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Why not save the hops you don't use and use them in another brew? Although vacuum sealing them is the best way, they'll keep fine for several months in a zip lock freezer bag. Just squeeze out as much air as possible after you put the hops in the bag and keep the bag in the freezer. That way your current beer gets the proper amount of hops and you aren't ...
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The boil is important for achieving certain beneficial changes in the chemistry of the wort that include the dropping out of haze creating proteins. So don’t forego the boil, even if it’s only a 6-liter partial boil.
The main issue with boiling a small quantity of wort is that you'll get caramelization a lot sooner than if you were to boil the extract in a ...
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Partial boil refers to when you boil a certain volume of wort smaller than the desired batch size, then top off the fermenter to reach the full volume.
This is often done when you have smaller pot for boil than for fermentation. For instance when I started brewing I would boil about 10 liters then top off to 19.
Partial boils can affect hop utilization (...
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Partial boil is a method of boiling a concentrated version of your wort, then adding this wort and new water to the fermentor to get your desired volume.
For example it's a way to get 5 gallons of beer in a single brew with a 3 gallon pot. So you would boil 2.5 gallons wort with an OG twice what the recipe calls for then mix it with 2.5 gallons of water to ...
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I would recommend NOT boiling the malt extract. There is absolutely no point in doing so. The extract is already sterile and at best only needs pasteurisation which can be done by dissolving the extract in several litres of near boiling water in the fermentation vessel when making up the wort. The flavour comes in the main from the steeped grain and hops and ...
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That seems low, but it's largely dependent on what's in the kit. It is probably an extract kit. If it's not completely extract and includes some specialty grains you may be in trouble. Depending on weight these will require some steeping and require about 1.25 quarts of water per pound of grains, and don't forget to leave room for the grains in the pot as ...
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Unpleasant fresh soil as you describe it can be a sign for ethyl fenchol which is a water contamination issue. I don't think Willamette or any hop for the matter should lead to a result how you describe it but that's hard to say without smelling/tasting.
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Earthy flavours can be caused by mold spores in the area you store your beer. They tend to occur in damp areas where the mold grow within the walls of the area and then passes a chemical through any porous surface into the beer (even some glass)
Next batch you make sanitise the equipment and then sanitise the walls, floors and stands etc where you will be ...
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To fix the low gravity I followed Jeff's suggestion and added dry Dextrose/Malt mix. Here's the details in case someone else wants to try this procedure for the first time.
I did some calculations in BeerSmith and added 1kg of Dextrose/Malt mix into 1.5L of wort from the fermenter + 1.5L of boiled water. Boiled this then cooled to fermenter temp (24C). This ...
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You say your boil was weak, and you didn't stir much. Extracts are hard to dissolve properly. Even vigorous boil without stirring may fail to do it. And 10-20 minutes of vigorous stir before wort boils may be barely enough. And it gets worse the less water you have in boil, so partial boil brews are most exposed to this risk. Sugars are heavier than water, ...
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If you have some dry malt extract (or liquid), you can get the gravity to where you want it now. It's not too late to add the DME, even though it's already in the fermenter.
About 1 pound of DME should get you up to about 1.045, which should give you a roughly 5% abv beer.
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Yes, you do simply put all grain (crushed!) in a bag. That's the point.
However Brewdog's catalog calls for fly sparging, something you simply won't do. With fly sparging, your extraction efficiency can be about 80%. Yesterday I hit 95% (again, against my plan, and I really hate it, but that's just btw). Even 90% should be perfectly doable. Without sparge, ...
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Yes, if you split the wort and hops accurately you'll be so close you'll never notice the difference.
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The mash ratio is not really essential. Your ratio of 5 L to 4 lb grain is pretty typical. Mash at whatever ratio seems right to you, then add extract if necessary, with water to hit your preboil volume, then brew as normal.
BIAB is indeed a great option and is what I do on my stovetop. I can do up to 6 gallons in 4 large pots but typically I only brew ...
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Most of the extract recipes I've brewed have been 'half-boil' recipes where approximately a third of the LME is added to the steeping liquid plus a few (4-5) extra litres of water for the boil. Boil then proceeds according to recipe, but less volume. The rest of the extract is then added when increasing volume and dropping temp ready for pitching.
Overall, ...
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The alpha acids that give the bitterness from hops reach saturation somewhere around 90 IBUs. Since your hops were not exposed to the whole volume of beer (presumably they were filtered out at the of the boil) you aren't getting the full impact from them. It is reasonable to say that the IPA is actually 90 IBUs (saturation is around 90mg/L). Then divide by ...
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