Another "New to Homebrewing" post

3-4 weeks sound like a long time..not worried about letting the beer sit on the trub for that long??

 

With healthy yeast and controlled temps, in a hombrew setting (without tons of wort/beer compressing the yeast), 3-4 weeks would not concern me.

 

oh..ok

 

Personally, I think it's important to figure out what your limits are as a new homebrewer. Crazy kits and recipes that turn out terrible because it the first time provide an understanding of the level of difficulty in making a good beer. I think only more experienced brewers realize the achiecement in making a stellar low gravity 4-5 ingredient pale ale (for example).

 

I did. Finished my first brew two weeks ago, standard pale ale, and been drinking it the last two weeks. Came out decent, although my fermentation temps were high so there is some slight phenolic quality, but its real slight and the hops manage to cover it enough where the beer is certainly drinkable.

Of course, now that the temps are coming down and I'm less worried about the fermentation getting above 75, I'll be brewing a Rum Barrel Aged Imperial Pumpkin Ale next. Although, since I do want it ready for Halloween, I'll probably have to use a standard American Ale yeast instead of my desired trappist yeast.

 

Did you by any chance use untreated tap water containing chlorine or chloramines? I think that's a more likely cause of (chloro) phenols (by reaction with phenols from the hops) than a byproduct of the yeast/high temps. Most yeast strains (including those commonly used in american pale ales) don't have the gene to express large amounts of phenols.

 

No, I used distilled water and treated it with Irish Moss. Maybe "phenolic" was the wrong term, but in either event there were some slight off flavors that resulted from higher fermentation temp (~80F).

 

The only reason that I recommend brewing a standard style beer for your first batch is that it allows you to determine if you did anything wrong. I'm assuming it would be easier to pick out faults from a beer that you are expecting a certain result, rather then from something you are not sure how it is going to end up. Pretty much every beer I brewed my first year of brewing was standard, which allowed me to learn what I was doing, as well as, learn the procedure, which can easily be over looked while trying to add various crazy ingredients.

 

Im not trying to say that its bad to do fub things. Most important thing for a new brewer is to learn the process. But welcome to the obsession soon you'll be buying chest freezers and barrels. A recomendation for the home grown hops
Use them for aroma only, late addition or dry hopping, since you dont know the alpha acid percentage you cant calculate the ibus foryour beer.