My very first brew day!

Very first brew day! Well the house isnt burned to the ground so i did ok, but made a few noob mistakes.

Couple questions of you brew gods -

Made a yeast starter yesterday and that worked well. Learned - to use sanatized tin foil lid to let the yeast breath a little better.

Brew day -

Brewed - AHS Bavarian Hefeweizen

8 oz of Cara Pils malts
8 oz of German Pilsner malts
7lbs of Wheat Extract
3/4 oz Hallertau hops
1/4 oz Hallertau hops.

I was a little puzzled as i expected once the wheat was add back in and bringing it to a boil to get foam and lots of white foamy stuff. I didnt? Most i ever got was a little around the sides maybe inch wide and not very deep. Is the foam/bubbling differnt depending on the brew??

Couldnt remember if i was supposed to stir for the whole hour rolling boil. Raced to get the books and found i was supposed to stir it every few minutes. It did scortch a little i think from cleaning the pot but it wasnt bad as it came off with just a little scrubbing didnt have to put much effort to get it off. Or is that just normal in any brew to have a little stuff on the bottom??

Big noob mistake was i forgot to add the 1/4oz of hops for aroma at the 5 min mark as i was fiddling with the wort chiller. Will that have a big effect??

Had a tiny boil over at the end when i was getting ready to move it to the sink to cool when i put the lid on but it was like less then a cup of liquid escape.

Now the part that confuses me. Recipe says the OG should be approximately 1.050 mine ended up at 1.058 ?? I was frazled but this and forgot to get the tempature to get the corrected OG. Is that close?? Was forgetting the hops my mistake? The boil over??

All in all i had fun. I am making a brew journal to record everything to get better. So wanted your folks feedback to add to what i think i learned.

PS One last question - Fermentor is in a spare room with a space heater set at 68 degrees. That the best setting for my beer??

Thanks all.

When using extract, I take the pot off the heat, add the extract and stir well for a few minutes. Then put back on the burner and bring back to a boil. This prevents scorching for the most part. Once everything is dissolved, the only time I stir is during hop additions and I let the boiling action take care of everything else.

With the left-over hops I would sample the brew about 5 or so days before bottling and if it needs some hop flavor/aroma dump the left over hops in as a dry hop addition.

The high OG means you may have boiled off more water or not topped up with enough water as per the recipe.

Many people ferment at 68 but I think if you can go lower(maybe 2-3F lower) I would since fermenting beer can be 10F above room temperature.

1) Not sure but I wouldn’t be worried about lack of foam during boil. It sounds like your temp was just above the boiling point and didn’t cause a lot of foam

2) Stirring for the entire boil isn’t going to make a big deal either. I stir every 10 minutes or so once the boil starts which is probably over kill because the boil does a pretty good job of stirring for you. Don’t forget to turn off the flame when adding the sugars to avoid scorching.

3) Forgetting the hop edition is not going to be a huge deal. Yes a ¼ ounce is going to add a little aroma but not much and you’re brewing a wheat beer so you are hardly, if at all, going to notice

4) Your OG might be off due to a little less volume at the end. If you hit your volume mark your temp could be accounting for some of that. Again don’t worry you’re pretty close to where you want to be

5) 68 degree ambient air temp is probably a little too high at this point. As the yeast begins to convert that sugar it’s going to produce heat. Ideally I’d start that batch in a room with an ambient temp of about 64 or 65 and bring it up slightly after fermentation begins in needed.

Overall it sounds like you had a pretty good first batch. I’d sit back, take a deep breath, and revel in the amazing process you’ve just set in motion.

Thanks for the replies guys. I am pretty sure the OG was off because i didnt account for evaporation. I downloaded Beersmith (handy little program) and played with the evaporation tool and i think i was a quart shy of where i wanted to be. But im learning.

Question about adding those hops back in. They are in pellet form. Would i crush up the pellets and add them that way or just add the pellets or should i just forget about them all together?

Congratulations on your first brew! I'll try and hit all the points I can for you.
1. Foaming - This can vary from batch to batch, but I find that when the hops is added the foam in the boil kettle usually reaches its highest point. If it didn't foam very much you may not have had a strong enough boil. you want to see a "rolling" of the liquid.

2.Stirling - You want to make sure that all of the malt extract is dissolved, before boiling. Spend most of the time stirring as you add the extract, but when you turn the heat up to begin the boil, stir every few mins until the boil starts. Once the boil is rolling you don't need to stir. One point to mention, when you stir try not to foam up the wort, you don't want to add oxygen to hot wort. Its not something to obsess over, but stir without splashing too much. It's called hot side aeration.

