First Self Made Recipe - Advice?

looks pretty good (+1 on the Citra)
i'd suggest bumping up the specialty malts a little bit, maybe adding some honey malt instead of one of the crystals. also, was there a particular reason that all the hops are later additions? i'm assuming you wanted more flavor / aroma than straight bitterness.
i really wish i could see the "show more" tab, that way we can see where it falls within the style. not that i follow those religiously, but i like to know if i'm in the same ballpark as the "official" style.
anyway, congrats on your first recipe created! i'm sure that alone will make it taste great
 
looks good to me too, thought I answered this yesterday but might have forgot to hit submit, jmcnamara you can copy and save to your recipes then edit and see anything if needed, then delete afterwards unless you just want it
 
Ozarks Mountain Brew said:
looks good to me too, thought I answered this yesterday but might have forgot to hit submit, jmcnamara you can copy and save to your recipes then edit and see anything if needed, then delete afterwards unless you just want it
Click to expand...

doh, nice simple solution staring me in the face, thanks yet again for another tip!
 
jmcnamara said:
looks pretty good (+1 on the Citra)
i'd suggest bumping up the specialty malts a little bit, maybe adding some honey malt instead of one of the crystals. also, was there a particular reason that all the hops are later additions? i'm assuming you wanted more flavor / aroma than straight bitterness.
i really wish i could see the "show more" tab, that way we can see where it falls within the style. not that i follow those religiously, but i like to know if i'm in the same ballpark as the "official" style.
anyway, congrats on your first recipe created! i'm sure that alone will make it taste great
Click to expand...

I figured adding the hops later would allow me to use more but not send the IBUs through the roof. I tried doing a 60 minute addition on the Mosaic and Simcoe, but unless I used a minicule amount of hops it shot my IBUs into Imperial IPA range (90+). I thought I'd be losing too much on the aroma/flavor side if I used too little.

Here's a rough copy/paste of the style estimates, going for an APA.

Original Gravity 1.053 range 1.045 - 1.06
Final Gravity 1.011 range 1.01 - 1.015
ABV Standard 5.49% range 4.5 - 6.2%
IBU Tinseth 43.61 range 30 - 45
IBU Rager 34.60 range 30 - 45
SRM Morey 5.88 range 5 - 14

thanks for the feedback guys. Going to brew this weekend.
 
thanks for going to the trouble of posting that. looks like you're solidly in the range for that style
given my current scale, i don't like to go too small on my hops measurements too, for accuracy's sake. plus i have the rest of the bag left that just goes into the freezer, never to be seen again.
good luck this weekend and let us know how it turns out!
 
you will be fine but keep in mind "not your recipe" but that a massive amount of late minute hops can mask bitterness to the point where it doesn't taste good, bitterness plays a direct roll in the overall flavors in a beer, it has to be there and weighted against sugar and any other strong flavors an adjusted accordantly so it can be hard to imagine a 100 ibu beer tasting good but Ive brewed beers that 100 ibu's taste great
 
Ozarks Mountain Brew said:
you will be fine but keep in mind "not your recipe" but that a massive amount of late minute hops can mask bitterness to the point where it doesn't taste good, bitterness plays a direct roll in the overall flavors in a beer, it has to be there and weighted against sugar and any other strong flavors an adjusted accordantly so it can be hard to imagine a 100 ibu beer tasting good but Ive brewed beers that 100 ibu's taste great
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. I'll try as-is first time and adjust hop timings in future batches until I get it right (at least to my palate). I'm only doing a 2 gallon batch to start, until I get the taste nailed down.

Edit: decided to adjust the hop amounts and timings based on your comment. Now have 30 minute bittering hops boil, cut .5oz off each Citra addition and upped the first Citra addition to 10 minutes.
 
jmcnamara said:
How's the beer coming along?
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I got a 2 gallon tester in the fermentor on 9/12. I ended up tweaking the recipe, took out the Mosaic as I couldn't find any in enough time. Added in Cascade instead. Hop profile was pretty good in the post-boil sample I tasted.

http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/r ... e-2-gallon

Got a 1.054 original gravity and 66% brewhouse efficiency using a BIAB method. Got it in a temp-controlled fridge at 68 degrees. The main fermentation phase has died down a bit, going to wait until next week to bottle.

