Woot! First brew - mountain IPA

[dcm]

It's only been 2 weeks since I bottled it but I had to try just ONE.  I put it in the fridge a few hours ago.

Not bad :-)

I think it needs more time - it wasn't as strong as I was expected for 7.5% abv and I think there is a faint sweetness suggesting some sugar is yet to get converted.  I'm not sure those pine and citrus notes are very strong right now.

BUT...

There is NONE of that curious "homebrew" whiff that has plagued previous efforts at brewing here in sweaty, summer QLD.  You know, that faint off note that suggests that just maybe somebody dropped a dead goldfish into the mix.

It tastes like a nice beer - a really nice beer.

I suspect in a couple of more weeks, it will taste better.

The photo is a little cloudy - it was the 2nd glass (I needed to drink the first one too badly to find a camera) and by then, I tipped in the bottom residue because it was too yummy to waste.

Ruby Porter went EOF today so I mixed in the hops and will bottle this one later in the week.

So far, so good!

 

[Duffman]

Looks excellent - you've sold me on doing this one next

[Shane McDonnell]

I have brewed this one and it has been sitting in secondary for 4 weeks now. I am going to leave it a couple more weeks as I cold crashed it. I am looking forward to trying this one now.

[Pursya]

Cold crashed?

in the immortal words of the redhead......please explain?

and why would that process require additional time?

Thanks in advance.

Edited January 30, 2017 by Craig Brown

[Brad Quinn]

Just kegged my Mountain IPA. You guys have got me excited. I've never let my brew sit for more than 3 weeks but I might let this one go for a bit longer 

[Shane McDonnell]

I found this definition to explain cold crashing.

 

Cold Crashing is the process of rapidly dropping the temperature of your home brewed beer before carbonation. This is done to have yeast, proteins and other solids fall out of suspension resulting in a clearer beer and removing or reducing chill haze.

[Colin Norris]

Just a quick question... my Mountain IPA has gone over the 10 days estimated brew time. Is this normal?

[Deeks]

The Mountain Range IPA looks very nice, I am going to have to get this BrewPrint in my next order and give it a try.

This is meant to be similar to the Sierra Nevada Torpedo which I tried recently which I really enjoyed as well so I am hoping this one is just as good.

[Dean Buchanan]

I'm a couple of days away from tasting my first Mountain Range brew.

 

Colin give it a couple more days. 

[Banjo]

23 hours ago, Colin Norris said:

Just a quick question... my Mountain IPA has gone over the 10 days estimated brew time. Is this normal?

Higher alcohol brews can take longer while the yeast works its way through the sugars.  My Baltic Porter took almost 17 days i think and that's a similar high abv brew.

[dcm]

I should follow up with this and state that an extra couple of weeks in secondary has improved this markedly.

It's got WAY more bite to it now :-)

I fed some to my neighbour on Sunday (we often have a little street drink party on a Sunday) and he could not believe it was a home brew.

"It's an IPA" he said...  "A really nice IPA!"

Two weeks good, four weeks better...

I sneakily tried a ruby porter too yesterday but at 14 days, it's also still too green - a bit weak and slightly sweetish.  I gave the bottles a jiggle in their repose under the house and I'll try another on Friday.

I'm going to have to order some more bits because that IPA is disappearing smartly now.

[Brendan Ashe]

On 1/30/2017 at 9:22 PM, Shane McDonnell said:

I found this definition to explain cold crashing.

 

Cold Crashing is the process of rapidly dropping the temperature of your home brewed beer before carbonation. This is done to have yeast, proteins and other solids fall out of suspension resulting in a clearer beer and removing or reducing chill haze.

Hey guys, brand new to Brewing but have been drinking it for more than half of my life. I think that a Glossary somewhere on here that would help out us Noobs with commonly used terms such as Cold Crashing above, would be really handy. Thoughts?

And I should be ready to keg my first Brew being the American Pale Ale, which I got with the system.

PS. There should be a link to this forum on the Brewart page. Apologies if there already is.

Cheers

Edited March 9, 2017 by Brendan Ashe

[Duffman]

2 hours ago, Brendan Ashe said:

Hey guys, brand new to Brewing but have been drinking it for more than half of my life. I think that a Glossary somewhere on here that would help out us Noobs with commonly used terms such as Cold Crashing above, would be really handy. Thoughts?

And I should be ready to keg my first Brew being the American Pale Ale, which I got with the system.

