Zombie Dust clone recipe (LME 2016 thread)

Thanks that was a perfect video to explain. I'll do this tomorrow.

I'm guessing do most of you wait until boil is done to start fooling with yeast heating, or try best to juggle back and forth between the 2 processes (boil and rehydrating yeast) so there isn't much time gap between flameout and cooling your boil down? Just wondering.

My first batch I did, I found the biggest mental challenge was the whole transitioning between the boil thru cool down to fermeter to yeast pitch. Actually doing the boil recipe was pretty peaceful and easy.

 

Brew day complete.

~5.5 gallons in the fermentor and got down to 65F before pitching yeast.

Only concerns are as follows. Otherwise I was very pleased with how things went today:
I pitched 1oz hops at 60 min. and forgot to cut it back to .3-.5oz. Hopefully that doesn't up the bitterness level.

I followed the yeast rehydration process, but it sat in the water closer to 1 hr. before I was able to pitch instead of only 30min. Hopefull that extra 1/2 hr. didn't start to starve them.

After adding 25% of the LME at start of boil (to keep it light in color) I noticed with my stove setup it took about 10 min. to get things boiling again. Because of this time delay, I decided to add the remaining 75% of LME at the 25min. marker instead of 10min remaining as recommended because I wanted to be sure it was boiling during hop additions. Not quite boiling again at 15min addition but was fine at the 10min hop addition.

Got it in my basement where its currently 63F air temp. It 's been staying 61-65 down there all the time when I've checked this week. Too cold?

My closet upstairs maintains between 63-70 range. Is a that better place to keep it or let it go in basement for the 72hrs (3 days)?

 

If its only 3 days before I move upstairs, I'm hoping it should be fine. I plan to adjust thermostat warmer which should keep it a min. of 63 down there.

Darn, I just realized in the mayhem of cooling and yeast pitch, I forgot to take the OG before pitching. Oh well....it will end up somewhere from 5.5%-6.2% I'm sure. Hopefull closer to 6%.

 

I started with 5 gallons on the stove of water (then after adding 6 lbs of LME and .5 gallons of steeping malts water it probably was closer to 6 gallons (but some boil off). I left probably bottom 1/2 to 3/4 gallons of hop residue etc. from boil I didn't transfer to fermenter. After transitioning into the bucket fermenter I added some purified bottled water to get volume in fermenter up to 5.5 gallons. Figured when I go to bottle, I'd end up leaving about another 1/4 - 1/2 gallon in the bottom of the fermenter from the trub so I'd end with ~5 gallons of bottled beer give or take. Hopefully I did my math and adjustments properly and didn't make it too thin/watery.

 

Some more questions now that my fermentation is going. I'm almost 48hrs in primary now and its bubbling out of the blow-off tube @ ~1 second now so I guess yeast is working good).

1) Says to dry hop the remaining 3 oz of citra after 7-10 days. Do I need to take hydrometer reading starting on day 6 then keep checking daily for no change, and then its time to dry hop? My first homebrew (saison), it said to go to bottling when there was no further change in gravity reading so IPAs might be a little different? Just wondering.
2) Read to not leave in dry hopping in for more than 10-14 days (vegetable/off flavors develop). What is minimal time to leave in dry hopping (what are nuances in aroma/flavor to expect if doing Dry Hop for less days vs. more days)?
3) About how long should I expect to wait to bottle this brew? Just wondering the approximate fermentation/dry hopping duration.
4) Should I pop 1st bottle to sample after 7 days/1 week of conditioning or is that too soon/too late?

PS: I found out about the 3 hop bags question from earlier. Homebrew store guy said the bags are small and 1 oz hop pellets expand alot and a bag per oz. is recommended so the bags don't expand out too far and ensure all the hops get utlized the best. Only 60 cents a bag so not like he's gaming me to boost profits or anything.

 

Yesterday morning (around 48hr mark), my beer was fermenting at its highest, bubbling in 1 sec. intervals. Later last night (around 55-60 hrs), it quickly dropped down to once every 10 sec. bubbling. I decided to move it upstairs about 18 hours earlier than the 72 recommended because of the dropoff, thinking its too cool in basement. Its now in a room about 3 degrees warmer on average (66-68 avg. temp vs. 63-65 avg. temp readings in basement). Been about 12 hrs. upstairs and its down to 20 sec. bubbling intervals. Should fermentation pick back up or is going to continue to wind down? Seems so early in the game to be falling off fermenting so quickly. Just wondering.

 

Thanks @Mothergoose03 . I'll see if the bubbling stops in another day or 2 and then progress to dry hopping.

Just some ideas tinkering in my head regarding dry hopping.

What would happen differently (or not), if you:

Option 1 put all 3 oz of hops in at same time and leave in for 7-10 days.
Option 2 put in 1oz, then 2-3 days later put in another oz and 2-3 days later put in another oz.

Any benefit to staggering the dry hopping to gain flavor/aroma or that doesn't have any real gain.?

 

Thanks JackH. That was informative. I'll just do all 3oz of dry hops here at the same time as soon as fermentations seems to have halted (using a 6.5 gal flat bottom primary bucket) and let the oils ooze for ~7-10 days then look to bottle when the gravity bottoms out.

Should I do my first gravity check at 6 days after dry hopping then check ever 2 days there after?

 

Thanks. I'm excited to see how this first attempt turns out, and I'm probably going to stick with the pale ale/IPA brewing and tweaking of recipes for a while to come to really get them dialed in and learn all the ins and outs. You guys answering my tons of questions along the way, has been great. I really appreciate it.