First Brew (with video)

So my first brew was on Tuesday. I think it went well. We got activity in the airlock after just a few hours and it lasted several days. Below are the videos we filmed. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Video 1: Our first attempt at making our own beer!
http://www.facebook.com/v/695845213856

Video 2: Adding the grains
http://www.facebook.com/v/695846700876

Video 3: Finishing grains and sanitization
http://www.facebook.com/v/695852384486

Video 4: Removing the Grain and Bringing to a Boil
http://www.facebook.com/v/695865717766

Video 5: Adding the Malt Extract and Bittering Hops
http://www.facebook.com/v/695868277636

Video 6: Adding Flavoring Hops
http://www.facebook.com/v/695887763586

Video 7: Final Hops and Cooling the Wart
http://www.facebook.com/v/695894894296

Video 8: Cooling the wort continued
http://www.facebook.com/v/695977538676

Video 9: Moving the wort to the carboy, adding additional water, and aerating
http://www.facebook.com/v/695984968786

Video 10: Adding Yeast, putting airlock in, and rocking
http://www.facebook.com/v/695987668376

Video 11: Storing at 70 degrees for fermentation
http://www.facebook.com/v/695989180346

Video 12: Fermentation
http://www.facebook.com/v/696128670806

Great job, looks like things went well. You had a good grasp on what you were doing for your first batch, kudos. It always makes it more fun with a brew buddy. Welcome to the fun hobby of brewing !!

thanks for taking the time to make those vids and sharing them.

Well done folks - for new brewers you were clearly better prepared than most for your first brew day!

A few thoughts - while your process was for the most part flawless, I'd offer the following:

1. Spent grains are great for cookies and dog biscuits. Hops are NOT. Hops are toxic to animals, so when working with them you'd do well to keep them away from the dogs...

2. What was the final expected volume of the kit you were working on? Was it 5 gallons? And if so, was that a 6.5 gallon carboy? If that is also the case, then you didn't top off your carboy enough. It's no problem at all and you will definitely get beer, but the beer will naturally have more concentrated flavors than a beer of a more accurate volume proportion.

3. Strainers can be a pain - as you quickly learned - but they can be of great value as well. As you start doing bigger beers you will likely start to get bigger fermentations (wheats - while not necessarily a bigger beer - are notorious for very active primary fermentations) and the krausen and the remnants from the pot may takeover the headspace in your carboy faster than previously thought possible. This is often rectified by using a blow off tube instead of an air lock, but blow off tubes can also be clogged by particles in the carboy (particularly spent hops). You don't need to strain the material out of your wort after the boil, but where you can do it, I certainly recommend it. To avoid all of that material from ending up in your funnel/strainer, you might consider whirlpooling your wort for a minute or so at the end of the boil. Use your sanitized spoon and stir the wort in one direction and then let it sit for a few mins. Doing so will force all that particulate to the middle and the bottom of the pot and it's much easier to contend with when funneling. This is best used with pots that have a spigot, but I've made use of this technique on pots without spigots as well.

4. Aerating the wort is very important, but there's no immediate need to mix up your dry yeast. You can do this - some actually create a dry yeast slurry (mixing the dry yeast in with a cup of 90 degree water about 10 mins before you pitch the yeast) and then shake, but that too is generally unnecessary. You can simply pitch your yeast into the carboy and they'll take care of the rest.

5. If you've spent time on the forums you've heard everyone ranting about ignoring the air lock as a measure of active fermentation. Use your hydrometer to know when fermentation has completed and then keep your beer in the primary for at least another week to allow the yeast time to clean up after themselves. And, while you clearly didn't need it in this case, if you don't see activity in the first 8-12 hours, be patient - don't immediately pitch more yeast. Indeed repitching yeast is considered a last resort, with "patience" being the first line of defense. And where is the top of the air lock? While in truth you don't need it - bacteria would still need to make a helluva trip to find their way to your beer, the top on the air lock does help to provide some additional protection.

All-in-all it looks great! Keep us posted on how your fermentation, bottling, and consuming goes!

How/What are you using to sanitize with?

Your carboy looked like it had no sanitizer in it. I just watched a few videos so it might show somewhere else.

Aight never mind I went back and watched...

Thanks for all of your replies. It was a fun time, and it was something my wife and I like doing together, Score!!!

Smokeater, thank you for your advice, below are the answers to your questions.

1. Thank you, in fact one of my wife's friends said the same thing after watching the videos on Facebook. Luckily, the spent grains never came in contact with the hops. However, I can see that if I'm not careful one of the dogs might run away with a bag of hops and that would not be good.

2. Yes the final expected volume was 5gl and it is a 6.5gl carboy. Unfortunately I only bought 2 2.5 gallons of distilled water. As the wort was boiling it occurred to me that I needed more water but by then it was too late. Even if I did have more water I'm not sure I would have been able to figure out where the 5 gallon mark on the carboy would be. Is there a way to mark the bottle exactly? I guess I could fill up a milk jug 5 times and pour it in...

