First time brewing, great way to burn your house down!

So, I got my Deluxe brew kit from NB, Nov19, and started to brew my carribou slobber. Wound up setting my whole stovetop on fire (first brew mistake) and giving myself a pretty intense mess to clean. Other then that everything went well. Rehydrated and Pitched my yeast at about 9pm into my wort at an unknown temp (second mistake) althought the Wort was probably cooler then it should have been, fermentation was VIGOROUS by the next morning, I was so excited and happy that I didn't even look at the temp before leaving for work (third mistake), and when I got home and checked it at 1am my fermometer was maxed out at 78 and the Carboy was warm to the touch, even with a wet towel wrapped around it since pitching. AND my airlock was clogged and full of debris (fourth mistake). I switched over to a blowoff tube, but pushed the bung to far into the neck, so now I can't get it out (yet another rookie mistake). Now I got the whole thing sitting in a water bath with a towel wrapped around it. Temp of waterbath is 66, fermometer reads between 66-68, and thermometer checked wort which now reads about 66 also.

Now for the questions.

I'm not sure but I lost concentration when mixing starsan and may have used one tsp to little. I added an extra tsp but now I'm worried maybe I didn't underdo it and now I over did it. Will one tsp either way effect sanitation?

Also, with my wort being that hot for maybe 12-16 hours, will I have a lot of off/harsh flavors? And if so will an extra week or two in secondary fix it?

Any and all comments and advice are greatly appreciated as this is my first ever brew experience, with some mead/melomel making in my near future. Thanks in advance all!

Hello, it might have a hot alcohol bite to it, if so the yeast might clean that up with a bit of age, I would use a secondary for at-least 2 to 3 weeks just incase, and only bottle or keg brews after 3 days of the same FG reading, if you use the secondary the 3 day readings shouldn't be a concern after that much time, I still check mine though.

Cheers

Thanks for your thoughts all! I was kinda worried about it, but for my first brew I wasn't expecting TOO much, but I'm sure it'll turn out fine

I like your attitude.

Almost set fire to house.
Other than that, i think i made beer.

I was pretty impressed by that statement too.
Set the whole stovetop on fire but it went pretty well.
I think you'll be alright. None of your mistakes were horrible.
You had that many problems and you still enjoyed the process so you've probably got a long happy brewing future ahead of you.
As for the starsan, I'm not sure how much you are mixing when you were over or under buy a teaspoon but I'm sure it's fine.
I usually mix it a little strong myself.

"Is your beer supposed to be on fire?"
"Yes, honey, I know what I'm doing. 'Flame on!' is the step in this recipe just before 'flame out'."

i'd like to hear more about how you managed to set your stove on fire. your beer should be ok, there will probably be some fusels which don't really age out but it'll be ok. good luck for your next brew

Well what happened was, I put the lid HALFWAY on my 5 gallon kettle, and I walked away for not even 2 minutes, and when I came back, the lid was all te was on and literally, the front left burners flames were like 6 inches high around the pot, with like a radiating circle of fire extending about a foot out in every direction. I pulled the kettle off and tried to blow the fire out, but that wasn't happening, so I took a towel and tried to use that to smother the fire, and it started to turn a little black, so I took it back off, and the burner was still on fire, so I wet te towel and just threw it on top and we were all good.

THEN I wanted to get the wort back up to a boil as I didn't know how stopping and starting would effect my beer. So I put the lid on but just cracked it. And sure enough not even 30 seconds later, I had another boil over and the burner was on fire again. So I decided the lid is never a good idea hahah. I mean, I guess that's the way to learn how NOT to do something is to cause a raging fire haha

idk about anything else, but let us all know if you decide to try to deep fry a turkey

With such a warm fermentation the yeast definitely produced fusel alcohols which don't mellow with time. Hopefully they're not noticeable in your beer, this will likely just be a lesson on fermenting in the yeasts temp ranges.

MY Caribou Slobber had a bitter finish after 2 weeks in the bottle, but that aged out at about a month in the bottle. Hope your's turns out OK, it's a good recipe.

If you use a lid at all during the boil, use it only until the temperature gets hot then take it off. With extracts there is not too much concern but when you get to all grain covering the pot will hold in DMS which is bad.

On the next brew, slow down, relax, take a deep breath and pay attention to the details.

For this one you can just leave in primary for about 3 weeks, check for final gravity. Then bottle and keep at room temperature for 3 weeks, chill them for a couple of days then enjoy. If they are harsh start drinking from your second batch and return to them in a month or more, they should end up OK.

Y'all are saying keep it in primary longer and I've heard differing opinions on that. Some people say the yeast will mellow out any off flavOrs in primary, while other people say letting the beer sit on the yeast to long causes off flavors. Any opinions?

