Dear lord someone help me

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Dstpeter

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I suppose this is the stereotypical "Did I ruin my beer" thread, but please bear with my on my cluster you know what of an adventure.

This is my second batch. The first I had my younger brother coach me through and despite him only filling to the 4 gallon mark on my 5 gallon beer , I feel it turned out nicely. It was an IPA and I tend to like mine on the as bitter as you can get side, so I enjoy the extra bite I suppose. On to the second batch I chose to do on my own. Walk with me on this magical mystery debacle. Mind you this is a rye IPA, equinox your sox off, extract if anyone is familiar.

Everything is going just swimmingly. Grain in at exactly 170F, side pot added at exactly 170F over grains at the 20 min mark. Flawless. I was more than pleased. Boil, extract, first hop addition. And then the train missed its station and it's all down hill from here.

I missed second hop addition mark by almost a minute after being distracted by my lovely girlfriend. All other hop additions were perfect as was the Whirfloc. Go to chill wort in ice bath (last time took 8 minutes) and realize I've over filled the sink with water.. No biggie I thought, and I reached down to pull the plug to drain a bit. Didn't realize I didn't put it back all the way and lost quite a bit of water in the process. Refilled and added more ice. Once it hit about 95 I hydrated my yeast and set my 15 minute timer thinking that should be plenty. 1/2 an hour later I'm sitting with hydrated, stirred yeast, and a wort sitting, almost mocking me, at 90 degrees. I added cool water to the wort out of desperation to almost no avail. Finally being overly frustrated I decided to just aerate and pitch my yeast.

I used a nylon bag to try to catch the hop scum left behind from the boil. When that filled and refused to drain, I went into a fit of utter frustration and squeezed the bag with my hands to filter the wort out of the bag. Filled the bucket and capped and then took a shot of makers and now I'm writing this to you all. I'm sorry for the novel. I didn't know how to make it any shorter.

On a scale of one to ten, how awful did I mess this up....
 
After that buildup, I was expecting something earth shattering. Sounds like you had a few hiccups, but all in all, I think your brew will be just fine. A couple more batches and you'll feel like an old pro.
 
What? That's a typical brew day for me, your beer should be great.
Last night while teaching a friend to brew he pitched the yeast into the brew pot while I was draining it through a muslin bag into the carboy.
Gonna be epic. For me dumb mistakes equal great beer go figure.
 
That's what I needed to hear. I guess after a brew night like this, and being so new to the hobby, I felt defeated.
 
Half in the bag... I dropped a lit CIG into the wort while cooling... Getting a sample to test SG. I called that batch beer-o-but brew. Was fine.
 
To the OP -
It will be fine, and should turn into a very drinkable beer, baring a TRUE major issue during the remainder of the process.

Missing a hop addition by a minute is not going to 'bork' your beer.

The total cooldown time doesn't seem too bad, though the addition of water to the wort will result in a somewhat diluted beer, hence a lower ABV.

I'm not completely clear on the last part... filtering the hop scum from where? and into what?... If I assume you mean that you tried to get some additional liquid out of your brew-kettle and INTO the fermenter... I doubt you have any major issues here either; though I am not sure why you wouldn't have done that prior to pitching the yeast?

Overall, RDWAHAHB (or another shot of Maker's) it will still be beer, and you can take this as a set of lesson's learned for next time, if for nothing else than to show you that you can relax a bit and the process will still work out.
 
Agreed. If this was the worse that happened you are fine. You should read my last brew horror story and that beer is turning out great.

"Hiccups" on brew day are part of the learning curve. Don't feel discouraged. Been brewing 3 years and still have issues from time to time.
 
On my first batch there was a lot of hop left overs in the primary. To try to clear that up, I moved the wort from the brew kettle into the primary through a nylon filter. Essentially a bag that fits over top the primary and filters any matter from the liquid wort. Unfortunately it didn't work as I had envisioned.

As far as adding water, I had to fill my primary with water to the 5 gallon mark, so I assumed that adding water to the brew kettle would be ok, or was I mistaken? Serious question I'm not trying to sound rude haha
 
Ok, for the water addition, I see now that you probably did a partial boil and then topped up to full batch size, so the gravity and ABV should be no problem.

As for the transfer... the only small process change I see is IF you did that last filtered transfer AFTER pitching... I doubt it will cause any issue, but you probably want to pitch the yeast as the last step, rather than dumping anything else in after that.

The beer'll be fine.. now crack us all one and lets relax
 
Naw, I pitched after transfer. Didn't want to risk filtering out any yeast by accident haha
 
Woah woah woah, all these people saying your process is "OK" are crazy. You need to take that shot of Maker's before starting any of the brew day. I also didn't see anything about you drinking beers during the process - this is crucial for the success of your future beer.

:)
 
I was sipping on upland brewery dragonfly IPA during the whole process. No worries. I got that part down to a T!
 
Woah woah woah, all these people saying your process is "OK" are crazy. You need to take that shot of Maker's before starting any of the brew day. I also didn't see anything about you drinking beers during the process - this is crucial for the success of your future beer.

:)

C'mon... we just naturally assume that part of the process has been explained and is being followed.. no need to restate the the somewhat tipsy obvious... every brew session must involve fruits of a previous session.
 
