First Batch Sampled

My first batch finished burping this weekend, so I took a sample this evening. It's been fermenting 12 days and has been in secondary for about seven days.

I'd say it tastes like warm, flat, hoppy ale. I suppose that's what it supposed to taste like. I'm just glad there are no noticeable off flavors or smells yet!

My wife refused to taste it until later...she wanted to see if I survived and didn't want to leave the kids completely orphaned!

The FG was dead nuts on at 1.015 (based on QBrew).

It was a Extract / Steeped grain recipe from Radical Brewing (Yellow Diamond Belgian Pale Ale). I don't think I hit the color right, as it looks a little dark to me to be a pale ale. I brewed a little concentrated and then diluted, so I guess that might explain the darker color. Here's a picture of it in the Hydro tube.


I figured I'd leave it in the secondary for another 12 days or so, then bottle it off. I'm still not sure why conditioning in the fermenter is different than conditioning in a bottle, but I'll not question experienced advice!

Here's the recipe for those that are interested:

Recipe Belgian Ale
Style Belgian Specialty Ale
Batch 5.00 gal

Recipe Characteristics
Recipe Gravity 1.059 OG Estimated FG 1.015 FG
Recipe Bitterness 41 IBU Alcohol by Volume 5.9%
Recipe Color 12° SRM Alcohol by Weight 4.6%

Ingredients

2.00 lb Amber D.M.E. extract
3.00 lb Light D.M.E. extract
0.50 lb Crystal 30L steeped
1.00 lb Belgian aromatic steeped
1.50 lb Belgian candi sugar extract


1.00 oz Northern Brewer pellet 85 minutes
1.00 oz Saaz pellet 85 minutes
1.00 oz Saaz pellet 10 minutes

Hmmm looks to me like you did good with the color. That looks like Pale Ale to me.

Looks like a lovely beer.

maybe only ever so slightly too dark. pretty common when using an extract though.

only fermenting 12 days, been in secondary a week already...so you racked from primary at only 5 days?
that was a mistake. secondary is NOT a fermentation period, despite hearing 'secondary fermentation'....its not for that at all. secondary is to clear the beer, and you should not rack to secondary until it hits FG in the primary. otherwise you remove a lot of active yeast prematurely, stunting your fermentation process, which can also stress the yeast. and stressed yeast has a tendency to produce off flavors.

i'm sure you'll be fine, but next time, no secondary until primary is complete. the airlock doesn't tell you that its ready...3 days worth of stable hydrometer readings is the right way to know.

Well, truth be told I didn't have much choice. I managed to break the top of my primary fermenter when removing my (stuck) stopper for my initial hydrometer reading.

So it was something of an emergency transfer. The activity was pretty good at about 20% of max bubbles per minute. Fortunately seemed to stay active after the transfer, with bubble generation rate continuing to fall on a nice decay. The FG is pretty good, so I'm hoping it turned out all right!

Thanks for the input, however, as I didn't realize that transferring early could be a problem.

No worries. emphasis on the word 'could' be a problem. definitely not a surefire recipe for a problem by any means, simply an increase in the risk of the beer not reaching its full potential.
you kinda have to try hard to screw up beer making. my first few batches of mead had a complete lack of sanitation...but turned out just fine.

I'd say go another 9 days in secondary so the yeast has enough time to settle out and give you a clear beer.
You could go longer, but you probably won't need to. that hydro sample doesn't look too cloudy.