything better then let me know so I can adapt my strategy for future batches.
Thanks for reading folks, I'll keep this thread updated.
(By the way I forgot to take an OG reading and went ahead and pitched the yeast and snapped the lid on.. Then was afraid of oxegenating the wort so I didn't take one, is this a problem or can I just make assumptions about fermentation being done based on the FG reading in 7-10 days time?)
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Here's some notes I jotted down during the brewing
-Washed and santised all equipment to be used; includes fermenter, plastic spoon, wooden spoon, tin opener, yeast sachet, airlock, spigot etc.
-Added 3 litres of water to boiling pan, once boiled added the 500g packet of Light malt extract. Then added a teabag of cascade hops to boil for 15mins. Mistake #1: Didn't read the packaging properly and threw right into boil pan instead of boiling in hot water for 10minutes first as advised so there was no smell of hops that I could notice.
-Next I brought off the boil and added the can of Coopers IPA Hopped malt extract, plus 300g of Dextrose as the instructions call for. I was going to go for more dextrose like I've seen craigtube do on youtube, but heard it thins a beer out so vetoed that idea.
-Into the fermenter with the mixture, and I stirred vigorously while adding boiling water to the 20litre mark (I decided to do this 3 litres short since I enjoy stronger beer and am also afraid of it being thin)
-With the addition of the cold water the temperature came down to 24 degrees celcius so I pitched the yeast, snapped the lid back on the fermenter and popped the airlock in.
So now we wait, it's sitting beside my Mr Beer which has had a steady temp of 20-22 degrees the past 3 days so I think we should be good to go to dry hop in about 7-10 days?
Plan is to add equal parts simcoe/amarillo at 30-50g each for the last 3 days before bottling. This is where I hope you good people can advise me, and please if I've missed anything or could have done anything better then let me know so I can adapt my strategy for future batches.
Thanks for reading folks, I'll keep this thread updated.
(By the way I forgot to take an OG reading and went ahead and pitched the yeast and snapped the lid on.. Then was afraid of oxegenating the wort so I didn't take one, is this a problem or can I just make assumptions about fermentation being done based on the FG reading in 7-10 days time?)
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