RICLARK

Recipes 

A chiller is a lot more efficient with a pre chiller, which you might need in florida.

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bobbrewster

Recipes 

You guys are awesome. Yes this is my first batch. I was just following the instructions "boil 45 min, remove from heat and add yeast at 80 F." Didn't say anything about ice or cooling down by any means other than room temp. I'm sure I should have researched more before I did this but what the heck. Sure is fun. Thanks again for all the quick responses. Oh yeah, when can I "taste" the wort/beer to see if it fermented ok? I just don't want to wait 3-5 weeks to know if I should start over. Want to get my first GOOD batch ready asap. Thanks, Robert

bobbrewster

Recipes 

When you guys talk about aeration are you talking about exposing to the atmosphere (i.e. leave lid off wort) or charging with carbon dioxide (i.e. leaving lid on wort)?? And at what point does this aeration take place? Thanks, Robert

kingjam

Recipes 

The yeast need oxygen to work. You put the wort in to your primary...and shake. if you did a 2.5 gal. boil your top off water should have enough air. You want to have that sucker seald up as quick as you can. after fermenting you never want to introduce air (no splashing)

Hoosierbrewer

Recipes 

If you use a wort chiller in FL, I would run the tubing leading to the wortchiller in an ice bath. It may help cool it some.

That being said, my bro brews in CLermont and uses an ice bath.

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Primary: IPA
Secondary: empty
Keg 1: American Wheat
Keg2: German Ale
Next up: Christmas Old Ale, American Wheat AG, need suggestions

TheFlatline

Recipes 

When did you pitch your yeast?

Give it a week. If your airlock is still bubbling, give it a while longer. You can't tell via taste if your fermentation is done.

Here's what you need to do.

1. Go to the store and buy a 12 pack of beer. Not Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, because you don't want an A/B comparison. Judge your beer on it's own merits when you're done.

2. Relax, drink your beer, and just make sure you keep the fermentation bucket around 60-70 degrees as much as you can.

3. Check your beer for a few minutes once a day to track what's happening. Continue drinking your beer that you bought.

4. Give it a few days after bubbling stopped. If the foam on the beer has fallen, wait another day or two and get your SANITIZED beer thief or turkey baster, and take a hydrometer reading. If it's not in your predicted FG range, give it another few days. If it is, wait until tomorrow, take another reading. If it's dropping still, wait a few more days. If it isn't, wait one more day, take a reading, and if it's still the same, rack to either secondary or bottling bucket. You can taste the sampling if you want to see how things are going.

5. I know you're impatient, but really, your beer needs to sit 2-3 weeks in the bottle to carbonate. I know you *really* don't want to wait, so if you have to cheat, crack one open over the sink after a week or so just to satisfy your curiosity.

I know how you feel. I was impatient too with my first batch. The only other thing I can suggest is to start reading up on your new hobby. The Complete Joy of Homebrewing is considered a staple, and I also am working through the Homebrewer's Companion, and I have How To Brew on my reading list as well. Understanding what's going on, both on a microscopic level and a macro level really helps me appreciate what it is I'm doing, and all this reading is eating up weeks of time!

Once your beer is bottle conditioned, you can start drinking it, and you have something to tide you over while you brew your next batch. Keep a notebook (or a notepad on your computer or whatever), note what you did wrong, what you did right, things you liked and didn't like about your beer, temperatures, boil times, etc etc. Your beer journal will help you learn what you're doing right and wrong, and will help you see where you need to work on your technique.

Cheers from another novice!

Blender

Recipes 

So, I'm curious as to what temperature it is fermenting at. You want to get it down to 65-70 degrees for a better beer.

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Gary

TheFlatline

Recipes 

During the first phase of fermentation, the yeast needs oxygen to reproduce. Aeration accomplishes this. When you boil the hell out of your water, you are naturally driving off a good portion of the oxygen that was in it. Distilled water from the store has, by definition, almost no oxygen in it, and must be aerated.

Most people slosh around the wort in the carboy or bucket for a few minutes, or pour it back and forth, or if you're like me and you're filtering and adding water, letting all the wort filter through a mesh and cheesecloth, then splash from a decent distance into the brew bucket does a passable job. The best ways if you get seriously into this is to either invest in an aquarium stone and pump air through it, or pump pure O2 through it (a cheap limited source of O2 is at the Home Depot style stores for welding gas). Look up other threads on here about aeration to know how long you should aerate for proper oxygen.

Note however, that once the wort is properly oxygenated, air and oxygen become your enemy after fermentation. Try to keep from agitating your beer once you've put the fermentation lock in place.