New to the beer game have 2 loads going

hello all. I am kind of a crazy guy that loves beer so I decided after reading this forum for about 2 months to give in and buy 2 kits and start cooking up some beer.

Last friday I started off with a 8 gallon
- Winterfest ale

And on Monday I started a batch of
- red ale

Kits can be seen at The brew house

Since these are my first 2 am not going crazy with adding anything yet but thanks to everyone here I have all the right equipment and everything I need to make bottling them a fun reality.

I have the first batch in secondary right now ( glass carboy ) and the second will go in the second carboy tonight.

I jimmy rigged up a anti smell filter for the first stage as when that foam comes out it smells up the place and the woman of the house hate it.

i will show you some pix of that soon

Both kits will sit in stage 2 for 3 weeks and stay bottled for 3 weeks as well.

I am now just fighting the tempation to start a third batch now that my 2 stage 1/bottling buckets are free

This hobby sure is addictive


* a short on how I made the anti smell. I have a blowoff bucket that has some water in it and the tube from the stage 1 going into 1 side of the lid sealed. The on the other side of the lid I have a sealed hose leading out of my window lol. this hose has a fine wire mesh on the end so nothing gets. For the blowout bucket that catches the foam i used a nice large cat litter container I had sitting around.

So far I have had zero smell from my second batch and all the foam is going into the secondary bucket and the nice smell is heading out the window for my neighbor to enjoy!!

!!

Good for you man.Beer is a wonderful thing.Keep making it!!

Congrats! Now just buy commercial beer until yours has been in the bottle for 5 weeks minimum.You wont regret it. Next batch just for giggles leave it in the primary for 3 weeks at a stable temp between 65-70*. At this point secondary is optional. Then 5 weeks in the bottle. I would also use a sanitizer mix in your blow off bucket on the off chance that it had critters roaming around in it. This wont hurt your beer at all.
I'm not faulting your brewing process. I can tell by your post you take pride in your beer. I'm just suggesting a few things that might make it easier and give you lots of comments like "You brewed this? This is great beer!" Pride and home brew go hand in hand.

Sounds great Beerthirsty For my next batch I will do that and lol. It gives me a good excuse to have a third batch going since I am out of carboys but my primary is available

Oh for the stuff in the blow off I got this white powder from the beer store that is supposed to to be good for this very process.

I use this pink stuff to clean everything but was told not to use that in the blowoff so I also bought some clear stuff that is supposed to be safe.

any other advice i could use?

Everbodys favorite sanitizer around here is starsan. Its no rinse, 60 second activation, very economical and food for yeast. Don't fear the foam. Many people keep it for months before tossing it and making a new batch.

beerthirty said:

Everbodys favorite sanitizer around here is starsan. . . . Many people keep it for months before tossing it and making a new batch.

Click to expand...

How do you know when it's viable or otherwise? In other words, how do you know when to toss it and make a new batch?

I don't reuse it very long myself but when it starts to get cloudy it should be tossed. If you want to be scientific about it it's the pH that really matters, if you have a way to test that, and I think if you make your solution with distilled water it will last longer.

By the Ph. If you dont have a Ph meter just make it with distilled water. Made with distilled water I have used it for 4 months. Some say when it goes cloudy. If I make it with tap water it clouds instantly, so I only use that batch for that brew session. I don't remeber what the Ph is but you can search or contact 5 Star products.

3.5 I believe.

here is a pix of the 2 at stage 2
The dark one has already been sitting there for 3 days and dont worry. that heater behind them is unplugged and I keep the lights off in that room

they look so cute. I call the red ale fred and the dark one pete.

These are 23L carboys btw, I think that is around 8 gallons. I am not to sure why but I have a little less of the dark one then the lighter one...
I was thinking of keeping them in this stage for 3 weeks. Then pouring in the boiling water mixed with sugar and bottle them and hold that for 3 weeks before tasting. What do you guys think?
I am extremely open to any advice I have been collenting the 750 ML bottles of corona ( sorry not sure what that is non metric. they are the massive bottles ) and hopefully within 2 months I will have enough to hold all of the beer I made

PS. I am still fighting the urge to male a pale ale. I just think having 3 beers in carboys side by side in the 3 diff color/colours would be sweet

Thank you all. Without reading this forum for so long I would have never gotten the urge to go ahead and make this step

Sorry to double post but I was just wondering.
At the end of stage 1 I am getting rid of all the goop on the bottom of the buckets and only keeping the liquid for stage 2.

Is this going to hurt my beer at all or make it taste odd? I just wonder because if I only do stage 1 all the way to bottling it will mean that the goop will stay for the month in there and probably give a diff flavour. Or am I just crazy?

Welcome!!!!


It's a great hobb....er I mean Obsession...

Oh by the way we refer to them as batches..not loads...

(Loads is what sometimes happens in our shorts from too mush yeast in our beers.)

Just kidding guys!