And No, I think I'll stay away from the deep fryer for a while haha. I actually just went to the hospital a month ago from spilling hot fryer grease all over myself at work... Kinda clumsy I guess

Okay so how much beer were you drinking when you set the stove on fire?
Fess up.

Serious though, you only want the lid until it gets up to temperature same as boiling anything.
When it starts getting close to the boil you have to watch it closely and keep the temperature where is needs to be to prevent a boil over.

I would like to be the first to suggest that you get a propane burner and set it up at least 20 feet from the nearest flammable materials!
Too bad it wasn't a peppers beer you were making.
You could call it flaming wort beer.

While I was contemplating the situation during the 2 hours I spent with a steel scrubby going over the various parts of my stove top, I decided I would never put a lid on a boiler after I had added the malt to it. Bringing it up to a boil when it is only water works good enough for me.

Nickh08215 said:

Y'all are saying keep it in primary longer and I've heard differing opinions on that. Some people say the yeast will mellow out any off flavOrs in primary, while other people say letting the beer sit on the yeast to long causes off flavors. Any opinions?

And No, I think I'll stay away from the deep fryer for a while haha. I actually just went to the hospital a month ago from spilling hot fryer grease all over myself at work... Kinda clumsy I guess

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I've had a report from another brewer that 8 months wasn't too long. My own beers have improved since I started leaving them in the fermenter longer but my own longest was only 9 weeks. I'm drinking some of that beer right now and it is good.

I only secondary to clear my fermenters for new brews. I have 3 fermenting buckets and unlimited carboys. I do 10 gallon batches so I'd have to go 10gallon/5gallon back and forth and doing AG 5gallons just doesn't seem worth it to me.

GL and keep with it.

Well I'll let it sit in primary till clear, rack into secondary, just because it'll make me feel like I'm doing something right, then bottle and age. I can't make it any worse then it is. Or at least I hope not haha

Won't make it worse. If I had more fermenters or brewed less I would just leave it in and not transfer. All of my beers have used secondary and all have been good to great.

I don't really have any suggestions, except I never use a lid, but also love your attitude. When you walked away for "2 minutes", it was actually longer then 2 minutes, right?

I once set my kitchen on fire trying to boil a chicken, and another time making potato pancakes. Hot grease flying everywhere, and whoever invented stoves with the knobs NOT on the front, but on the back when everything is on fire and you can't reach that area to turn it down... who thought of that? My current stove has knobs on the front where you can reach them to turn off in the case of a fire. Probably the case with all modern stoves. But I remember living in a house with an old stove, and having to call the fire department because everything caught and I couldn't get to the knob to turn them off. When they arrived, I was just standing in the yard, staring at the mess, flames shooting out of the kitchen windows, holding my young son in my arms, thinking, "What went wrong?"

Again, I love your attitude! It can happen with chicken, potato pancakes or beer, don't blame the beer!

Homebrewing: More dangerous than a knife fight with monkies!

Sounds like you're already hooked. Welcome!

It may not have even been two minutes actually. I walked to the bathroom to rack my sanitizer from my bucket into my Carboy. I dug around in the water, found the auto siphon parts, set it up, started the siphon, and walked back to a flaming stove.

And true, luckily I had knobs in the front or id have had to of whipped out the fire extinguisher!

And I am hooked. I love how simple or complex you can make brewing, and I'm a chef so I love the thought of making something homemade rather then buying something not as good of a quality because it's easier, and I love getting drunk! How can you not love brewing! Haha. The worst part is having to wait so long. But I'm gonna take a taste test or two after a full week of ferm, so that should help my impatience a little... Or make it worse if the beer is REALLY tasty haha

this has to be the best thread this week

Darn. You'll just have to get a nice outdoor rig. You know, strictly for safety.

LOL...I BBQ'd the Turkey yesterday, and it came out fantastic. However, during the 3.5 hr cook time, people only came outside once to look at it. It happened to be right when I turned it and spilled the drippings onto the grill surface...and some got into the slots on the smoker box. The grill flared up wickedly and the chips in the smoker box caught on fire. I had to grab the smoker box with some tongs and throw it out on the lawn while I asked my guests to move away from the grill. LOL...of all times for people to come see my masterpiece, they HAD to come out while it looked like it was on fire and completely out of control.

So I can relate, only I had public embarassment to boot. People sure changed their tunes when they got a taste though!!!! NOT a single scrap of leftovers! 17lb Turkey and 12 people!