Worrying about missing your hop addition mark by *1 minute* is silliness. If you're really concerned you can always just boil for a minute longer, ya know? You definitely pitched your yeast a little warm, but they're probably fine. Enjoy your first brew :)
 
I'd be more worried about the distraction your girlfriend caused that only made you miss the addition by a minute. You may need a different girlfriend. Sometimes the distractions are worth a batch of ruined beer. ;)
 
In all seriousness, I would recommend that you not bother trying to filter out "hop scum" and break material. Just dump it all into the fermenter next time.

Besides that, just make sure the beer remains at a good temperature (65° F) during these crucial first few days of fermentation, and it should turn out just fine.
 
Missed your hop addition by one minute? Dump it out!!!

Seriously though, nothing in your process was significant. I'd recommend investing in an immersion chiller and relaxing a little bit more.
 
That's one character flaw of mine. I'm an ultra perfectionist to the core. Being a builder I suppose that's helpful. I should add that the total cool down time was probably closer
To a 45-50 minutes. I'm sure it will turn out fine, just had a night of supreme frustration
 
And a wort chiller is next on my purchase list after last nights fiasco, followed by a chest freezer for temp control during fermentation.
 
And a wort chiller is next on my purchase list after last nights fiasco, followed by a chest freezer for temp control during fermentation.


Don't buy a wort chiller, build one! There are tons of instructions on this forum and the interwebs. I used YouTube. It's easy. Cheers!
 
Unless you were out petting monkeys or cleaning horse stalls with your hands you should be ok. If you pitched enough yeast it should be able to beat down any low lying bacteria (especially at the warmer pitch temp).

A good wort chiller would be the next piece of equipment I would recommend you build or acquire.

If you are concerned about hop matter getting in to the fermentor you can use hop bags during the boil. I use a 5 gallon paint strainer from Home Depot. I generally calculate a 95% hop utilization and bump the amount of hops to compensate.
 
Hop bag = muslin bag? I used one for my first addition, but wasn't able to adequately open it for further additions. I probably should have used the bigger bag on the boil instead of after the boil but I wasn't sure if the hops needed to stay in the wort during cool down. I suppose it wouldn't make much of a difference.
 
I have fellow brewers that use small muslin bags for each addition. They load then up ahead of time and toss them in the boil at the appropriate time. I leave the bag in the boil kettle until I clean up for the day.
 
After that buildup, I was expecting something earth shattering. Sounds like you had a few hiccups, but all in all, I think your brew will be just fine. A couple more batches and you'll feel like an old pro.

Came here for the drama, left disappointed.
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Missing a hop addition by a minute...I do that every time. The timer goes off, I get off my rear and walk to the kettle & dump the hops. Probably a good 30-60 second delay. I can't even blame a lovely anything, I'm just slow.

Scale of 1 to 10 on how much you messed up? 1...
You did good.
 
I suppose the hop addition wasn't my biggest concern. I figured that would be ok, it was the delayed chill and actually touching the wort with my hands that freaked me out the most.
 
I suppose the hop addition wasn't my biggest concern. I figured that would be ok, it was the delayed chill and actually touching the wort with my hands that freaked me out the most.

Delayed chill? I let a batch do a no chill in my fermenter bucket. It took about 30 HOURS to get to pitching temperature. It was fine.:mug:
 
Damn! I was expecting a good disaster story. :( My last 2 batches I missed my hop addition by a good 15 minutes on each due to my damn timer app crashing. They're in the bottle carbing now. I expect them to be fine. I just recently learned that damn near every homebrewer in Australia does no-chill beer where they just cellar the damn thing until it's cool enough. They say it works just fine.

The only thing in your brew day that would have me even a tiny bit worried is squeezing the hop gunk with your hands. Sounds like a risk of infection but still pretty minimal risk.

That said, if you're still concerned I'm happy to drink your beer for you so you don't have to suffer through it. ;)

For that matter, if you need me to keep your girlfriend out of your hair on your next brew day...
 
Woah woah woah, all these people saying your process is "OK" are crazy. You need to take that shot of Maker's before starting any of the brew day. I also didn't see anything about you drinking beers during the process - this is crucial for the success of your future beer.

:)

I am no longer allowed to consume home brew while brewing.

Burnt fingers
Spills
Giant boil over
Having to dry hop because i uhm forgot to add hops.

The list is long...
 
O always use 5 gallon paint strainers to filter wort out of my BK. I don't pour the wort through them, I pour the wort over them. Short version: take the paint strainers and stack them one on another, and pour wort over them. Well over 80% of the trub gets caught this way, and a whole lot less beer lost to the BK goblins.Honestly, I lose maybe 1/4 cup during racking.
 
The moral of the story is here that if you stick with this hobby, you're eventually going to make some much bigger mistakes. When's next brew day? ;)
 
Next brew day is Monday haha hopefully accompanied by the first tastings of my bottled first batch.
 
On a scale of 1-10, where 10 is setting your block on fire and 1 is adding a hop addition 1 minute late, you scored a 1.6
 
Missing a hop addition by a minute is negligible to the overall beer. That's why most recipe's call for additions that end in 0 or 5, such as a 30 minute addition or a 15 minute addition. I never seen a recipe call for a 24 minute addition because a few minutes here or there means very little. The utilization of a couple of minutes is not really going to be detected by the drinker.

Next time tell your girl she gave 2 minutes, no big deal
 
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