New to the Forum, First brew in Secondary Fermentation!

Hello All!
I've been wanting to get into HomeBrewing for quite some time, but took a while to scrape together the cash to buy my Deluxe Glass Brew Kit from Northern Brewer. I also got a Hydrometer Kit.

My first brew (which they included at my choice with the kit for free) is their Honey Brown Ale. It is rated as a 6 week brew process.

Brew day was on Sunday, Oct. 21st, and all went very well. I used a Turkey Fryer, which worked FANTASTIC for brewing in my mancave/shed. That shed was BEGGING to be brewed in.

Anyways, Yeast was pitched at proper temperature, everything was pre-sanitized using Star-San, and I had awesome yeast activity and Krausen, and my temp stayed nice and stable. I moved it to my Secondary Fermentor Carboy on Thursday, Nov. 1st (day 11 of fermentation, all yeast activity and bubbling appeared to have stopped)

So far it has been a very smooth process! I think that is partly because I did so much research before starting, and watched a bunch of instructional vidz from Northern Brewer. It also doesn't hurt that I had a buddy helping me, who has already done 3 smaller batches .

Can't wait to bottle! It's a 5 gallon kit, so I should hopefully come out with about 50 beers!
I'll post some pics here pretty soon.

Oh and btw, my starting, aka Original Gravity was right on target: 1.051

unionrdr said:

Did you test for a stable FG before racking to secondary?

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It was sitting in the green area right at the "10" line. Can u tell me what that would be in gravity?

I had a brainfart, and forgot how my friend showed me how to translate the 10 to the actual gravity.

Zandrello said:

It was sitting in the green area right at the "10" line. Can u tell me what that would be in gravity?

I had a brainfart, and forgot how my friend showed me how to translate the 10 to the actual gravity.

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If it was at the "10"line, it's probably 1.010.

Found a reliable chart that matches my hydrometer!
Yes that is correct. It is 1.010. which means i've dropped about 41 points.
So current ABV = about 5.4%
Not bad!
Do you think my ABV "strength" will increase anymore by the time I'm ready to bottle? or after?

I got my Honey Brown Ale all bottled on Sunday night! (11/24)
Do you guys think that I might be ready to put one in the fridge on Friday 11/30, and crack it open on Sunday? Or do you think it will need more time to carbonate?

Don't touch it!

Seriously, it's not ready yet. Do yourself a favor: go out to the local craft beer store and buy two six packs of good brews, maybe stuff you haven't tried yet. If you can get the mixed six-packs and get 12 different beers, even better. I know, it's expensive, but do it anyway.

Go home, and every night when you want to open one of your new beers, open one of these instead. Just one per night. By the time you've finished them (two weeks) your beer will be ready to try. Before that, you're just wasting your hard-earned product. Believe me, the longer you wait to try it the happier you'll be with it.

I know, it's advice that will probably go unheeded. But it's worth a try.

unionrdr said:

It's gunna need at least 2 more weeks. Bottle carb/conditioning at 70F+ doesn't go that fast.

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OK thanks for the advice. Technically it's probably sitting more around 62-65 degrees. I keep it really cool in my closet where they're conditioning. Will they carb faster at lower temperatures? Or slower or what?

Thank you too jerrodm. and NO, it will not go unheeded. I will wait. Thanks again!

I plan on going to the liquor store on Saturday 12/1, and getting a mixed 12 pack! I love doing that. Try new things, and generally they're not too expensive. Anywhere between $8-12 per 6 pack. Plus, they give me the employee discount

There you go--just like whenever you're trying to make yourself do things you don't want to do, rewarding yourself for good behavior is essential. Tell SWMBO I told you so.

Zandrello said:

OK thanks for the advice. Technically it's probably sitting more around 62-65 degrees. I keep it really cool in my closet where they're conditioning. Will they carb faster at lower temperatures? Or slower or what?

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Yeast work much more slowly at cool temperatures. You can expect these bottles to take nearly forever (in waiting to drink them terms) to carb up and mature. Do you have somewhere warmer to put them for carbing? I leave mine at 72 F. and they carb up quickly.

i can open the heating vent in that room again, so it gets up closer to 70-72 degrees. I had it cooler in there for fermentation and stuff before. but i didn't realize u could bottle condition at higher temperatures.

Yes it is beneficial to bottle condition in warmer temperatures and not just for the carbonation. There are other chemical processes that make the beer mature that progress faster at warm temperatures.

Not only that but your primary ferment really only needs the cool temperatures while the yeast are gorging themselves on the malt sugars, like the first 3 days or so (for most medium gravity beers). Once the ferment slows down you can let the temperature rise to the low 70's (at least) with no off flavors and the yeast will be encouraged to complete the ferment, getting the last of the sugars broken down and begin to reprocess the intermediate compounds that they produced during the fast part of the ferment.