First Weekly Beer Review (Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA)

DOGFISH HEAD 90 MINUTE IPA 

Price: roughly $10 for a 4 pack


Appearance
The color is classic of an IPA, dark amber color.  Good carbonation, no evidence of cloudiness.

Aroma
The aroma is very malty with hints of grain.
The bouquet is a strong, herbal hop scent.

Taste

1. Full body 
2. Full flavor, hits your whole palette
3. Strong, hoppy finish

Final Thoughts:

I think this is a very good, smooth IPA; it's strong with an excellent finish.  It has many of the properties that are characteristic of an IPA with a few added bonuses such as the high alcohol content (9%) and the large amount of hops added to it.  I recommend this beer to anyone who enjoys an IPA with a little kick to it!  

The Process (Brewing Your Own Beer)

This is the third time that I have brewed on my own, and I chose to do a Porter from a kit that I bought at Strange Brew.

To start, clean and sanitize all of your equipment.  Each pre-packaged recipe kit yields 5 gallons.  Once I have sanitized everything, I put 5 gallons of water in the stockpot and bring it out to the propane burner.

For most recipes, you start off putting all your crushed grain in a muslin bag (comes with kit), you heat the water to 160 degrees, and then steep the bag into the hot water.  Meanwhile, try to hold the temperature to 160 degrees for at least 10 minutes.

 Afterwards, throw the grains out and then add the malt.

 Once it dissolves, bring everything to a boil and add your hops.  In this recipe I chose the bittering hops boil for 30 minutes, the flavor hops boil for 20 minutes, and the aroma hops boil for almost 10 minutes (refer to times in recipe you have purchased).

Once all the boiling is done, shut the burner off, and prepare to cool down the beer (called the wort at this point in time).  For the cooling process I use two buckets, the auto-siphon, the plastic tubing, and the copper tubing.  Place one bucket of cool water at the highest level (such as on a table) with the auto-siphon, leave the stockpot on the burner with the beer and place the coiled copper tubing inside (to be at the middle level), and leave the empty bucket on the ground at the lowest level.  The auto-siphon should be connected to the copper tubing with a 5 foot piece of plastic tubing, then another 5 foot piece of plastic tubing is connected to the outlet side of the copper tubing, and drains into the empty bucket.  So by siphoning this cool water from the bucket on the table, through the copper tubing, you will in turn lower the temperature of the beer.  As water goes through the siphon and gets warmer, replace it with cooler water until you get the desired temperature of approximately 70-75 degrees Fahrenheit. *

Now you can drain the wort into the fermenter bucket, and then you add the yeast.

Usually you let it set for about 10 minutes and then you can put the lid on with the airlock and store it at room temperature.

After a few days, you'll see less activity (bubbling) in the airlock, and this is when you can siphon the beer from the first stage to the second stage of fermentation.  Depending on the recipe you chose, the fermenting stages could take longer (refer to recipe).  Ideally it will take about two weeks just to ferment.

Once fully fermented, siphon the beer from the fermenter to the bottling bucket where you will add carbonation.  All of the recipes I have done so far I have used priming sugar for this process (refer to recipe for mixing instructions).  Then you are ready to bottle!

*I have to thank my brother-in-law for showing me this cooling process and helping me get started on my way to home brewing.

Getting Started (Equipment and Supplies needed)

You can buy basic starter kits from either online or a local home brew supplier.  If you're just starting, you may not know how to put a recipe together.  You can also buy pre-measured and packed recipe kits from online sources or local home brew suppliers.  Once you are ready to start making your own recipes, these places can also sell you the ingredients you need.
The equipment kit I bought came from Strange Brew in Marlborough, MA.
You can also buy kits off of Amazon, and another online favorite of mine is High Gravity.

The equipment kit I bought is called the True Brew Home Brewing kit.  It comes with the following materials:

• Handbook
• Glass Carboy & Stopper (some kits are sold with a plastic fermenting bucket with lid instead.  The one that comes with a glass carboy is a little more expensive.  It depends more on your personal preference.  Some people like to use all glass, and some people use all plastic buckets.)
• Bottling bucket with hole for spigot
• Spigot for bottom of bottling bucket
• Brush for cleaning inside of bottles
• Adhesive thermometer for outside of fermenter
• Glass hydrometer
• 3-piece airlock for top of fermenter
• Bottle capper tool
• Siphon equipment and hose
• 8 packets of C-brite sanitizing cleanser

Other materials that will make it easier:

• Copper tubing (found at Home Depot)- coil it up, and you will use to cool the beer before you put it into the fermentation bucket and add the yeast.  Without it, you will have to sit around and wait for the beer to cool before moving onto the next stage.
• Plastic Tubing (found at Home Depot)- This is hooked to either end of the copper tubing and the siphon to run the water through the beer.  10 ft should be more than enough.
• Auto-siphon (bought at Strange Brew)- This is an upgrade from the one that comes with the kit.  This is an alternative to you having to use your mouth to start the siphon.
• 15 gallon Stainless Steel Stockpot (bought at High Gravity)- For most kits you can make it in 1-2 gallons on your stove in a smaller stockpot, but this reduces the likelihood of boiling over.  You can also brew a bigger batch in a bigger pot if you ever want to expand.

• Burner (bought at High Gravity)- Use with a small propane tank and it will enable you to make the beer outside of the kitchen (your wife will thank you).
• Stirring Paddle (bought at Strange Brew)- A long handled paddle to help you stir in the 15 gallon stockpot.
• Thermometer (bought mine at Wal-Mart)- You'll need this while cooking.  For most recipes, the first steps require a close monitoring of the temperature.
• Timer- Certain parts of recipes need to be timed.
• Additional Fermenter Bucket (bought at Strange Brew)- I bought this to change my process from a one stage to a two stage fermentation process.  Using the bucket first is the first stage, and transferring to the glass carboy is the second stage.  This refines your brew one more time to remove more dead yeast and other particles that you don't want in your final product.
• Glass Bottles (I saved and cleaned out bottles from beer I bought at the store)- These should preferably be brown to let less light in that can damage the beer.  The glass bottles should also be pop off since during the carbonation process, carbonation can leak out of twist off bottles when reused.
• 5 Star, Star San Sanitizer (bought at Strange Brew)- Some sanitizers are bleach based, so I bought a less harsh cleaner.