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GunnerMan · 07-02-2008, 12:40 AM

First homebrew, things seem to be going well. Been in primary 8 days. I think it might be a bland beer as I think I boiled a no boil kit. Instructions said pitch the can of extract in hot/warm water. Anyways I took a sample the otherday, tasted good, smelled good. Only thing tasted funky was it tasted like it had a thousand tiny tiny bubbles in it. I assumed this was gas from the yeast doing its thing. So now im 8 days in and had to transfer my bucket over to a new cooling bucket because the water was destroying my bathtub.

In doing this I did get some suckback from the airlock, I had a lot of suckback at begining of brew but this is 8 days in and the water has been in the lock for 8 days. I hope there was nothing funky in that water considering the whole thing is in my bathroom(coolest place in house).

My main wory is there is a visible air bubble in the spigot, I tried to rock it out to no avail. Should I be worried about oxidation? Can this little bit of air ruin my beer over the course of a few weeks?

Also another question, I want to bottle from the spigot but it seems like it might be to low and I might get some trub in my beer when bottling. Obviously I don't want that, are there any tricks or should I just use a siphon. Im brewing Muntons Irish Stout + 3 Lbs DME, so this beer will be to black to see if there is any trub going through.

solidghost · 07-02-2008, 01:06 AM

If you boil it for maybe 15 minutes or less, I think that the flavours should still be there. Maybe just a little more bitter, that's about it. If you age it (and depending on the yeast), the bitterness should fade.

GunnerMan · 07-02-2008, 01:42 AM

Thanks, yes it was boiled for 15 minutes, untill the hotbreak occured. I thought the extracts already went through a hotbreak but my wort foamed like no tomorrow for 15 mins and then quit.

EvilTOJ · 07-02-2008, 07:49 AM

When you say you see an air bubble in the spigot, are you talking about inside the bucket, or the red part on the outside? If it's inside the bucket I wouldn't worry about it, since it's most likely CO2 anyways. If it's on the outside, well, it's not touching the beer so don't worry about it.

Do you have another bucket you can rack the beer to? It would be best to get it off the trub since you have to mix in the bottling sugar and it will stir up all that crap on the bottom when you do. Siphon (not pour) the beer to another bucket, clean the bucket with spigot out, rack back into bottling bucket, bottle, then wait 3 weeks and enjoy!

GunnerMan · 07-03-2008, 01:13 AM

Hmmm yeah it is in the bucket. I guess I should get another bucket for bottling. I have a brand new white 5 gal bucket here at home I got from work. It's not food grade but do you think it would be safe to use as a temp bucket? I wouldnt think it would since it will only be in the bucket long enough to clean the other one out. Also, wouldnt all of that transfer require a lot of exposure to oxygen? How long does it take for a beer to oxidize?

EvilTOJ · 07-03-2008, 09:04 AM

As long as the bucket didn't contain anything in it that's poisonous or smelly, yea sure it'll be fine to use as a temporary holder for the beer while you wash out the spigot bucket. If the recycle symbol says it's 2 plastic then it's definitely fine. As long as you siphon it and not just pour it into the other bucket you won't get oxidation. Oxidation takes weeks and weeks for it to show up as a flavor.

GunnerMan · 07-03-2008, 11:05 PM

Ok, yes the bucket says "2" and has never been used. Thanks for the info.