3. Thank you for your advice on whirlpooling, I will give that a shot next time.

4. When you say no immediate need do you mean I did that part too fast? How would I do that step different. I was worried that the wort mixture would cool too fast in the carboy. I guess not if the room temperature was 70. Is it better to aerate first then add yeast and aerate again?

5. Ahh yes, the Hydrometer Well, you see, we filmed that part but had to cut it out since we screwed it up. We were able to take the sample from the carboy by tipping the carboy and pouring it into the test tube. When we went to take the OG reading my wife (I know I'm blaming her) put the hydrometer in upside down. Then me with all of my infinite wisdom thought there might be too much wort in the test tube since so much was displaced. I poured a little out before realizing it was upside down. We flipped it over but it was too late we lost too much wort. We already pitched the yeast and aerated, so no OG? Can I still take readings now and base it off the OG in the recipe? Is it even worth it?

trizzant said:

However, I can see that if I'm not careful one of the dogs might run away with a bag of hops and that would not be good.

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I was more concerned about you dropping a pellet on the floor - I'm sure you'll be perfectly fine, just thought about offering a reminder since I don't think the warning is mentioned frequently enough.

trizzant said:

Yes the final expected volume was 5gl and it is a 6.5gl carboy. Unfortunately I only bought 2 2.5 gallons of distilled water. As the wort was boiling it occurred to me that I needed more water but by then it was too late. Even if I did have more water I'm not sure I would have been able to figure out where the 5 gallon mark on the carboy would be. Is there a way to mark the bottle exactly? I guess I could fill up a milk jug 5 times and pour it in...

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It is generally said that if your tap water is good enough to drink, then it's good enough to brew with. I don't buy that entirely and I'm in the process of testing my water now in fact, but it can be used with success. All my batches thus far have been from the municipal water supply and while I have occasionally had some off flavors in my beer, all of them have conditioned out, except one beer (although I can't attribute my problems with that one to water supply). Regardless, yes, you might fill up a gallon milk jug and dump it in the carboy to get a better sense of each of your gallon volumes in the carboy so that on brew day you know where to top-off to. On the other hand, that pot you are using looked to be at least 6 or 7 gallons, meaning that you can be doing a larger boil now - the fuller the boil the greater the hop utilization and ultimately the better the flavors you should be getting.

trizzant said:

When you say no immediate need do you mean I did that part too fast? How would I do that step different. I was worried that the wort mixture would cool too fast in the carboy. I guess not if the room temperature was 70. Is it better to aerate first then add yeast and aerate again?

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Sorry, I should have been clearer. It's not a requirement that you shake up your dry yeast into your wort. I have shaken up my carboy with rehydrated yeast before, but in my earlier batches I just sprinkled the dry yeast on top and it did everything it needed to. You should definitely aerate first, and you can most certainly give her a good shake after pitching as well. There's no such thing as cooling too fast - we want to get that wort done as rapidly as possible, but you do want to make sure it's not too cold in the carboy - mid to late 60's or so is a great temp to shoot for - otherwise your fermentation may be delayed.

trizzant said:

We were able to take the sample from the carboy by tipping the carboy and pouring it into the test tube. When we went to take the OG reading my wife (I know I'm blaming her) put the hydrometer in upside down. Then me with all of my infinite wisdom thought there might be too much wort in the test tube since so much was displaced. I poured a little out before realizing it was upside down. We flipped it over but it was too late we lost too much wort. We already pitched the yeast and aerated, so no OG? Can I still take readings now and base it off the OG in the recipe? Is it even worth it?

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You might get yourself a turkey baster or a wine thief. Tipping the carboy is acceptable at the start, but after fermentation it's best not to use this approach for a variety of reasons including upsetting the yeast cake which is settling at the bottom, and upsetting the braun hefe (the brown astringent stuff that you may see collecting above your beer at the top of the carboy - remnants of yeast, hops, and trub). As far as process goes, you might fill your carboy with your wort, top it up with the appropriate amount of water, aerate and ensure the wort and top off water are mixed together (if they aren't mixed well you will get an inaccurate hydrometer reading) and then take your OG. Then pitch your yeast, affix your airlock and let it sit for a couple of weeks. Before you bottle, take two to three hydrometer readings over successive - or better still, every other day - to ensure that your fermentation is complete. Then bottle it up and you should be good to go on beginning the bottle conditioning process...

Thanks for posting these videos, its much more helpful seeing the process visually then reading a how-to, good stuff!! I'm preparing for my first batch as well.

Excuse me if I missed it, but are you going to be doing a two stage fermentation?

3horn said:

Thanks for posting these videos, its much more helpful seeing the process visually then reading a how-to, good stuff!! I'm preparing for my first batch as well.

Excuse me if I missed it, but are you going to be doing a two stage fermentation?

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Thanks, I'm glad you liked it. Yes, but I haven't decided if I'm transferring to a 5gl carboy for a week or straight to keg and just dry hop in there.