3. Miss Hops - the result will be less hops aroma and flavor. If you missed the time and remembered right at the end of the boil you could have tossed it in there. If you want to you could even put the hops in the fermentor and it would add some more aroma.

4. Boil over - Basically, never use the lid while heat is applied to the pot. A few reasons, it causes boil overs faster than you can imagine and it traps some of the off flavors that are evaporating out of your boil kettle. I sanitize the lid and then cover the boil kettle while chilling so no stuff falls into the cooling wort.

5.SG - 1.050 and 1.058 are not a big deal, your beer will still turn out fine. It could have been from some of the boil over, but really the kit has a range that it suggests, your fine. Hops have little to no affect of SG, it is the sugars in the wort, so the malt extract is really what affects the gravity.

6. 68 - this temp should be just fine.

All in all it sounds like things went well. I'd recommend doing a few things next time...
Write down all the steps you need to do and what time they should be done, set a timer or alarm and that way you won't forget to add an ingredient. Also start taking lots of notes. Everything can be important in the future. I know that there were things I wrote down when I first started brewing that I didn't think I would ever need to know, only to be told later by other home brewers that what I did was incorrect and they were able to help me because I had recorded information that turned out to be very important.
Clean, clean, clean and then sanitize, sanitize, sanitize; this is probably the single most unforgiving process in brewing. As long as you clean well and sanitize well you can goof pretty big in other areas and your beer will turn out well. Forget to clean and sanitize well and you could do every possible other thing perfect and have terrible beer.

Let us know how it turns out.

School Master

Just dump the hops pellets right in the fermenter.

I wouldn’t add the hops now unless you want a wheat beer that doesn’t follow the typical wheat beer style.

Rule #1: this is homebrewing and you are welcome to brew as you please. That being said, if you add the hops now you are going to get more hop aroma than most wheat’s. Personally, I’d just ride with what you have, it seems as though you are well within the confines of a great tasting wheat beer.

schoolmaster said:

6. 68 - this temp should be just fine.

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If that’s the fermentation temp then yes this is ok. My concern is that if the ambient temp is 68 then the temp within the wort is going to be higher.

I just want to add: Congrats for making a yeast starter on your very first brew. Keep it up!

Kickass said:

I wouldn’t add the hops now unless you want a wheat beer that doesn’t follow the typical wheat beer style.

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I thought about opening it and tossing it in but i think since it is my first batch i am just going to leave it be and go with what i got.

Kickass said:

If that’s the fermentation temp then yes this is ok. My concern is that if the ambient temp is 68 then the temp within the wort is going to be higher.

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Yeah, i just went in and turned it down to 65.

Just checked in on the baby and the airlock is bubbling a bit

Ok question. Its been in the primary undisturbed for 10 days. Just popped it open to take a reading. Shows its at 1.016. Recipe said it would finish at 1.012. Would my reading end high since i was higher at the start?


Also the bubbles/head make it hard to read exactly where its sitting. Any tips to get rid of the bubbles/head?

Thanks.

PS It smelled like beer, it tasted like beer, but looked like a disgusting mud puddle.

maxamuus said:

Ok question. Its been in the primary undisturbed for 10 days. Just popped it open to take a reading. Shows its at 1.016. Recipe said it would finish at 1.012. Would my reading end high since i was higher at the start? Yes, FG is usually about 1/4th OG.


Also the bubbles/head make it hard to read exactly where its sitting. Any tips to get rid of the bubbles/head? spinning it will get the bubbles off the hydrometer. Then wait a few minutes.

Thanks.

PS It smelled like beer, it tasted like beer, but looked like a disgusting mud puddle. The primary usually looks sick. You'll see a marked difference when you bottle.

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See my comments above. Oh yea, my car wanted to give you the most important advice any homebrewer can be given.

Grats on your first batch! Start tasting it -- it might taste like crap at first, but as it ages you will notice a difference. That's how ya learn, of course!!

P.S. - Sweet license plate!!

+1 on the yeast starter congrats...and the wort chiller! i'm still using ice baths, three years into brewing...

And so it begins.. Countless hours of dedicated beer time. Cheers to an awesome hobby!

Its beer! Just racked it to the secondary.



*note bubbles are from sanitizing with Starsan.*

Was very careful not to oxidize the beer. Even filled the carboy with co2. (Just not sure how long at 3PSI would displace all of the oxygen?)

PS The milk crate is from the Mormon church. I will have to come up with a Mormony name for it. =)