My first beer was a premixed Northern Brew Chinook IPA. It is not bad, which means I did OK on the brewing, but not my cup of tea as far as taste goes. I am an IPA guy, and like Racer 5, Blind Pig, and others in that vein. So, my question to those in the know of the ingredients of the NB IPA, what can I do better next time to get it to taste a bit more like the IPA’s I am used to?
Anybody have any recipes that I can glean from? I don’t do the mash thing, just the boil, ferment and keg, so I don’t know much experience and only have the fermentor bucket, secondary bucket (if needed) and the kegerator setup with a 5 gallon torpedo keg. I have seen Morebeer has a Blind Pig clone, which might be my next attempt, but since you guys are the pro’s I am looking for a fairly easy IPA recipe that I can give a try to.
Were you able to control the fermentation temperature or did you just ferment at room temp? The temperature of fermentation is crucial to brewing great beer.
Brewing is a craft and like any craft the more you do it the better you get at it. If you pick up a good homebrewing book, like How To Brew, by John Palmer, you will find lots of information that will vastly improve your beer.
Bigger than temp control though? Proper yeast management and temp control probably made the biggest overall difference for me. Yeast is a lot easier to “handle” now since the liquid yeast has more viable cells and seems to be less than a couple months old when I buy it. Starters are much less of a concern (but still a big concern if there are yeast health concerns such as warm storage or older than 2 or 3 months.) Dry yeast is so good now it all but has made any form of yeast handling nearly an afterthought.
But you still have to manage a good fermentation. Proper fermentation temperatures are usually where new brewers need improvement. It’s summer. Ambient room temp is probably too warm for most room temp fermentation unless you keep your home at at least 65°.
I agree with everything in this post. Temperature control is what really made my beer come out a lot better. I also second getting John Palmers ‘How To Brew’ 4th edition.
If you are using liquid malt extract and specialty grains I would sub in some plain table sugar to help with fermentability (5-10%). I would use dry yeast exclusively. I would try your best to control fermentation temp and use a yeast strain that is forgiving. I know a lot of people don’t love it around here but I would go with US-05
+1 – While I usually do closed transfers (because I can) I still dig out the old siphon from time to time and rack right into a keg (minimizing oxygen as much as possible). There’s no problems. The beer is still great. It probably won’t last as long as closed transfer but the first few weeks it is fine.
Buy a Blind Pig beer kit from MoreBeer, and give it a try. While you’re at it, pick up a book on brewing, How to Brew by Palmer is a good start. Read, brew, repeat.
I’ve brewed that Chinook IPA kit from Northern Brewer. I liked it but it is different. Check out the kits at MoreBeer. Many are named similar to commercial beers so you know what your target is.
Putting the fermenter in a simple swamp cooler in the basement (water in laundry tub, fan and old t-shirt or towel - perhaps an ice bottle, too) would be a good place to start for some simple temperature regulation. This is by no means an absolute necessity, but the quicker you get to temperature control in your fermentation process, the better the results will be. If not available, just try to keep the fermentation as cool as you can under your circumstances.
I would say it’s made a bigger difference than temp control. I just ferment everything at ambient temp now and my beer comes out better than it did when I had a fermentation chamber but was hand bottling beer. Maybe colder ferments and keeping the cold side O2 minimal would be even better, but I’m pretty happy with the results I’m getting now.
Could be simply that chinook hops aren’t your vibe. Chinook does seem an odd choice for a single-hop beer. Those other beers have centennial, cascade, and columbus hops in them. You might try these hops instead of or in addition to chinook. This would get you closer to the hop profile of the beers you mention.
I also highly suggest giving samples of your brews to knowledgable homebrewers (if you know any) and/or commercial brewers, i.e. people with experienced palates. There is no shortage of breweries where you live, and commercial brewers are usually cool with trying homebrewers’ beers and giving feedback.
Palmer’s “How to Brew” is a standard reference that you’ll keep going back to.
However, in my opinion Randy Mosher’s “Tasting Beer” is much better written and actually entertaining. Much lighter on the brewing skills but heavier on understanding how brewing processes create flavors.
Palmer is so knowledgeable about beer that struggles to relate information without it sounding like a DMV manual.
Other than that, keep brewing, take notes on EVERYTHING, and keep changing things until it’s what you want to drink.
Sorry for the delayed response been busy working. I put the fermentor in my unplugged keggerator and kept it in the high 60’s low 70’s if I remember correctly. So, I guess to answer your question, yes, I did have a somewhat controlled temp
Thanks to all who replied. I have found a few kits on the internet for Blind Pig and Racer 5 that I am going to give a try. There is a MoreBeer place about 30 mins from me and the guy there was really helpful setting me up with a keg and the needed lines and connections, so I am going to go there when I am ready for my next batch. So far, it has been pretty cool, and as I get more comfortable, I am going to try adding and subtracting to see what I can come up with. Thanks to all who replied, all info is good info. RR