First brew is in the fermenter, couple of worries.

Been reading for a couple week now and today I finally brewed my first homebrew today and everything went pretty good but the only thing Im worried about is that when I was heating everything up I never got to a boil but im pretty sure it was very close. Will this affect my brew? Another thing that caught me offguard was after I cooled my wort I could still see very fine particles in the wort which I imagine was the dextrose. Is that normal? It was a Coopers Lager kit (wanted to keep it simple on the first brew to get the process down).

Thanks for the help

You'll be fine on boil, It's difficult getting a full rolling boil on a stove top. as for the particles this is normal... It's what we call hot break. it's just proteins from the extract. it's a good thing. this will produce a clearer final product. sounds like you got your boil hot enough to cause this. good job!

Awesome now I can go to bed and not worry haha

You may want to consider upping your hop dosage in the future though - a vigorous rolling boil aids in releasing hop oils and ensuring they are infused into your wort. If you cannot achieve a rolling boil and your beers come out to mild for your liking, slightly increase your hop usage to compensate.

Smokeater233 said:

You may want to consider upping your hop dosage in the future though - a vigorous rolling boil aids in releasing hop oils and ensuring they are infused into your wort. If you cannot achieve a rolling boil and your beers come out to mild for your liking, slightly increase your hop usage to compensate.

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Or lower your boil size.

Yeah I will make sure I have a smaller boil next time. Also the beer is fermenting at about 72 degrees, is this too high?

Jabrock1 said:

Yeah I will make sure I have a smaller boil next time. Also the beer is fermenting at about 72 degrees, is this too high?

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Kind of depends on the yeast, but yeah it seems a bit high. During active fermentation the temp of the wort will be 6-10 degrees higher. I usually like my ambient temp to be in the low to mid 60's.

mlyday said:

Kind of depends on the yeast, but yeah it seems a bit high. During active fermentation the temp of the wort will be 6-10 degrees higher. I usually like my ambient temp to be in the low to mid 60's.

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Well I have a stick on thermometer on the fermenting bucket that reads 72 ambient temp is prob around 68

Temp seems high for a Lager. Or is a Coopers Lager something different?

What yeast did you use? Most have a range posted and will ferment a little cleaner at the lower end of the range.

Coopers lager isn't really a typical lager, it uses a dry ale/lager blend yeast I think.

Used the dry yeast that came with the coopers kit

Found this online about the coopers yeast.

All-purpose dry ale yeast. It produces a complex woody, fruity beer at warm temperatures. More heat tolerant than other strains, 65-75¡F; recommended for summer brewing. Medium attenuation and flocculation.

So it looks like you might be ok.

Awesome thanks for the info