Now, a question: How exactly did you set your stovetop on fire? I've had boilovers on mine (electric) but it never caught on fire????? (edit: I see this has been answered)

Regarding the off flavors, I'm pretty sure you'll have them. Just leave it on the yeast cake a month if you can and it'll help, but some of them will be permanent.

On the Starsan question: don't sweat it. I only use about a tablespoon per 4-5 G but I've gone double that too with no noticeable difference. RDWHAHB (or a nice micro since this is your first batch) ;-)

Nickh08215 said:

Well what happened was, I put the lid HALFWAY on my 5 gallon kettle, and I walked away for not even 2 minutes, and when I came back, the lid was all te was on and literally, the front left burners flames were like 6 inches high around the pot, with like a radiating circle of fire extending about a foot out in every direction. I pulled the kettle off and tried to blow the fire out, but that wasn't happening, so I took a towel and tried to use that to smother the fire, and it started to turn a little black, so I took it back off, and the burner was still on fire, so I wet te towel and just threw it on top and we were all good.

THEN I wanted to get the wort back up to a boil as I didn't know how stopping and starting would effect my beer. So I put the lid on but just cracked it. And sure enough not even 30 seconds later, I had another boil over and the burner was on fire again. So I decided the lid is never a good idea hahah. I mean, I guess that's the way to learn how NOT to do something is to cause a raging fire haha

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LOL..I see now. Yeah, lid + boil = bad. For more reasons then the one you just discovered too.

Nickh08215 said:

Y'all are saying keep it in primary longer and I've heard differing opinions on that. Some people say the yeast will mellow out any off flavOrs in primary, while other people say letting the beer sit on the yeast to long causes off flavors. Any opinions?

And No, I think I'll stay away from the deep fryer for a while haha. I actually just went to the hospital a month ago from spilling hot fryer grease all over myself at work... Kinda clumsy I guess

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There IS a "too long" to let a beer sit on a yeast cake, but homebrewers rarely get there. I just tapped a Belgian Dark Strong that's been ageing since Febuary, and it say on the yeast cake for almost 10 weeks. It's incredible.

Smoked turkey sounds awesome! I've had it deep fried and it was the juiciest I've ever eaten, but I gotta try smoking it sometime. Minus the flaming smoker hahah.

And honestly, the only dark beer I've ever had we're black and tans or guiness so I have no reference for a English brown. So I don't think I'll be to disappointed even with off favors, unless it just tastes like crap which I highly doubt.

Honestly, I wis there was some way to keep te sweetness of the wort in the final product. It tasted amazing when I tried it before putting it in the fermenter. Talking about its got me curious. TASTE TEST TIME!

Well... It's beer! Haha. I don't taste any fruity or weird flavors, but I do get a slightly bitter, alcoholic aftertaste which I would assume is the fusels, but it's not very off-putting at all, and of I didn't know any better I would just account that to it being a dark beer, so I think I'm in good shape. I'll call this brew a success!

Wierd though. Fermentation slowed almost to a halt for the past few days (bubbles in airlock every 2-5 minutes, now it's back to having air bubbles about every 30 seconds. There has been no temp change at all. Anybody have any reasons for this?

Nickh08215 said:

Smoked turkey sounds awesome! I've had it deep fried and it was the juiciest I've ever eaten, but I gotta try smoking it sometime. Minus the flaming smoker hahah.

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Here's what you can look forward to!

Nickh08215 said:

Well... It's beer! Haha. I don't taste any fruity or weird flavors, but I do get a slightly bitter, alcoholic aftertaste which I would assume is the fusels, but it's not very off-putting at all, and of I didn't know any better I would just account that to it being a dark beer, so I think I'm in good shape. I'll call this brew a success!

Wierd though. Fermentation slowed almost to a halt for the past few days (bubbles in airlock every 2-5 minutes, now it's back to having air bubbles about every 30 seconds. There has been no temp change at all. Anybody have any reasons for this?

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There was an earthquake that you didn't feel and it stirred up the beer just enough for it to release CO2 or maybe a hurricane is forming nearby and the lower atmospheric pressure caused the beer to bubble or maybe .....

Bubbles are fun to watch but other than that they don't mean a whole lot. While your yeast are actively eating sugars the give off CO2 and part of that escapes through the airlock and part gets dissolved into the beer to be released later. When you think your beer may have had enough time in the fermenter, use your hydrometer to check. It's the only way to be sure.

That looks great! Did u have anything stuffed in the cavity of it during cooking? If I was you I woulda cut a lemon and an onion in half and shoved it in there with a bunch of thyme and rosemary just for some aromatic flavors, maybe some garlic too. But next year I'm coming to your house! Haha. Did you serve any home brew with it??

And also I don't have a hydrometer yet so I'm gonna let it sit on the yeast for a few weeks just so I know there's no possibility that it's still active.

