1st brew, good thing the wife was gone lol!

Well I waited for a day that my wife would be gone to brew my first batch and glad I did, what a mess. She'd of had a fit if she had seen the kitchen.

Everything went relatively well with a few small mistakes. First I was boiling my wort with a lid partly on. I decided to search the forums for "covered boil" and found that I needed to get the lid off asap. Fortunately I finished the last 30 minutes with the lid off in a good hard boil.

The biggest mistake I made was not having something ready to filter the trub out of the wort as I dumped it into my fermenting bucket. I never realized there would be so much. So in desperation I searched the house for something that would work. I >gasp< boiled up some longjohns that had a loose knit. They worked for about a 1/4 of the wort then clogged up good. I then used the supplied sock for the specialty grains and secured it to the bucket with a large rubber band and that did work.

I did nail the wort temp as I cooled it to 115 in ice water then added my chilled water to it. Came out at 68.8 when I pitched the yeast. Currently sitting in a dark room that's 62 degrees(hopefully that's a good temp). Directions call for 64 -70 degrees but from what I've read here sounds better to start low. My next option is 70.

It's a Brewers Best Red Ale. Hope it turns out OK.

Check out my filters. Got to get one of those 5 gal bucket strainers I've read about here that sell on Ebay.

I won't tell anyone it was run through my long underwear LOL!


This is hrough the supplied grain sock. I was really surprised at the amount of trub for a kit like this. I suppose this is normal for the hops, which were pellets btw.


In the end, it looked fine to me.

Sounds like a fun brewday! You can find those paint strainers at Lowe's or Home Depot for about $4 for two, so no need to order them. That said, I rarely strain my wort and my beer turns out just fine so don't sweat it too much. I've been forced to strain a bit lately, because I have a new counterflow chiller and pump that would clog with too many leaf hops, but otherwise I don't worry too much.

If you ever feel like a mini road trip, I brew often and you're welcome to come down here for a brew day. I also have been inviting random strangers to lschiavo's house for brewing, too, and he hasn't complained yet. He'd be a bit closer drive for you (in Crystal Falls) and he's a brewing machine. We could help you brew up an extract batch while one of us brews on our rigs, since we sure have enough stuff.

SNPorter said:

I won't tell anyone it was run through my long underwear LOL! ]

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Just did a spit take with my Red Ale!!! Now that ^ is funny!

/note to self: No brewswaps with SNPorter, especially with the "Longjohn Brown".

YooperBrew said:

Sounds like a fun brewday! You can find those paint strainers at Lowe's or Home Depot for about $4 for two, so no need to order them. That said, I rarely strain my wort and my beer turns out just fine so don't sweat it too much. I've been forced to strain a bit lately, because I have a new counterflow chiller and pump that would clog with too many leaf hops, but otherwise I don't worry too much.

If you ever feel like a mini road trip, I brew often and you're welcome to come down here for a brew day. I also have been inviting random strangers to lschiavo's house for brewing, too, and he hasn't complained yet. He'd be a bit closer drive for you (in Crystal Falls) and he's a brewing machine. We could help you brew up an extract batch while one of us brews on our rigs, since we sure have enough stuff.

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Damn, I didn't even notice SN is another UPer . . . . Isn't there some sort of limit on the number allowed in here?

Who needs a paint strainer... Long johns huh? Do you think Hanes or Fruit of the Loom would work better?

Pappers said:

Damn, I didn't even notice SN is another UPer . . . . Isn't there some sort of limit on the number allowed in here?

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We Yoopers are going to take over the brewing world. Mwaaaahhhhaaaa!

Of course, we'd actually have to leave the UP to take over the world, and none of us want to so it might be a while.

SNPorter said:

The biggest mistake I made was not having something ready to filter the trub out of the wort as I dumped it into my fermenting bucket. I never realized there would be so much.

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In my experience you don't even need to worry about filtering the trub out of the kettle. All the trub will settle down into the yeast cake at the end of fermentation and will stay behind when you rack to secondary or bottling.

Also 62F ambient temp will be great for your beer, leave it there until fermentation completes. 70F would be much to warm and cause excess esters and phenols.

