cmw6300
Well-Known Member
Well, I went out and purchased a kit on Saturday from a LHBS. Got everything home and had to complete the honey-do list on Saturday so no brewing that day. Sunday, still had honey-do's in the morning but finally got to brew later on in the evening.
I chose a brown ale kit from my LHBS that had all the ingredients in it. This kit also had some specialty grain that needed to be steeped prior to adding in the LME. One thing I messed up on was pouring the boiled water straight in to the Better Bottle fermentor without letting it cool, I know, dumb move on my part. Well, it only deformed the fermenter a little bit, just collapsed the top a smidge. After that all went well. I was ablet to keep the water at ~160 degrees for the steep and had no boilovers for the 60 minutes of boil with the LME. I cooled the wort to ~85 degrees and pitched my yeast to my fermenter and added the cooled wort.
No action last night but then again I wasn't really expecting it too much. That changed when I got up this morning to an airlock filled with trub and spewing out foam. I cleaned up the small amount that spilled onto the closet floor and cleaned off the top of the fermenter and the sides. I went ahead and took the airlock and bung out of the fermenter and cleaned those up as well. I made sure not to touch the rim of the fermenter so as not to contaminate the beer and reinstalled everything after a good clean. Within minutes the same thing was happening again. I was able to place the fermenter in my brewpot in order to catch any more spillover. I am able to go home for lunch so I'm planning on doing another clean and reinstall.
My question is, have I run the chance of contaminating the beer? I have read in other posts that with all the foaming and blowoff that the action of fermenting is producing, it would be hard to any contaminants to get down in to the beer. Also, how long will this violent fermentation last with all this foam being forced up in to the airlock?
Sorry for the long first post but, I just wanted to try and cover everything that went on with my first brew!!!
I chose a brown ale kit from my LHBS that had all the ingredients in it. This kit also had some specialty grain that needed to be steeped prior to adding in the LME. One thing I messed up on was pouring the boiled water straight in to the Better Bottle fermentor without letting it cool, I know, dumb move on my part. Well, it only deformed the fermenter a little bit, just collapsed the top a smidge. After that all went well. I was ablet to keep the water at ~160 degrees for the steep and had no boilovers for the 60 minutes of boil with the LME. I cooled the wort to ~85 degrees and pitched my yeast to my fermenter and added the cooled wort.
No action last night but then again I wasn't really expecting it too much. That changed when I got up this morning to an airlock filled with trub and spewing out foam. I cleaned up the small amount that spilled onto the closet floor and cleaned off the top of the fermenter and the sides. I went ahead and took the airlock and bung out of the fermenter and cleaned those up as well. I made sure not to touch the rim of the fermenter so as not to contaminate the beer and reinstalled everything after a good clean. Within minutes the same thing was happening again. I was able to place the fermenter in my brewpot in order to catch any more spillover. I am able to go home for lunch so I'm planning on doing another clean and reinstall.
My question is, have I run the chance of contaminating the beer? I have read in other posts that with all the foaming and blowoff that the action of fermenting is producing, it would be hard to any contaminants to get down in to the beer. Also, how long will this violent fermentation last with all this foam being forced up in to the airlock?
Sorry for the long first post but, I just wanted to try and cover everything that went on with my first brew!!!