[redrocker652002]

My first beer was a premixed Northern Brew Chinook IPA.  It is not bad, which means I did OK on the brewing, but not my cup of tea as far as taste goes.  I am an IPA guy, and like Racer 5, Blind Pig, and others in that vein.  So, my question to those in the know of the ingredients of the NB IPA, what can I do better next time to get it to taste a bit more like the IPA's I am used to? 

Anybody have any recipes that I can glean from?  I don't do the mash thing, just the boil, ferment and keg, so I don't know much experience and only have the fermentor bucket, secondary bucket (if needed) and the kegerator setup with a 5 gallon torpedo keg.  I have seen Morebeer has a Blind Pig clone, which might be my next attempt, but since you guys are the pro's I am looking for a fairly easy IPA recipe that I can give a try to. 

Any info for a newb? 

Thanks all,

Dino

[majorvices]

Were you able to control the fermentation temperature or did you just ferment at room temp? The temperature of fermentation is crucial to brewing great beer.

Brewing is a craft and like any craft the more you do it the better you get at it. If you pick up a good homebrewing book, like How To Brew, by John Palmer, you will find lots of information that will vastly improve your beer.

[BrewBama]

What was it about the beer you would like to improve? 

If it not bitter enough for you maybe you can simply double up on the hops.

If it’s the flavor, you may not appreciate the taste of Chinook hops, the grains used, or the flavors the yeast produced. Sub in/out to experiment.

BTW: blind pig clones are found fairly easily.  If you’re an AHA member they have a recipe. If not, here’s one: https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/345840/tasty-mc-d-blind-pig-clone

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[nateo]

The biggest impact change I've made with my brewing was fermenting in kegs, and doing closed transfers to purged kegs.

[majorvices]

The biggest impact change I've made with my brewing was fermenting in kegs, and doing closed transfers to purged kegs.

Bigger than temp control though? Proper yeast management and temp control probably made the biggest overall difference for me. Yeast is a lot easier to "handle" now since the liquid yeast has more viable cells and seems to be less than a couple months old when I buy it. Starters are much less of a concern (but still a big concern if there are yeast health concerns such as warm storage or older than 2 or 3 months.) Dry yeast is so good now it all but has made any form of yeast handling nearly an afterthought.

But you still have to manage a good fermentation. Proper fermentation temperatures are usually where new brewers need improvement. It's summer. Ambient room temp is probably too warm for most room temp fermentation unless you keep your home at at least 65°.

[Big_Eight]

Were you able to control the fermentation temperature or did you just ferment at room temp? The temperature of fermentation is crucial to brewing great beer.

Brewing is a craft and like any craft the more you do it the better you get at it. If you pick up a good homebrewing book, like How To Brew, by John Palmer, you will find lots of information that will vastly improve your beer.

I agree with everything in this post. Temperature control is what really made my beer come out a lot better. I also second getting John Palmers 'How To Brew' 4th edition.

[denny]

The biggest impact change I've made with my brewing was fermenting in kegs, and doing closed transfers to purged kegs.

This guy just brewed his first beer.  Slow down.

[Iliff Ave]

If you are using liquid malt extract and specialty grains I would sub in some plain table sugar to help with fermentability (5-10%). I would use dry yeast exclusively. I would try your best to control fermentation temp and use a yeast strain that is forgiving. I know a lot of people don't love it around here but I would go with US-05

[majorvices]

The biggest impact change I've made with my brewing was fermenting in kegs, and doing closed transfers to purged kegs.

This guy just brewed his first beer.  Slow down.

+1 -- While I usually do closed transfers (because I can) I still dig out the old siphon from time to time and rack right into a keg (minimizing oxygen as much as possible). There's no problems. The beer is still great. It probably won't last as long as closed transfer but the first few weeks it is fine.

[MNWayne]

Buy a Blind Pig beer kit from MoreBeer, and give it a try.  While you're at it, pick up a book on brewing, How to Brew by Palmer is a good start.  Read, brew, repeat.

[tommymorris]

I’ve brewed that Chinook IPA kit from Northern Brewer. I liked it but it is different. Check out the kits at MoreBeer. Many are named similar to commercial beers so you know what your target is.

https://www.morebeer.com/category/india-pale-ales-ipa.html

PS. MNWayne beat me to it!

[denny]

If you are using liquid malt extract and specialty grains I would sub in some plain table sugar to help with fermentability (5-10%). I would use dry yeast exclusively. I would try your best to control fermentation temp and use a yeast strain that is forgiving. I know a lot of people don't love it around here but I would go with US-05

All good advice

[ynotbrusum]

Putting the fermenter in a simple swamp cooler in the basement (water in laundry tub, fan and old t-shirt or towel - perhaps an ice bottle, too) would be a good place to start for some simple temperature regulation.  This is by no means an absolute necessity, but the quicker you get to temperature control in your fermentation process, the better the results will be.  If not available, just try to keep the fermentation as cool as you can under your circumstances.

[nateo]

The biggest impact change I've made with my brewing was fermenting in kegs, and doing closed transfers to purged kegs.

This guy just brewed his first beer.  Slow down.

He's already kegging the finished beer, the only difference is he'd need another keg for fermenting.

[nateo]

The biggest impact change I've made with my brewing was fermenting in kegs, and doing closed transfers to purged kegs.

Bigger than temp control though? Proper yeast management and temp control probably made the biggest overall difference for me. Yeast is a lot easier to "handle" now since the liquid yeast has more viable cells and seems to be less than a couple months old when I buy it. Starters are much less of a concern (but still a big concern if there are yeast health concerns such as warm storage or older than 2 or 3 months.) Dry yeast is so good now it all but has made any form of yeast handling nearly an afterthought.

But you still have to manage a good fermentation. Proper fermentation temperatures are usually where new brewers need improvement. It's summer. Ambient room temp is probably too warm for most room temp fermentation unless you keep your home at at least 65°.

I would say it's made a bigger difference than temp control. I just ferment everything at ambient temp now and my beer comes out better than it did when I had a fermentation chamber but was hand bottling beer. Maybe colder ferments and keeping the cold side O2 minimal would be even better, but I'm pretty happy with the results I'm getting now.