I still gotta buy bottles so I'm gonna get the mad brewers kit from NB as my next buy for my mini brewery. I'm gonna need it once I start making my melomels.

Like I said ima chef so really mead and melomels seem like they'd peak my creative interest a lot more then beer would just because I feel like there's a lot more I can do as far as flavors and aromatics. I'll brew beer to just do I have something to do while I wait on my melomels to age

I'm actually thinking of adding a small hint of vanilla to my caribou slobber just to enhance the chocolatey/coffee flavors I get as well as giving it a little more depth of flavor

A couple of things:

1--welcome to the fun! Sounds like you jumped right in, which is exactly what you should do. Brewing is nothing but great times*, and I'm sure you'll be hooked before you know it.

2--as others have said, your beer is probably fine. Read about 500 posts in this thread or until you've convinced yourself that this is true.

3--Don't rush to taste/measure/mess with your beer. Go buy some good beer at the store to kill your urge to screw around with the fermenter. Take a walk, or a cold shower. Take up yoga or meditation. Anything, just leave it alone for a couple of weeks. At least. Then leave it for another week. It'll get there all by itself. And it'll be fine.

4--Start brewing another batch. Like now. First off, you'll still be fresh enough to remember the things you did wrong the first time around, so you can start to correct some of your mistakes. Second off, you want to get into the habit of brewing regularly, because that first batch will be gone before you know it, and there's nothing worse than realizing that you've got eight homebrews left and nothing in the pipeline, so there's going to be at least a couple of weeks where you have NO homebrew...it's the worst. Brew early and often, and keep your pipeline full.

Again, welcome to the fun. Cheers!

*This isn't entirely true. Sometimes, like anything else you come to care about deeply, it can be maddeningly frustrating, like when you just can't figure out why you're not hitting your target gravity, or your fridge fails at just the wrong time and you ruin a great beer with high fermentation temps). But it all comes out in the wash. MOST of it is great!

Nickh08215 said:

That looks great! Did u have anything stuffed in the cavity of it during cooking? If I was you I woulda cut a lemon and an onion in half and shoved it in there with a bunch of thyme and rosemary just for some aromatic flavors, maybe some garlic too. But next year I'm coming to your house! Haha. Did you serve any home brew with it??

And also I don't have a hydrometer yet so I'm gonna let it sit on the yeast for a few weeks just so I know there's no possibility that it's still active.

I still gotta buy bottles so I'm gonna get the mad brewers kit from NB as my next buy for my mini brewery. I'm gonna need it once I start making my melomels.

Like I said ima chef so really mead and melomels seem like they'd peak my creative interest a lot more then beer would just because I feel like there's a lot more I can do as far as flavors and aromatics. I'll brew beer to just do I have something to do while I wait on my melomels to age

I'm actually thinking of adding a small hint of vanilla to my caribou slobber just to enhance the chocolatey/coffee flavors I get as well as giving it a little more depth of flavor

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There must be over 20 different malts and perhaps 30 or more hop varieties and a bunch of different yeasts to get creative with plus you can add other things to change the character of the beer. I just heard of a coconut beer that is available in very limited locations that sounds good and racking onto oak chips or vanilla beans or some fruit or...
You can brew every week for the rest of your life and not use up all the possible combinations of beers.

RM-MN said:

There must be over 20 different malts and perhaps 30 or more hop varieties and a bunch of different yeasts to get creative with plus you can add other things to change the character of the beer. I just heard of a coconut beer that is available in very limited locations that sounds good and racking onto oak chips or vanilla beans or some fruit or...
You can brew every week for the rest of your life and not use up all the possible combinations of beers.

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Well I guess that's just my personal opinion ya know? Like I know you can get all kinds of crazy delicious beers from messing with differant ingredients, brew styles, and even amounts of differant things, but a mead is like a blank canvas to transform into anything you want. Beer to me
Feels like a more exact science that I dont feel I want to dive into this early in my brewing. Eventually I'll probably be making crazy beer recipes too, don't get me wrong, but just not at this stage in the game for me

mead is easier up front, but takes longer before it's ready (up to 6 months in the jug or bottles).

what i'm doing is learning to make a very basic pale ale, and use that as a baseline, and learning how, and when, to add things, and what to add.

much like when i first learned to cook, i learned how to make a few basic pan sauces, and braises, and then over time added and subtracted things to learn how they work.

i'm not a chef, but just an old geezer who likes to eat.

as far as mead vs beer, i make a batch of mead once in a while, and a batch of beer the other weekends, always 1 gallon batches.

and, much like when i was learning how to cook, i vary something up or down, or add something different each time.