My first Brew....any advice?

Ok, theses are the directions that came with my kit....

This is for "Belgian Harvest Ale" by Williams Brewing Co.

1. The first step in brewing is to open your William’s Brewing Kit and remove the liquid yeast pack. Set the pack on a hard surface and break its inner nutrient pouch, by hitting the pouch squarely with the palm of your hand. Although more costly than dry yeast, 175 ml of liquid yeast is used in most William’s Kits (all except the American Ale and Northwest Red Kits) to produce a cleaner flavor.

2. When the liquid yeast pack is swollen (usually in 1 to 3 days after breaking the inner seal), boil the malt and fresh hops with at least 3 gallons of water for 1 hour to blend and flavor the beer. Unlike some hop extract-flavored canned kits, boiling is necessary to completely sanitize the wort (reducing the chance of spoiled beer) and blend the flavors of the included hops and malt.

3. After boiling, the finished wort (brewers term for unfermented beer) is cooled and poured off its sediment into the Siphonless Fermenter, where the liquid yeast is mixed in and bubbling fermentation begins in 1 to 3 days. Fermentation usually lasts 12 to 14 days before the beer is ready to bottle.

4. After fermentation has ended in about 12 days, the raw beer is transferred into the Priming Tank, where the corn sugar is stirred in to provide food for the yeast to produce carbonation. This is done in the Priming Tank rather than in the Siphonless Fermenter, to avoid stirring up the silty yeast sediment. With a William’s Home Brewery, there is never a need to siphon beer (siphoning can be an unsanitary mess), as the unique Siphonless Fermenter with its invert tube valve keeps the valve body dry during fermentation, which prevents silt-like yeast sediment from forming inside the valve. Then, when the valve is opened, the invert tube valve acts like a siphon hose ideally placed just above the yeast sediment on the fermenter floor when the beer is being transferred.

5. After mixing in the carbonating sugar in the Priming Tank, the beer is bottled or kegged. Five gallons of beer (as produced by all William’s Kits) requires about 48 twelve ounce bottles or 4 Mini Kegs. After bottling, beer is aged two weeks or longer before drinking. Ale-style beers (which include Porter, Stout, and Wheat beer styles) require less aging than lagers, and are highly recommended for the first time brewer.


Any reccomended changes to the procedure listed with the kit? Should I make a starter for this first batch, or keep it as simplified as possible and just pitch the yeast smack pack to the wort directly? I think I may brew this on Sunday and then celebrate by watching the Superbowl with a local brew...

Thanks for the advice! I am a newer member here and have been learning a lot by reading on here!

Kevin

Should you make a starter? Yes. The Smack-Pack may not have enough viable yeast to have a quick start to the fermentation. However, since this is your first brew, you could keep it simple and not make a starter. The beer should turn out fine; it just might take 2 or 3 days to show signs of fermentation. If your sanitation and temperatures are fine, this shouldn’t be a problem. I'm in favor of starting simple rather than trying to do too much at once. By starting simple, you can make sure you have the "how to" down and keep things from overwhelming you. Once you get a "how to" that works for you, start growing your knowledge and adding steps to improve your beer.

If you have a hydrometer - check the gravity of the wort before pitching the yeast, then check it again after it has fermented - 12 days seems long enough, but the only way to know for sure it to check the gravity. Check it after a week, then check it again 2 or 3 days later - if the gravity is the same, the beer it done - if not, keep checking every 2 or 3 days until the numbers match.

Otherwise, the procedure seems fine. Make sure that your sanitation is good, and you'll have some good beer. Do some looking around on this forum too - there is a lot of good information. As they say, you never know what you don't know.

Good luck.

I'm not sure what they mean by "mixing" in the carbonating sugar come bottling, but you don't want to stir or otherwise slosh around the beer coming out of the fermenter.

Here's how it should go, hopefully the kit is set up similarly:

1. Boil the carbonating sugar in 2 cups of water for 10 minutes, cover, and cool the pot to room temperature in a bath of cold water.
2. Pour the sugar solution in the priming tank.
3. However the siphonless fermenter works, make sure there's a tube coming from the exit valve of the fermenter to the bottom of the priming tank. Allow the beer to slowly fill the priming tank from the bottom, not pouring from the top.
4. Bottle!

And, though this has nothing to do with the process itself, I'm not sure I agree that siphoning is an unsanitary mess. I think that depends more on the person doing the siphoning.

I'll also echo mdwmonster's advice that, while you should make a starter, you don't have to. Best to keep it simple. You'll make good beer either way.

Ok, so here is the kit that I got (plus a wort chiller and a brew pot)....

http://www.williamsbrewing.com/BREWERY_WITH_BELGIAN_HARVEST_A_P2204C73.cfm

I think the mention about the "mess" of a siphon is merely them selling people on the idea of the bottling type buckets sold in their kits. Both buckets have the bottling spigot on them, but there is tubing to transfer to the other bucket for use as a secondary or to bottle from after putting carbonating sugar in and then racking the beer on top of the sugar solution.

I think for now I will pass on the starter for this first batch, and just focus on my process (cleaning, sanitizing, boiling, and fermenting).

I am thinking of making this on Sunday and then watching the big game with the wifey and enjoying a few brews.

Thanks for the advice all!

Kevin