Thursday, February 16, 2012

AG #11 - House IPA I - Brew Day and First Pour

Homebrewing can be a funny hobby, you spend your time trying to be very careful about everything, ingredients, sanitation, process etc and then something like this happens. Here are the two entries in my brew log that cover the brew day and first taste of my House IPA I recipe that I brewed last month:

13/1/2012 - My first ever disaster of a brew day. All was going well until I went to drain the wort from the kettle into the fermenter. Hop filter must have become dislodged and the tap blocked. Next try was with the auto-syphon, however I never realised that the filter was missing and could not figure out why that didn't work (obviously it was also getting blocked by hops, ended up scooping the wort out with a measuring jug. Got only 15 litres into the fermenter, and this was full of hop debris. Would be amazed if this wasn't infected, if it isn't i will be very surprised if it is drinkable. Note to self, make sure hop filter is securely attached to the kettle tap!!!!
Lessons for next brew: 
- When using so many whole leaf hops I should probably use a hop bag
- Check that all connections/taps are connected properly 

16/2/2012 - Have been drinking this beer for about a week at this stage and I have to say it is lovely, I cannot believe that such a nice beer was made on such a disasterous brew day. Nice light amber colour with good head retention. Hops are very to the fore with great melon and sweet fruit aroma, a real thirst quencher and would be a breat beer to make for the summer.

As I said home brewing is a funny hobby. I have always been so particular about how I brew, maybe from now on I shouldn't be.

PS: Go Big Blue.....