Another IPA

[TobiasA]

So I got my Coopers DIY kit finally yesterday, and I just put down my second brew in that while I still wait for the first to finish :)

 

Coopers IPA

1kg LDM

500g Dextros

300g BE1

Citra/Cascade/Chinook 15g@20m 30g@10min

 

Filled it up to 21 liters. Not sure whats up with my gravity meters, getting different readings all the time with both of them... Anyway, as far as I can see it started at 1.055'ish, does that sound about right?

 

Will be interesting to see how this turn out :)

 

EDIT: Will dry hop in a few days too, probably same combination

[PaulG24]

Hi Tobias.I use this brew calculator. www.brewcraft.co.za/brewing-calculator.html Using your ingredients, OG should be 1,060. I am however not always sure if one can believe all these brewing calculators. Please lets us know how this turns out.

[TobiasA]

Cool Paul, thanks. I will use that in the future. I used 2 Coopers yeast packets, don't know if that was overkill or not.

 

Anyway, it smells good already, and plan to dry hop tomorrow at day 4, 20g of each I think. Will update with more information as I have it :)

[Hairy]

2 Coopers yeast packets are fine. In fact it would be better than pitching one only.

 

EDIT: Sorry, improper use of the term 'fact'. Should have said 'most likely'.

[TobiasA]

Put some dry hopping pellets in today at day 4. Most of the foam was gone already yesterday but I guess coopers kit yeast and US-05 is a bit different :)

 

The brew has a small hint of banana smell, it's not unpleasant but I wonder if there's something wrong.

 

Anyway I'll keep at it and see what happens :)

[Hairy]

Yeah, the Coopers yeast flocs much quicker than US-05.

 

Re the banana smell, what temp are you fermenting at? Brewing slightly warm can sometimes produce banana esters in certain yeasts. It doesn't sound like anything is wrong though.

[TobiasA]

Yeah, the Coopers yeast flocs much quicker than US-05.

 

Re the banana smell, what temp are you fermenting at? Brewing slightly warm can sometimes produce banana esters in certain yeasts. It doesn't sound like anything is wrong though.

Every time I've checked the temperature has been around 21 degrees in the room. However the first days, the fermentor thermometer showed about 24 degrees, could be that. Or maybe the temperature is a few degrees higher at the days when I'm at work.

 

Anyway, I read a bit about it last night, and some people say that the banana smell/flavor will dissipate if you leave the brew in fermentor a week or so longer to let the yeast clean up more, will try that :)

 

EDIT: Oh and after my 60g dry hop, there's no smell of bananas ;)

[Otto Von Blotto]

Yeast will give off heat as it ferments, so even though the ambient temp is 21, the brew temp would probably be a couple of degrees higher. [cool]

[TobiasA]

So, I dry hopped this with pellets straight in the fv. Will they eventually drop to the bottom? It looks like the layer of hops on top is getting smaller.

[AdamH1525226084]

So' date=' I dry hopped this with pellets straight in the fv. Will they eventually drop to the bottom? It looks like the layer of hops on top is getting smaller. [/quote']

 

some do, some don't I've found. If you cold crash then the likelihood of dropping is higher, but not guaranteed

[PhilboBaggins]

Without CCing I always find bits of hops in my bottles (and in the bottling wand [crying]).

 

One brew I actually racked to secondary and left it for two weeks at ambient temps. Still had floaties.

[Khellendros13]

Without CCing I always find bits of hops in my bottles (and in the bottling wand [crying]).

 

One brew I actually racked to secondary and left it for two weeks at ambient temps. Still had floaties.

 

Naked hops in the boil/dry hopping or using mesh balls/cloth etc?

[PhilboBaggins]

Dry hopped commando style. The ones from the boil get left in the whirlpool.

 

I have tea straining balls and mesh bags, but don't get the same kind of value from the hops IMO.

