This is a question put out for worries;
I did my first beer a couple of days ago, right now it's in the primary, but I want some of my fears blown away please.
My very first brew was a blueberry/raspberry mead, which I actually didn't handle that good at all. I opened the fermenter and just plunged my gravity measurer into the barrel and read it from there. I cleaned it with regular water before and after... And I let it ferment directly on a heated floor, in a room where there might have been directly exposed to sunlight. The mead is fine now though, but now it's quite
Now, my points of concern:
1. We didn't have ANYTHING to cool down the wort with, so my dad and I covered the cauldrons and sealed them with the lid on, and let it rest the night over. Lids were heat-treated, so they were perfectly clean, but what's the odd of foreign bacteria entering the wort this way?
2. I added some dry hops to the wort before closing the lid on the fermenter, but is cleaning hands/scissors/bag with disinfecting agents, then opening the vacuumsealed bag with the scissors and plunging the measured amount of hops into the wort the proper way of dryhopping, or does it have a chance of infecting?
3. Is using clean, plain socks as hopping bags a hygienic way of adding hops to the wort in the boiling phase? (we had nothing besides socks, and we've just used 2 hrs of hand-pressing the malt-grains for residual sparging sugars.)
I'd very much like to know, since it's my first beer, and want to know if my method was too bohemian.
I did my first beer a couple of days ago, right now it's in the primary, but I want some of my fears blown away please.
My very first brew was a blueberry/raspberry mead, which I actually didn't handle that good at all. I opened the fermenter and just plunged my gravity measurer into the barrel and read it from there. I cleaned it with regular water before and after... And I let it ferment directly on a heated floor, in a room where there might have been directly exposed to sunlight. The mead is fine now though, but now it's quite
Now, my points of concern:
1. We didn't have ANYTHING to cool down the wort with, so my dad and I covered the cauldrons and sealed them with the lid on, and let it rest the night over. Lids were heat-treated, so they were perfectly clean, but what's the odd of foreign bacteria entering the wort this way?
2. I added some dry hops to the wort before closing the lid on the fermenter, but is cleaning hands/scissors/bag with disinfecting agents, then opening the vacuumsealed bag with the scissors and plunging the measured amount of hops into the wort the proper way of dryhopping, or does it have a chance of infecting?
3. Is using clean, plain socks as hopping bags a hygienic way of adding hops to the wort in the boiling phase? (we had nothing besides socks, and we've just used 2 hrs of hand-pressing the malt-grains for residual sparging sugars.)
I'd very much like to know, since it's my first beer, and want to know if my method was too bohemian.
