Getting back to basics

7 lbs will get you a 6%er. That amount of hops is fine but use most of them for dryhops. Any idea what hops you're using, or specialty malts?

 

Can't go wrong with this...

http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...ct-american-ipa-pellet-hop-version-ag.241975/

 

I could be wrong on this but it sounds like you and your friends are shooting in the dark a little bit. If you haven't used a proper recipe calculator tool, you should check out Brewer's Friend Beer Recipe Calculator (Google it). This will help you calculate ABV, IBU, color, etc. The higher than expected ABV suggests that you were mashing too low and had too many fermentable sugars, or just plain put too much grain in there. To get rolling with all grain you need to calculate your efficiency across a few batches and use that % when formulating recipes. It defaults to 75% but most new all grain homebrewers will only hit 60-65% - takes some experience with water profiles, good equipment, etc to really break that 70% mark.

It's always easiest to start with someone else's recipe that has high praise and modify slightly based on personal taste or homebrew shop availability. Building your own recipes is fun but you're always going to have a lower chance of success on batch 1 - will usually need a round or two of tweaking.

 

Stop guessing and use a calculator, there are a ton of them out there.

I would suggest aiming for a 5-6% beer because it is cheaper, make a solid APA and an IPA is easy, besides you can drink more APAs without falling down

 

The sugars in grapefruit are fermentable (at least some of them are). But, 1.5 grapefruits should not move the needle very much.

You should be able to vary the amounts of ingredients and see how that changes the OG, most calculators are just guessing at the FG. Most homebrewers focus on the OG vs ABV when building a beer. So enter 6# DME and see what OG you get for a 5 gallon batch. If you want a baseline ABV, choose a common yeast like US-05 or 1056 and your calculator should give you a FG and ABV.

If I remember correctly, your brewing process was less than ideal. Your best bet to make this next batch a good one is to give us your recipe AND process BEFORE you brew and we can fix any potential problems before they occur.

 

You can set it to like 20%. I'd say that is normal for a steep. If doesn't seem to pertain so 0% would also do.

PS - Back to the basics is more likely a 4.5% Pale Ale w/ a few ounces of late hops vs 7% IPA w "grapefruit guts added in primary" .

 

I would abandon the grapefruit. KISS is the right approach when you're getting down the fundamentals.

What water do you use and how is it treated? Planning any water additions? With my water I have to add gypsum to hoppy beers.

 

You still might want to consider adding some gypsum.

 

I said this in one of your posts about brewing a beer that tasted like hop water, and I'll say it again read "how to brew". Getting back to basics should be reading the basics. I went from extract to all grain and my beers got better not worse but that was because I read and understood the basics. Basics should start with knowledge and not brewing. Once you understand the basics of brewing all grain you can brew a basic beer and build from there.

I am with @jlordi12 a grapefruit IPA isn't back to basics. Brew a solid pale ale and if that turns out well build on that.

 

It's so hard to resist feeding trolls.

 

Agree with these guys. If you really want "grapefruity" flavor in the beer, just pick some hops that are known to be strong in the citrus bittnerness/aroma/flavor profile for your back-to-basics batches. Some examples to consider:

-Cascade (bonus=pretty inexpensive hop)
-Citra (a bit on the pricey side though)
-Equinox
-Experimental Grapefruit (@psnydez86 ) just posted pics of one he did recently with this hop...maybe he could comment about how much grapefruit taste/aroma it gives?

 

I'd challenge yourselves by going directly FORWARD to the 'most basic form of brewing' - which is the art/science of brew[ing] something that is BETTER than just 'drinkable'.

Please, if you take nothing else away from this thread? Don't ever 'boil the grain' again, unless you're talking about decoction mashes (and that's not exactly 'basic'). Because this?

"Our educated guess is we used way too much grain. It makes sense, we had to limit the amount of gallons of water we used to boil because we had so much grain that we'd be afraid the water would spill over the 6.5gal pot we had, so many times we had to add .5gal or 1 gal of water after we boiled the grain."

and:

"We want a strong hop taste, so we'd like to add 6-9oz of hops, will this be a problem?"

Both strongly suggest you probably never had a good grasp of 'the most basic form of brewing'. You don't go in to recipe planning with a preconceived notion of some arbitrary 'mass' of hops you want to use with no idea about the TYPE of hop - because 9 oz of cascade at flameout will give you 'something drinkable (and aromatic)'. Boil 9 oz of apollo in 5 gal for 60 minutes? 'Drinkable' is debatable. But they will yield utterly different results.

You can have a strong hop taste with less, you can have 'drinkable' beer using 3x as much (but you'll have less of it, it'll cost more, and it might suck if you don't know what you're doing).

There's some (*SOME*) fun to be had with trial and error. But it can also be costly and frustrating. And it's preventable. Pick up a book. Read. Repeat. Pay attention. Don't write them off as unnecessary.

here's that link again. http://www.howtobrew.com

Here's another: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0937381500...hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_vis04tfe6_b

 

What is preventing you from using a tried and true recipe? Why not brew an extract kit beer? You can toss a grapefruit in it.