Recent content by TheSnakeJake

thanks for the advice... so, how soon should i bottle it? i was going to leave it in the secondary for about 2 weeks. should i bottle it sooner?

so i transferred my kolsch to my secondary a few minutes ago, and i went to move it down to my basement for the cooler temperature. as i was walking down the stairs, my damn idiot cat ran under my feet and i stepped on it. i fell down the stairs and my carboy fell with me... luckily it was a...

there was quite a bit of solid stuff floating in my sample tube (probably from me sinking the thief all the way to the bottom of the bucket to get a sample). but if this is still yeast floating and fermenting, maybe i should just wait a few more days. :confused:

thanks... i thought i had to touch it to the bottom of the bucket to make the valve open. i guess that was pretty dumb to stir up the sediment at the bottom.

i am trying to determine if my first batch is ready to move to the secondary. i took a sample using a wine thief and my hydro reading was ~ 1.018 (this is a west coast pale ale). the problem is the wine thief goes to the bottom of the bucket and my sample that came out was very cloudy with a...

thanks guys!! i feel better now...

my first batch of beer has been in my primary for 8 days. it took 96 hours to begin fermenting, but since friday it has been bubbling pretty steadily. i checked on it last night and it smelled great. but today, it smells terrible! almost like a rotten egg smell... is this batch contaminated?

thanks for the advice from everyone. i decided to not touch anything and see what happens... i just went and looked and my airlock is finally bubbling at a steady pace. it took 96 hours, but maybe it will turn out OK after all...

is there any other signs of fermentation that i should look for? should it smell like the wort in the small bathroom where i am storing my primary fermenting bucket?

thanks for the replies... i have only opened it once, and there was no visible foam yesterday when i opened the lid. i guess i will just leave it alone and hope for the best. i also forgot to mention that i dropped my hydrometer in the sink and it broke before i could take an initial reading.

so i brewed my first batch of beer on monday evening (west coast pale ale). i think everything went ok, except that my electric stove had a hard time boiling the wort so i had to leave the lid on most of the way. anyway, i cooled the wort added it to my fermenting bucket and added cool water...