Guvna's Brew No. 3 IPA

[Otto Von Blotto]

Possibly, I have only used Nottingham once and can't remember how it behaved. That was in a brown ale though.

[Guvna]

Brew seems to still going hard but holding now airlock fluid atm.  (yay).  no doubt some newbie panic occuring but learning as i go.  .

I started my own excel sheet to record brew details, dates, OG, FG, cost, and notes etc  as its getting hard to remeber what happened and when.

so far somewhat happy to fail , glad i'm having a crack, but so far so good. Really hope this IPA comes up trumps as it was a bit costly, but still less than buying from pubs!. shall wait and see.

Guvna

[Otto Von Blotto]

I got rid of my airlock, more trouble than its worth. Gaffer tape and loosening the lid slightly works just as well. I'm sure the brew will turn out fine though, you're doing it all properly by the sound of it so no reason why it should be bad.

[Guvna]

Howdy to all the forum brewers and more questions. So, does a higher gravity brew take longer to ferment out? Reason i'm asking is that the current  brew (as above) = OG started at 1.068 and after 4 days is 1.020.. hoping to hear this sounds about right and should I expect a further drop?  early days i know, just wondering? (understand a 2nd gravity reading is required)

this time I've taken an early gravity reading, wheras previously I've waited longer to  (12' ish days) .

I'm looking to follow the advice so far that suggests once its finished no need to leave it longer than needed. (pretty sure ive done that with last 2 brews, aka 3 weeks on FV)

So , am i on track? ,  should i ramp up temp 2-3c ? rattle Fv? or just leave it be and relax?  i'm only 3 brews in  and have no experiance to draw upon.  hence my nervous/newbie questions to date.

thanks and regards for any/all advice. 

Guvna

[Otto Von Blotto]

I'd raise the temp a bit but I wouldn't worry about shaking it up or anything. A 48 point drop in 4 days is great, you're probably only looking at another day or two, maybe three until it reaches FG. Then simply wait a few more days and bottle. No need to be leaving it in there for three weeks if it ferments out in one. 

[Guvna]

The attempted IPA went into keg sunday night finishing at 1.018, bit dissapointed not lower? but oh well.  Got 6 x 750ml bottles too. at 6.56%abv should keep me grinning for a while when ready.

This brew was refined down to 15 days including 4 days cc.  Ended up dry hopping with 61 gm Mosaic and 19 Galaxy (all i had left). After dry hopping I thought the smell from fermenter was a wiffy/off, but was gone after a day? unusual? . Anyway tasted and smelt good when bottling.

time will tell

Cheers all,

Guvna

[Otto Von Blotto]

I would have thought it would get lower too but you do have 200g maltodextrin in there as well as 200g crystal malt. That's 10% of the fermentables that are unfermentables. These will push the FG up although 1.018 is a bit high even for those additions. IPAs are supposed to be drier than that, I'd ditch the maltodextrin if you brew it again and maybe the crystal malt too.

[Guvna]

My IPA attempt was ok  but will need improvemnet if I'm to brew it again.  It was not bitter enough and I found the high alcohol too much. Put me to sleep early a few times.

It was a good lesson all the same and spare a couple of longnecks, its now all gone