FAIL!!

Well, I have officially had my first failure batch.  Last week it came time to bottle the IPA that was my first try at all-grain brewing.  I thought everything was going well… not so much.  Brew day went smoothly with no problems.  I mashed in my kettle and was able to keep the temperature around 150° pretty easily, not dropping too much in an hour.  I took the starting gravity, and it came in right on the mark at 1.050, right where I needed it to be to give me about 6% ABV.  Perfect start.

Then it happened.  I cooled the wort and put it in the carboy, then topped it off to five gallons, adding maybe a gallon of tap water.  That was the problem.  Where with other brews (extract brewing), this was a normal step in the process, I should have just left it alone and not added any more water to this all-grain batch.  Unfortunately, I didn’t think anything of it at the time.  The beer sat through primary fermentation with no noticeable issues.

 Then came time to add the dry hops.  So I decided to taste it just to see how things were going.  The smell was awesome - full of hops and a perfectly citrus nose.  The color was way too light though, and I should have known something was wrong right there.  Then I tasted it, and knew something was wrong.  It was far too weak to be anything close to beer.  Being hopeful, I decided to continue with dry hopping it and letting it condition for another 10 days or so. 

Then it was time for bottling.  I tasted it again, and Meg tasted it, and my cousins tasted it, and we all agreed that it was just too weak (euphemism for terrible) to bottle.  Bottling can be quite a hassle all on its own, so I was not about to spend more time on this watery beer.  So…. down the drain it went (video to come soon, once I figure out how to post a video). 

Anyways, this fail was just a minor setback and is clearly not going to keep me from making more beer.  I promptly went out and got the proper hardware to build myself a real mash tun, or at least real enough for me.  I made it out of a 10 gallon Igloo water cooler, and it rocks.  Ever wonder what that is or how to make one?  I learned here: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Converting_a_cooler_to_a_mash_tun

 More all-grain brewing to come!  Next up is an Irish lager just in time for St. Patty’s. 


OK so I figured out how to post a video, neat!