2nd homebrew, an IPA

[batkins]

I want to brew an IPA for my 2nd homebrew. I found a recipe for Sister Star of the Sun IPA. Being that this is only my 2nd brew, do you think a partial mash is too much to attempt?
Also, if you think I should try it, I was planning of sustituting 3/4 of the grain w/an equal amount of pale malt extract. I have Dave Miller's book, "The Comp. Handbook of Home Brewing", and that is how the partial mash recipes are adjusted there. Here are the ingredients:
13# Hugh Baird English Pale malted barley (sub 9.9# of extract)
1/4# Hugh Baird 135L crystal malt
1/4# Great Western malted wheat
3 oz Chinook hops (60 minutes)
2 oz East Kent Golding hops (15 minutes)
2 oz imported Fuggle hops (while chilling)
1 tsp. Irish Moss (@30 minute mark)
Wyeast 1028 (London Ale), pint starter

Any suggestions? Tips? Warnings?

[paul84043]

Hoo baby, that soulds like a serious beer from the ingerdient list!!

I don't understand the "partial mash" . does it take special equipment to do it?
I have been wanting to do an oatmeal stout, but I have read that simply steeping oatmeal will not render a true oatmeal stout, and that a true recipe will need to be mashed, or partially mashed.

If you understand what it's asking for, I hear that it makes a difference in the beer. Geuss you gotta take the leap sooner or later.

[YamahaXS]

i am confused too. I don't see any DME or Liquid Extract...

Unless you use all grain techniques, I don't think you will get the sugars out the grain that you need.

What is your rationale for not using any extract?

As I understand it, the speciality grains will impart flavor, body, and some limited sugars to your wort. BUT not enough sugar unless you mash.

I am just now learning about all grain techniqus so I am interested in what you are trying to do.

[batkins]

The recipe calls for 13# of pale malted barley, of which I was going to replace 3/4 with a pale malt extract. The other 1/4 I was going to do a small mash. A partial mash = 1/4 mash + 3/4 extract. I wish to use the limited mash for some experience with the process, while using extract to make the process much easier to deal with, the first time.

[YamahaXS]

ahhh i see now. I intrepretted your recipe to say that you were subbing grain for extract.

sounds like a lot of extract... 5 gal batch? that will be a big beer allow lots of time for the fermentation and maturing.


send me some when its ready!

ps make sure you use a yeast tolerant to alcohol.

[batkins]

The recipe only says to ferment for 2 weeks at 65f. Which I would assume is the 1st ferment. How long for the second ? How long to age? Even a guess would help. It shows Wyeast London Ale yeast 1028, how would that hold up?
Here is a link to the recipe:
http://www.realbeer.com/hops/sister.html
Thanks for any help!
Cheers,
Bill

[YamahaXS]

looks good batkins, if Mr. Brockington has had success with it, it should be a good yeast.

However, If you OG is much higher than his, then you MIGHT end up maxing out the yeast's alcohol tolerance. But even if you do, the only thing that will happen is that your beer will be sweeter than it would be otherwise so no big deal.

As posted other places, you just need to watch for your FG to level out before you bottle up.

Cheers!

[Tweek]

Do not fear the partial mash. It is really easy and your beers will be far better. you have the right idea about substituting the base malt for extract.
13# Hugh Baird English Pale malted barley (sub 9.9# of extract)

Specialty malts have very little to no fermentable sugars to contribute to your brew. Their purpose in recipes is for flavor, Color and body/head. The purpose of doing a mash is to convert the enzymes from your grain to sugar. In the case of specialty grains all you need to do is steep them long enough to impart the desired effect, some brewers claim that this can be done in as little as 15 minutes. When I would do extract recipes I used to steep my specialties for more like 45 minutes, which many claim was an unnneccessary amount of time, but hey it made me feel good. :D Then I would have some additional water heated and I would lift the grain bag out and hold it up with one hand, or lay it over my brewing spoon and slowly pour the extra water over the grain bag until I reached my full volume in my brew pot. Seriously, a lot of people will tell you that you need to have your sparge water (water just poured over grain bag)at an exact temp dont worry about this too much, as I said before there is really no fermentable sugar coming out of specialty grains so you dont have to worry about hitting specific temperatures to make the enzymes convert. Many partial mash guys I know dont even sparge there grains or do it with lukewarm tap water. Their beers are great.
If you are going to try to convert a portion of the base malt temperature does matter however.

As far as an oatmeal stout is concerned in order to get the fermentable sugars out of oatmeal it needs to be mashed with pale malt. Oatmeal does not have the proper enzyme by itself. However you can use oatmeal like a specialty grain and steep it. It will impart flavor and help in head retention. This is nto the way your favorite brewery would do it but I assure you it will make a good beer.

One more note about recipe conversion form all grain to extract. There is a thing called brewhouse efficiency. That has to do with how welll the brewer is able to convert its base malts into fermentable sugars. The range for this is all over the map but an average is around 70%. What this means is that if a recipe calls for 13 lbs of pale malt, and the brewer has a 70% effeciency then he will not get the full gravity of the malt potential, instead he will get 70%. Unfortunately noone ever puts there efficiency down when they post recipes so you need to calculate it for your own efficeincy. Ok here is the part that will be important for extract, Extract is 100% efficient (at the point that you are using it). You will get (if I am remembering correctly) 35 gravity units per lb per gallon. So you will need to do the math to make sure that you are not adding too much or too little extract for the target gravity.

If you are interested in formulating your own recipes I highly reccomend the book Designing great beers by ray daniels. It is one of the best books I have read on the subject.

sorry about the length here hope I didnt bore you all to death

Cheers

[paul84043]

Thanks for the great post...I still don't fully understand Mashing, but usually If I keep trying, the light goes on eventually and I wonder why I didn't get it before. I need to actually see, or do something to understand it fully.
I really want to try an oatmeal stout and was kind of bummed when I read that about having to mash the oatmeal, mainly because I don't know how!! Maybe I'll try it with the oatmeal steeped, and another batch at some other point after the light has clicked on, and see the difference...

Batkins,
For your current recipe, I would go by the Specific Gravity readings, I'm sure that your initial fermentation is going to take a while and you definitely want to be comfortable that it's done. I would guess 1 to 2 weeks for the initial and the same amount for the secondary. But then I would expect to wait several months before your beer was even beginning to be "ready". Probably 6 months or so before its "done".

My guess is that even though this is your second home brew batch, you will have several more under your belt before you have tested this baby...