Let you know in a couple weeks how it turned out!
 
Plan on bottling on 9/26/15. Got two seperate hydrometer readings of 1.013 final gravity, fermentation seems to be complete. Sample from fementer didn't seem as hoppy as the post-boil wort, almost a bit Budweisery. :? Hopefully the bottle conditioning and final cooling will make a difference in flavor.
 
did it smell a bit like cooked corn or vegetables? might be DMS, but I thought that was more apt to happen with pislner malt
 
Didn't notice the cooked corn smell. I'll have to give it a sniff before I bottle it tomorrow. Maybe the hop schedule will need to be adjusted, guess I'll find out after bottle conditioning.
 
I cant seem to look at what your hop schedule was, but i dont recall it being too weird or anything.
I tried doing a cream ipa a while back and used up the last bit of a few different types of hops. It turned out really muddy, you could tell the hops were there but couldnt really get any discernible flavor beyond that.
Dont think thats the case here, but it's something to keep in mind
 
jmcnamara said:
I cant seem to look at what your hop schedule was, but i dont recall it being too weird or anything.
I tried doing a cream ipa a while back and used up the last bit of a few different types of hops. It turned out really muddy, you could tell the hops were there but couldnt really get any discernible flavor beyond that.
Dont think thats the case here, but it's something to keep in mind
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Would not squeezing my hop bags make a difference? I was thinking back to my brew day and realized I didn't squeeze out the absorbed wort from my hop bags. This was my hop schedule:

0.2 oz Simcoe 14AA Boil 40 min 25.42 IBU
0.4 oz Citra 13.9AA Boil 10 min 13.95 IBU
0.4 oz Cascade 7AA Boil 5 min 5.24 IBU
0.4 oz Citra 13.9AA Boil 1 min 2.08 IBU

I feel like I used enopugh hops, should have been 46 IBU give or take.

Got it bottled, eleven 16oz bottles, I just did a small batch. Guess I'll know if it's drinkable in a week or so.
 
Opened one up after two weeks in the bottle at 72 degrees. The hop flavor was there but not nearly what I expected.

Also didn't carbonate very much at all, was almost flat. I think I may have left too much headspace in the botttles or had slow yeast. I used one cooper's carb drop per bottle. I'm flipping the bottles to re-suspend the yeast and waiting another week, see if it helps.
 
How were the hops different? Too much bitter, not enough flavor?

Ive only ever used priming sugar, but sometimes the sugar doesn't mix evenly and i get the odd bottle thats under carbed. Maybe you got the bad one? Also just noticed you used 16oz bottles. Id think those would take longer than 12oz bottles to carb

How much headspace did you leave? I use a bottling wand and if i fill the bottle all the way to the top it's at the perfect level once the wand is removed.
 
jmcnamara said:
How were the hops different? Too much bitter, not enough flavor?

Ive only ever used priming sugar, but sometimes the sugar doesn't mix evenly and i get the odd bottle thats under carbed. Maybe you got the bad one? Also just noticed you used 16oz bottles. Id think those would take longer than 12oz bottles to carb

How much headspace did you leave? I use a bottling wand and if i fill the bottle all the way to the top it's at the perfect level once the wand is removed.
Click to expand...

The hop flavor just wasn't coming through. It wasn't noticable unless you were really looking for it. It's drinkable, but just not what I expected.

I left the whole neck of the bottle empty. I was trying compensate for the fact that the coopers drops only prime 12oz a drop per the package. I didn't think about the fact that the CO2 will fill up the headspace leftover in the bottle, possibly not getting into the beer.
 
i think that's the culprit there, the empty necks.
like i said, not familiar with the tablets, but can you use a partial one? like 1.25 to make up the extra 4 oz of liquid?

if not, i'd lean on the side of having less headspace, and only dropping 1 in
 
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