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ballegre

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First post here. Hi.

I just finished my first brew and had a few questions that I would like to run by the members here.

1. When I poured my wart into the primary, I left the hot break in the kettle. I thought this was the right thing to do but now I cannot find where I read it...Is this the correct procedure or should I just vigorously dump the entire contents through a course filter?

2. I took the OG just after I added the rehydrated yeast and it looked good but I was supposed to do it before yeast. Think this affected the reading?

3. When I sanitized stuff, I couldn't tell if the True Brew sanitizer was no rinse and it smelled nasty so I rinsed everything after I sanitized. Should I avoid rinsing after sanitizing and get the no rinse stuff?

4. To aerate the hot wart I just poured from a high altitude. Can I use SWMBO's electric mixer to really whip it up or is this overkill? I can also attach a large whisk to my drill...
 
I'll try to answer these for you.

1. You can do either or. Leave it in the kettle, or use a funnel and strainer.

2. Take the gravity reading after you have added your top-off water and have mixed with your wort to give you your 5 gallons. I don't think doing it the way you did so will hurt anything, however.

3. Get some Star-San or the like no rinse sanitizer. Costs a bit up front but will last you a while and does the job like none other.

4. There are a bunch of threads on how to aerate. You can use the drill and attach a whisk. You can use a oxygen stone. You can shake your fermenting device. Do a search on the subject and see what method you prefer.

Congrats on your 1st brew and welcome to the boards.
 
First post here. Hi.

I just finished my first brew and had a few questions that I would like to run by the members here.

1. When I poured my wart into the primary, I left the hot break in the kettle. I thought this was the right thing to do but now I cannot find where I read it...Is this the correct procedure or should I just vigorously dump the entire contents through a course filter?

2. I took the OG just after I added the rehydrated yeast and it looked good but I was supposed to do it before yeast. Think this affected the reading?

3. When I sanitized stuff, I couldn't tell if the True Brew sanitizer was no rinse and it smelled nasty so I rinsed everything after I sanitized. Should I avoid rinsing after sanitizing and get the no rinse stuff?

4. To aerate the hot wart I just poured from a high altitude. Can I use SWMBO's electric mixer to really whip it up or is this overkill? I can also attach a large whisk to my drill...

I'll take a shot here:

1) I pour everything in the kettle into my primary, with no filter. This includes all the hops as I don't use a hop bag. I just let time settle everything out, then do a careful job siphoning without pulling trub. Never had a problem.

2) It shouldn't, unless you made a very large starter and the starter had a significantly different gravity. I'm going to say no, you are fine.

3) Depends, did you rinse with sterile water? I like the no rinse sanitizers as they are the last thing that touches anything that touches your cooled wart.

4) There are many debates on this subject. I've found that vigorous shaking of the primary (I use a carboy and cap it during this part) for about 10 minutes seems to get fermentation started significantly quicker and produces more yeast (larger cake at the end) than just pouring it, but your fermentation should still kick in just fine if you are patient.

-kap
 
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