PS. There should be a link to this forum on the Brewart page. Apologies if there already is.

Cheers

Ask and you shall receive - https://community.brewart.com/topic/85-community-glossary/

[dcm]

So I can tell you that 2 months secondary fermentation seems have been closer to the mark than two weeks.

It is a very nice IPA.  Very light for an IPA, not that strong and not much bouquet to it but still very smooth and very drinkable.

Just don't touch it at 2 weeks...

Having said that, I then moved on to a Pirate Life IPA which was by comparison, a taste explosion.  I'm starting to notice that the Brewprint flavours I have played with are not bold flavours.

[Brad Quinn]

if I could recreate pirate life ipa using brew pints I would die a happy man. My next batch of IPA will be smashed with hops. I'm going to add hops in 3 seperate lots, 50g each time. I used 50g last time (25g galaxy and 25g cascade) and it is a little hoppy but not enough for my liking. Only tried a tester after 3 weeks and is still a little green. Not sure if I'll add any extra x5 or not 

[dcm]

On 24/04/2017 at 7:30 PM, Brad Quinn said:

if I could recreate pirate life ipa using brew pints I would die a happy man. My next batch of IPA will be smashed with hops. I'm going to add hops in 3 seperate lots, 50g each time. I used 50g last time (25g galaxy and 25g cascade) and it is a little hoppy but not enough for my liking. Only tried a tester after 3 weeks and is still a little green. Not sure if I'll add any extra x5 or not 

Interesting...  At what points are you adding your hops?  During fermentation?  I assume this is instead of the brewprint hop additive, not in addition to?  What form are you hops in?  I'd be interested to know how this goes and maybe if it works, try a similar trick.

 

Edited April 30, 2017 by dcm

[Brad Quinn]

I added 2 lots of hops, 25g of cascade and 25g of galaxy around halfway through fermentation (4-5 days in). Results were ok, not totally impressed. My next batch I will be adding a lot more hops, probably close to 150g, 3 different hop varieties.  I think I will make a low temperature hop tea of about 1 litre as I don't want to add any bitterness and add to the 9 litres to start with and then during fermentation I will add 30 to 40g in 3 seperate batches as i don't like leaving the pellets in to long. It is all trial and error but I like a hoppy beer and when you read the weight of hops brewers use, these amounts are quite low. 

[Dustin Frothman]

I put down my first attempt at the Mountain Range IPA yesterday.

The new dry hop recipe has 25g each of Cascade, Centennial and Simcoe which thankfully I already had bulk packs of in the fridge.

For the sake of simplicity I'll probably just go with 35g of each to push it just over 100g without altering the flavour profile too much.

[Robert Pretty]

Dustin you will like this one . I have this at 4 weeks secondary. Brew as per the Brewprint. It's going to need double the time to really bring the hops out.

This might be my favorite so far.

[Dustin Frothman]

This one is fermenting away nicely on Day 5.

Had a large venting event overnight into day 2. Thankfully I had the A4 plastic pocket taped to the side of the Droid in preparation and it worked nicely. 

[Dustin Frothman]

It took me 15 minutes to get the lid off the Droid last night to add the hops. The venting episode had it stuck like superglue. A few choice words were vented too.

[Jack Chirgwin]

1 hour ago, Dustin Frothman said:

It took me 15 minutes to get the lid off the Droid last night to add the hops. The venting episode had it stuck like superglue. A few choice words were vented too.

Had the same issue with this one - literally had to pry the lid off with a butter knife 😱

 

[Captain 3 Droids]

18 minutes ago, Jack Chirgwin said:

Had the same issue with this one - literally had to pry the lid off with a butter knife 😱

 

•  

Tip, I put a round piece of wood (size of a broom handle) diagonally through the handle and gently move the lid holging onto the unit. Works a treat.

[Jack Chirgwin]

4 minutes ago, Captain 3 Droids said:

Tip, I put a round piece of wood (size of a broom handle) diagonally through the handle and gently move the lid holging onto the unit. Works a treat.

Tried the old wooden spoon but felt like the droid lid handle was going to break off. Will try something bigger next time 👍

[Dustin Frothman]

Kegged this one this morning. The dry hop filter worked flawlessly again.
 

The Droid lid was just as difficult to remove the second time. I’m cleaning up and prepping for the next brew this afternoon and I hope there’s not as much of a venting episode this time.