 

I plan to have a break from dry hopping for a while after a long run of heavily hopped AIPA/APA brews. Never thought I'd see the day, but I think I'm getting sick of US style hops. [alien]

[Scottie]

So' date=' I dry hopped this with pellets straight in the fv. Will they eventually drop to the bottom? It looks like the layer of hops on top is getting smaller. [/quote']

 

some do, some don't I've found. If you cold crash then the likelihood of dropping is higher, but not guaranteed

I've only dry hopped straight to the FV once. Sure they end up settling out especially after a few wacks with the spoon, but I'd say the size of the resultant trub limited my yield because as has been said the last few ended up sucking up some hop matter and blocking the bottler. I wouldn't attempt the same with kegging as a stuck poppet is no fun. Free hops in the boil and I strain them into the FV, still end up with small bits of hop matter though.

[TobiasA]

I will figure out a way to remove what's left on the surface then, when it's time :)

 

I've gotten hold of some 5liter kegs (Huber Party Kegs I think), but I'm unsure how many carbonation drops I'd need in them. I read that they dent easy if you have too much priming sugar in them, so I don't want to overdo it. Can anyone tell me how many drops I should use ? Thanks :)

[PaulG24]

Had the same problem when dry hopping my Unreal Ale. I used some sterilized cheese cloth over the end of my racking tube when racking to my bottling bucket. The result was no more hops in my bottling bucket.

[Hairy]

I will figure out a way to remove what's left on the surface then, when it's time :)

 

I've gotten hold of some 5liter kegs (Huber Party Kegs I think), but I'm unsure how many carbonation drops I'd need in them. I read that they dent easy if you have too much priming sugar in them, so I don't want to overdo it. Can anyone tell me how many drops I should use ? Thanks :)

Probably easier to use dex/sugar at 6g per litre. Up to 8g if you like it quite fizzy.

 

But I prefer 6g/L [cool]

[Hairy]

If you are using carb drops then each drop contains 3g sugar. So that would be two drops per litre.

 

For 5 litres, adding 10 drops will give you a priming rate of 6g per litre.

 

But do you also gas the keg for carbonation? If so I think you have to halve the priming rate.

[TobiasA]

If you are using carb drops then each drop contains 3g sugar. So that would be two drops per litre.

 

For 5 litres, adding 10 drops will give you a priming rate of 6g per litre.

 

But do you also gas the keg for carbonation? If so I think you have to halve the priming rate.

If I understand it correctly, the CO2 pack is just used for getting the beer out of the keg, not for carbonating.

[Hairy]

I think you still reduce the priming.

 

Perhaps MarkF6 or IvonT could advise as they use 5 litre kegs.

[Ivon T]

I'm currently using 4gm/L for my minikegs.....

[TobiasA]

Alright cool, so like 6-7 drops then?

[TobiasA]

Just sampled this and tasted after 13 days. It's down to 1.007, and it tastes good :) Will be interesting to see how it turns out in the end :) Will bottle on Sunday or maybe later next week, will see how SG looks.. Shouldn't go down much more should it?

[TobiasA]

So bottled this yesterday, got it down to 2 5liter kegs and 12 Coopers 740ml PET's I think. I still had 1.007 so it's been sitting at that for atleast 5-6 days.

 

Anyway, there was a lot of floating hop material in the fv, so I had to use all kinds of (sanitized) pots etc to get it out, it was really messy. Think I did good in the end though considering everything.

 

Don't want to have this issue again, so I went to IKEA and bought 6 tea-ball thingys (about 1USD each) for my dryhopping :)

 

[Otto Von Blotto]

You probably didn't really need to worry about getting that hop matter out, but it's done now.

 

I use tea strainer balls similar to that for my dry hopping, they work really well. I get a noticeable aroma and no hop matter in the bottles at all. You just have to make sure you don't put too many hops in each one as they expand when they get wet. If you put too much in the strainers they are too constrained. I normally put 10g in mine, this gives them plenty of room to move around in the strainer without getting squashed. What is the diameter of those strainers you bought?