New to brewing, Wheat beer photo journal. Tips welcome!

High fellow brewers

I'm fairly new to brewing my own beer, and this is my first raw ingredient batch I will be doing. I received a Mr. Beer kit as a gift a while back and have been trying a couple batches using hopped malt extract, but really wanted to do the raw ingredients.

I'm working on a limited budget, but have found that beer ingredients and such are much cheaper than i expected. Which rocks. The recipe I am using for this Wheat Beer (Still un-named as of yet) is based off a couple other recipes i found online, and used as a basis to get the right ratios and such. I modified some parts to make this my own recipe and also asked for tips on what to use at the awesome brewing store i found somewhat locally.

This recipe uses 3 types of malt, and 2 kinds of hops. I used White wheat malt, 2 row malt, and a small amount of Munich malt as the majority of the raw ingredients. I also used Some US Magnum hops, along with some centennial hops. The yeast i used is a German Kolsh Ale yeast. I used a nylon bag for holding and steeping the grain in, at about 155 degrees for around 50-55 minutes, then boosted to 165 for the last 10 minutes to mash out and add hops. I am using a 6.5 gallon bucket with spigot and airlock for fermenting, then plan to bottle and carbonate.

Once again, i am very new to brewing, so I would not be surprised if i did something wrong, or could use some tips on my process. Feel free to leave some constructive criticism people! I will try to take pics again throughout the process to document the brewing. So far I have mashed and added yeast and such to get the brew fermenting, which today, it is fermenting quite well

Hope you enjoy these pics of the brewing process thus far.


The brewing corner

All the Malt



Hops and yeast



Malt in the bag

Added first bit of hops



Temp at 152 degrees



Bag goes in

First bit of pellet hops, added at -10 min



Last bit, not quite 20 g, but close enough



Adding cold filtered water to cool and fill to 5.5 gal mark



This morning, fermenting is definitely goin well.

Maybe I can't tell from the picture but do you have some kind of liquid in that airlock?

Snicklefritz said:

Maybe I can't tell from the picture but do you have some kind of liquid in that airlock?

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Yeah, the final pic is of bubbles going through the airlock from fermentation.

The first pics however, the airlock is not filled. those were taken pre-brew.



Here is the final wort after adding water and cooling before adding the yeast, and capping the barrel



Another shot of during steeping of the malt.

Nice pics.
Make sure you stir vigorously after adding the grain to strike water to eliminate any dough balls and you can drain and squeeze the bag to maximize the collected wort.

What is your mash efficiency and your OG reading? Did you hit your targets for the recipe?

Mash hopping is an interesting technique.

I usually put a lid on the pot while steeping grains. Don't do that while boiling wort, but for steeping, I found it helps to keep the temp right.

you did boil right?

jCOSbrew said:

Nice pics.
Make sure you stir vigorously after adding the grain to strike water to eliminate any dough balls and you can drain and squeeze the bag to maximize the collected wort.

What is your mash efficiency and your OG reading? Did you hit your targets for the recipe?

Mash hopping is an interesting technique.

Click to expand...

Honestly, i havent found the gravity with this batch, and im not that worried about it for now being my first batch. Still a lot to learn.

But yes i stirred a lot throughout the entire process, and used the nylon grain sack like a giant tea bag, bobbing it in and out of the water and swirling it around. I also, using the remaining 1 1/2 gallons or so of water i added, rinsed the mash into the bucket to get as much ass possible, and then squeeze strained it.

Yes i did boil initially, and then dropped water down to temp. took forever.

And yeah, i had wondered about putting a lid on and was tempted to, but decided not to try it because i was unsure. burner was off almost the entire time for steeping.

I also started with, and used throughout, cold, filtered, reverse osmosis water.

Ok, so as of last night, the airlock was sending through bubbles about once every second or so, now this morning, it has slowed to about once every 6-8 seconds. Seems like the fermenting is going well. Can't wait to try a sample of this!

I'm confused. This reads like you boiled the water, let it drop to mash temp and then mashed for an hour adding hops throughout.

If that's the case, it's kind of... backwards.

I guess you'd end up with beer, but not sure it's going to be what you're looking for. It would certainly raise a few issues, mainly AA isomerization. I may just be reading it wrong though.

Jfcrls said:

I'm confused. This reads like you boiled the water, let it drop to mash temp and then mashed for an hour adding hops throughout.

If that's the case, it's kind of... backwards.

I guess you'd end up with beer, but not sure it's going to be what you're looking for. It would certainly rais a few issues, mainly AA isomerization. I may just be reading it wrong though.

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I am reading it the same way. Did you boil at all after removing the grains?

Jfcrls said:

I'm confused. This reads like you boiled the water, let it drop to mash temp and then mashed for an hour adding hops throughout.

If that's the case, it's kind of... backwards.

I guess you'd end up with beer, but not sure it's going to be what you're looking for. It would certainly raise a few issues, mainly AA isomerization. I may just be reading it wrong though.

Click to expand...

Ok so I've found my first mistake! :cross: haha You would be correct in the way you are reading it. I boiled to sterilize, dropped to temp, and then steeped. I guess i just originally assumed that 'boil' was referring to the steeping process, not actually boiling. However, i didn't read up as deeply as i should have because after some short additional research i realized that yes, you boil the collected wort for 60-90 minutes to boil off additional DMS! Oh well, hopefully it doesnt affect this batch too adversely.

I've read that high concentrations of DMS can often smell like corn however, and i have no smell of corn coming from the batch yet. So here is hoping. Ya learn something new every day right?!

The airlock is sending bubbles through much slower now, at roughly once every 10-15 seconds. Here's hoping the batch still comes out well enough. For it being my first all grain raw ingredient batch, i'm going to be happy if it just tastes like beer.

I am extremely curious to see how this turns out.
Live and learn

Yup, something i will definitely be learning from for next batch.

The brew still smells very good though, and is slowly tapering off fermenting.

I will post new pics as soon as it is close enough to take a first sample! Here's hoping.

You're probably not going to get much bitterness out of the hops without a boil, so don't be surprised if it comes out a bit sweet. Once you start boiling, you're going to want to figure out a way to cool things down to pitching temp. Cooling with filtered water should be okay, but it's not ideal since it's not necessarily free of bacteria. I'd also be wary of pouring hot wort into a plastic bucket.

Keep us posted. I'm curious to see if any bugs on the grain can survive the mash temp.

tagz said:

You're probably not going to get much bitterness out of the hops without a boil, so don't be surprised if it comes out a bit sweet. Once you start boiling, you're going to want to figure out a way to cool things down to pitching temp. Cooling with filtered water should be okay, but it's not ideal since it's not necessarily free of bacteria. I'd also be wary of pouring hot wort into a plastic bucket.

Keep us posted. I'm curious to see if any bugs on the grain can survive the mash temp.

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Yeah next batch i do I will probably be doing it at the church i volunteer for, so i can use their Nice big stove burners and walk in cooler and freezer. Should make boiling, and getting to cool a lot easier and quicker.