Brewing again

Made my first IPA last weekend. Tried some new stuff out and learned a few things.


I decided it was time to brew again. I wanted to try out brewing a modified Everyday IPA from Brooklyn Brew Shop.
The mash in and out went well but I changed a few things out when it came to sparging. I used a new, shallower top strainer lined with cheese cloth. This seemed to prevent the overflow problem I was having with my strainer. I still would like to build a new mash/sparge setup but I haven’t had the time lately.

During the boil I added my pelleted hops as directed by the recipe in 15 minute increments. The one change-up I made was I added honey at the start of the boil on a whim. I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen with that.

I still need to make a chiller too; for the time being I still use an ice bath to cool my hot wort.

I found my funnel and screen became clogged with hops when I poured the wort into the carboy. I had to stop and clear it twice to get the wort flowing again.

The other thing I noticed is that when I changed out my initial blow-off tube I had a hard crust of hops in the tube and around the neck of the carboy. The crust was blocking everything up. Usually I would leave it alone until I went to bottle but in this case it was so bad, about the thickness of a fist, that I had to clear it.

It’s a very cloudy, thick looking monstrosity at this point.

I’ll be bottling this Sunday…here’s hoping it turns out.