Pappers said:

Damn, I didn't even notice SN is another UPer . . . . Isn't there some sort of limit on the number allowed in here?

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I smell a conspiracy.....

Frodo said:

Who needs a paint strainer... Long johns huh? Do you think Hanes or Fruit of the Loom would work better?

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Hey this is first class nothing but Duofold here baby!


I just looked at my bucket and the temp strip is at 66 degrees. I assume just leave it there then eh?

And yes, us Yoopers know our beer haha!

YooperBrew said:

Sounds like a fun brewday! You can find those paint strainers at Lowe's or Home Depot for about $4 for two, so no need to order them. That said, I rarely strain my wort and my beer turns out just fine so don't sweat it too much. I've been forced to strain a bit lately, because I have a new counterflow chiller and pump that would clog with too many leaf hops, but otherwise I don't worry too much.

If you ever feel like a mini road trip, I brew often and you're welcome to come down here for a brew day. I also have been inviting random strangers to lschiavo's house for brewing, too, and he hasn't complained yet. He'd be a bit closer drive for you (in Crystal Falls) and he's a brewing machine. We could help you brew up an extract batch while one of us brews on our rigs, since we sure have enough stuff.

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Cool and thanks my fellow Yooperbrewer. May have to come down and visit some time. Used to live in Iron River back in the mid 80's, grew up in Bessemer which is very close to Hurley. I'm sure you're familiar with Hurley eh?

YooperBrew said:

/note to self: No brewswaps with SNPorter, especially with the "Longjohn Brown".

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Ahh come on, I boiled em :cross:

SNPorter said:

Cool and thanks my fellow Yooperbrewer. May have to come down and visit some time. Used to live in Iron River back in the mid 80's, grew up in Bessemer which is very close to Hurley. I'm sure you're familiar with Hurley eh?

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You're absolutely invited anytime. Just let me know a good day for you, and we can brew. lschiavo usually brews on Monday afternoons/evenings and sometimes I go over there to drink his beer while he and his buddy brew. He's got an awesome set up.

I brew during the day, usually, but I'm flexible. Working very part-time means I can brew just about any day or time without work interfering!

I'm sure you'll get nice "earthy" notes in your beer! Hilarious.

The problem is, if you LIKE the final product you'll never be able to recreate it (now let's see: i wore them for 3 days shoveling snow, then I air dried them and 72 degrees, then i boiled them...) you should do an experiment... does it taste different if someone else wears them first? I think I hear a whole new forum sprouting up: the science and art of aging personal garments for the purpose of separating wart and trub

This is a funny story.

william_shakes_beer said:

The problem is, if you LIKE the final product you'll never be able to recreate it (now let's see: i wore them for 3 days shoveling snow, then I air dried them and 72 degrees, then i boiled them...) you should do an experiment... does it taste different if someone else wears them first? I think I hear a whole new forum sprouting up: the science and art of aging personal garments for the purpose of separating wart and trub

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This makes it "funnier."

E

What I want to know is, did you put them back on after you were done?

Have to wonder what the wife thought when she saw the stains on them...

Have to wonder what the wife thought when she saw the stains on them...

Golddiggie,, LOL that's too funny...

Congrats on your first brew! My first brew was also the Brewers Best Red Ale. It turned out pretty decent considering I made a few noob mistakes, mainly pitching the yeast way to hot.

I may be wrong about this, but I don't think it's a problem to partially cover your pot during the boil if your using extract, someone can correct me if I'm wrong. My stove struggles to boil 3+ gallons of wort so I cover the pot about half way and my beers have all turned out fantastic.

Yes, there's a lot of "trub" in those underpants.

Are you sure you didn't eat some off chili ?

Congrats on your first batch !

This is my first post on the forum. Let me say I think it's interesting that this thread is over 8 months old and still being commented on.
Sounds like a good first brew. I hope mine goes as well. I'll be doing it any day now.
Going to go with an extract kit from Northern Brewer, the "Petite Saison".
As for Yoopers taking over the world or the forums, I'm a Yooper stuck in Mn for the last 19 yrs. Still don't tell anyone I'm from Minnesota, I'll always be from the U.P.